Simply This Moment - Buddhist Meditation and Theravada ...

on just one sense, the physical sense of the breath. Allow that to be the only thing youare paying attention to – not listening, not smelling, not tasting, not hearing – justfeeling the breath and nothing else. Then allow that to disappear and with it the fivesenses. Letting go of the breath you realize that these five senses are the cause ofmisery, because when they go you are happy. The bliss you get when the five sensesdisappear is much greater than anything you can get through the senses. Even in theheaven realms, where the five sense pleasures reach their limit, they are still muchlower than the happiness and bliss of the jhāna realms.So this teaching – if you can experience these things – shows us the cause ofsuffering. Worldly suffering is just these five senses. I don’t know why people wantto protect the five senses. I know that a couple of the monks are going to see theoptician tomorrow; maybe if they became blind, that would be one less sense to worryabout. My nose is sensitive to pollen and I get hay fever, but it’s not sensitive tosmells. I remember telling Ajahn Jagaro how happy I was, because if a lady wearsperfume or if she smells of sweat, it all smells much the same to me because of mynose. That’s one sense base I don’t have to worry about. Isn’t that wonderful?It’s wonderful when the senses disappear. You get a feeling of freedom. It’s as if themind is freed from the burden of the five senses, from the irritation of the five senses,always having to be looking and seeing. When you look at your room, you have to goand tidy it up or dust it or something because it’s never tidy, at least not for very long.When you see things in the monastery, you see everything that needs doing, all thebricks that need moving, all the work that is required. When you start listening towhat people say, you sometimes get angry, because what they say is not what theyshould be saying. It’s not correct. They haven’t got it right. These five senses createso many problems in the world that it’s surprising people celebrate them. They havegreat big parties and fireworks displays because they are celebrating the sight and thesound of bangs. Or take the great orchestras: the poor men and women in thoseorchestras, in those fancy clothes, have to practice and practise to be able to playmusic like that. What suffering! They think they are getting somewhere in life.223