EBTs on sensuality

[karl_lew]

@DhammaEnthusiast

Are there terms in the EBTs for mental desire and mental pleasure

Ven. Dhammadinnā offers this pithy explanation:

MN44:15.4: Perception and feeling are mental. They’re tied up with the mind, that’s why perception and feeling are mental processes.”

And since these are grasping aggregates, they are circular. So one could even grasp at being insatiably curious:

MN44:24.4: Neutral feeling is pleasant when there is knowledge, and painful when there is ignorance.”

[Adutiya]

@greenTara

In Buddhism, there are six senses, with mind being the sixth (thought is the sense object). So on this forum, I usually interpret a reference to senses as including the mind, and the Pali references to “pleasure not of the senses” to also mean pleasure not associated with a mental object. My interpretation of “pleasure not of the senses” is pleasure that arises independent of an object. It is not “delight in X”, for any X. It is just delight.

Great comment, so true.

A simple thought when followed with attention, can stimulate the mesocorticolimbic dopamine reward pathway. If thoughts are dwelled upon, it begins a process in the ventral tegmental area of the brain and causes a release of dopamine and endorphins (the body’s natural opioid). These underly the sensations of pleasure and euphoria and directly activate the globus pallidus which encodes the behaviors as habits.

The Buddha put it well in MN 19:

“Whatever a mendicant frequently thinks about and considers becomes their heart’s inclination. If they often think about and consider sensual thoughts, they’ve given up the thought of renunciation to cultivate sensual thought. Their mind inclines to sensual thoughts. If they often think about and consider malicious thoughts … their mind inclines to malicious thoughts. If they often think about and consider cruel thoughts … their mind inclines to cruel thoughts.”