Sex, summer coming, lockdown lifting (sutra)

Binky tries to meditate with "sex on the brain" (Life in Hell comic/Matt Groening)

WARNING: Graphic dancing, explicit lyrics, Elvis-worthy pelvis gyrating! Not suitable for adults!*

Ouch, this thing in my arm hurts! No second shot.

It's about to be the roaring 20s, the swinging 60s, and the naughty aughts all over again. The American natives are restless, coming out of a scary plandemic that made raves and house parties illegal, so that college kids had nothing to do but get high, get fat, and get lonely by watching lots and lots of phone. Clear the browser, pull the curtains, and step outside. Hedonism (the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake as if it could ever fulfill us or even satisfy us for long) will be the new way of life. Millennials are more open to polyamory than other generations, spending crypto, and now that all STIs have been cured, everyone's been vaxxed (for HPV), and we are all using prophylactics practiced on bananas and cucumbers. But who cares about the logistical or logical? This is a discussion of the emotional and spiritual. Psychological emotions? Check! Spirituality?

• Summer needs hibiscus flower tea (holajalapeno.com)

Kid Cudi "Pursuit of Happiness"  (Steve Aoki remix) Project X, Pasadena

SUTRA: The Training

John D. Ireland, Attadanda Sutta (Sn 4.15, PTS: Sn 935-954), Discourse on Correcting Oneself, Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

"Violence breeds misery [1]. Look how people quarrel. Here is the emotion causing me agitation: "Having seen people struggling and contending with one another like fish in a small pool of water, fear entered.

"The world is everywhere insecure, in every direction turmoil. Desiring an abiding, I did not find one uninhabited [2]. When I saw contention as the sole outcome, aversion increased in me.

"But then I saw an arrow [3] here, one difficult to see, set in the heart. Pierced by it, one runs in every direction. But having pulled it out, one neither runs nor sinks [4].

"Here follows the [rule of] training: "Whatever are worldly fetters, may you be unbound from them! Completely break down sensual cravings and practice so as to directly realize nirvana!

"A sage should be truthful rather than arrogant or deceitful, not given to slandering others but free of anger. One should remove the unskillfulness of clinging and wrongly directed longing.

"One should conquer drowsiness, lassitude and sloth, rather than dwelling in indolence. A person whose mind is set on nirvana should be free of arrogance. One should not lapse into untruth nor generate love for objects of sensual craving.

"One should thoroughly understand [the nature of] conceit and refrain from violence. One should not delight in what is past, nor be fond of what may come, nor sorrow for what is disappearing, nor crave for the attractive.

"Greed, I say, is a great flood. It is a whirlpool sucking one down, a constant yearning, seeking a [safe] hold, continually in movement [5].

"Difficult to cross over is the morass of sensual craving. A sage does not deviate from truth, a Brahmin [6] stands on firm ground. Renouncing all, one is truly called 'calmed.'

"Having actually experienced and understood the Dharma, one has realized the highest knowledge and  has become independent [7].

"One comports oneself correctly in the world and does not envy anyone here. One who has left behind sensual pleasures, an clinging difficult to leave behind, no longer grieves nor has any longing, has cut across the stream and is unfettered.

"Dry out that which is past [8]. Let there be nothing [to long for] in the future [9]. If one does not grasp at anything in the present, one will go about in peace.

"One who, in regard to this entire mind-body complex, has no cherishing of it as 'mine' and who does not grieve for what is non-existent truly suffers no loss in the world.

"For that person there is no thought of anything as 'this is mine' nor 'this belongs to another.' Not finding any owner, realizing 'nothing is mine,' one no longer grieves.

"To be not callous, not greedy, at rest, unruffled by circumstances — that is the profitable result I proclaim when asked about one who no longer wavers.

"For one who does not crave, who has understanding, there is no production [of new karma] [10].

"Refraining from initiating [new karma], one sees security everywhere.

"A sage does not speak in terms of being higher, being lower, or being equal. Calmed and free of selfishness, one no longer grasps nor rejects."

NOTES

1. Attadanda bhayam jatam: "Violence" (attadanda, literally means "seizing a stick," "staff," "cudgel," or "weapons") includes in it all wrong conduct in deeds, words, and thoughts. Bhaya is either a subjective state of mind, "fear," or the objective condition of "fearfulness," danger, misery. So it is explained in the Commentary as the miserable consequences of wrong conduct, in this life and in future existences.

2. Uninhabited by decay and death, etc. (Commentary).

3. The arrow of lust, hate, delusion, and [wrong] views.

4. That is, sink into the four "floods" of sensual craving, endless rebirths, wrong views, and ignorance. These are the two contrasting dangers of Samsara, i.e., restless wandering, ever seeking after sensual delights, and sinking, passively clinging to the defilements, whereby one is overwhelmed by the "flood." In the first discourse of the Samyutta Nikaya the Buddha says: "If I stood still, I sank; if I struggled, I was carried away. Thus by neither standing still nor struggling, I crossed the flood" (SN 1).

5. According to the Commentary these four phrases, beginning with a "whirlpool sucking down," are all synonyms for craving (tanha, lit. "thirst") or greed (gedha) called the "great flood."

6. In Buddhism the title "Brahmin" (brahmana) is sometimes used for one who has reached final liberation. The Buddha himself is sometimes called "the Brahmana." It is not a reference to the ancient Indian caste one is born into, though they may regard themselves as the ones being referred to. It is a distinction achieved by merit in this life.

7. Independent of craving and views.

8. "Dry out" (visodehi) former rather than matured karma, i.e., make the seeds of past deeds unproductive by not giving room for passions that may grow out of past actions and their results.

9. Do not rouse in karma-productive passions concerning the future.

10. Volitional, willful, intentional acts, good and bad, manifesting as deeds of body, speech, and mind leading to future results.

*(Rah) Mashup of "Tear You Apart" by She Wants Revenge and "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus (DJ Alant mix) with lots of dancing popular in previous generations when they were crazy and unable to imagine how much crazier we would get.