Beauty and the Defilements (video)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Fitness/Fecundity (Khan Academy); Tasya Teles

Hollywood starlet Veronica Lake, 1941. Who knew there were beauties back then?

Tasya Teles (@tasyateles) • Instagram photos and videos of my hot friends and life

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Biological Reviews (Wiley Library)

What is "beauty" and why is it alluring? The most convincing explanation so far comes from biology that it is those features that convey, at a primal and subconscious level, fertility and health, fecundity and robust future offspring.

Why is beauty beautiful? That is to say, Why does it draw us, pull us, attract us, move us to action, arouse us, permeate us? The defilements (generally manifestations of desire, aversion/fear, and ignorance) are listed as taints (asavas, cankers, corruptions, intoxicating biases) and defilements (kilesas, mind-defiling unwholesome qualities).

• Attractiveness and animal sexual behavior
• Another interesting way that fecundity is selected for has to do with mate selection. Now, when looking for a female mate, many males associate an attractive woman with words like "curvy." And a curvy female would be one that has a healthy and robust body that was fit for bearing children. And this ability to easily bear children is a direct indicator of [our idea of beauty, of what's attractive, because of] high fecundity. More

Due to past skillful karma, I'm beautiful today.

As taints they are also translated as "influxes" or "outflows," as if the world permeates a thatched roof like rain or flows out from us inopportunely.

We are either provoked from within (as mind manifests) or without (as stimuli enter our perception). There is the canker of:

• sense-desire (kāmāsava)
• craving (eternal) existence (bhavāsava)
• holding (wrong) views (ditthāsava)
• ignorance (avijjāsava)

Devas are far more beautiful than humans

Greed (lobha, lust) expresses itself as sensual desire or worldly craving and, by extension, craving for more and more stimulation life after life, so craving for eternal existence follows. We want more in this world and worlds to come, inferior and superior.

We simultaneously have a fear and have an aversion (dosa, hate) to loss and death. It's two sides of the same coin. And it is all supported by ignorance (moha, delusion), by not understanding, not knowing, not being seeing things as they really are. Ignorance is big and holding wrong views about reality is an expression of it.

The defilements

The Buddha went further to list the kilesas or kleshas (Sanskrit) as ten manifestations:

• (1) greed (lobha),
• (2) hatred (dosa),
• (3) delusion (moha),
• (4) conceit (māna),
• (5) speculative views (ditthi),
• (6) skeptical doubt (vicikicchā),
• (7) mental torpor (thīna),
• (8) restlessness (uddhacca),
• (9) shamelessness (ahirika),
• (10) lack of moral dread (anottappa).

I stink sometimes. What of it? I'm only human!

We view things as "beautiful" on a subconscious level, as instinctive, really looking for markers of healthy and fertility. On a conscious level, we can become aware of what's real. Then it will not seem beautiful. Even actress/artist Tasya Teles will seem immediately offensive and foul (asubha) if we simply pay attention for 24 hours.

• Buddhist reflections on the repulsiveness of the body

In that time everything -- in spite of her health and youth and radiance -- will leak and ooze from her: mucus, pore grease, feces, the stench of bacteria on teeth, tongue, and patches of the body, sloughed off skin cells, hairs, sweat, urine, eye crud, gas, and so on. How beautiful will it seem then? Less so but still compelling. If we give it more time, the real nature of the body will reveal itself, as she crumbles, wrinkles, fades, goes bald, discolors, bloats up, shrivels, and so on.

What drew us will disappoint. The danger in attachment will eventually reveal itself. But until then, we carry on oblivious to the harm, to the bad karma, to the danger.