Question for monks: how to go to bed without desire arising?

Firstly, I am not a monk. However, I aspire to be as of now, a chaste white clothed layperson. I’ve taken lay precepts and have practiced many years.

With that in mind, how did the Buddha or other monks recommend going to sleep at night so that sensual desire doesn’t emerge? This is my toughest time of day, whether due to posture, or heedlessness emerging when drifting to sleep, or whether because sleeping on the floor tends to give me a cold or lack of restorative sleep leading to using a mattress.

I also get very hungry at night even if I did well during the day with food. It seems all of the cravings happen at once at this time.

Any suggestions from suttas or experience for nighttime?

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To combat lust one should practice contemplating the unbeautiful (asubha) aspects of the body. You can find them the first tetrad of Satipatthana Sutta MN10, in the Kayagatasati Sutta MN129 and in the Maharahulovada Sutta MN62 There are many others covering elements, corpses and body parts.

A cool thing I realised recently is that it’s highly likely that MN62 is designed for this reason. Rahula was a teenage boy, still a novice, with normal teenage hormones racing. He’s walking into the village for alms round. Alms round is the most sensual part of a monastic’s day. Not just the food, but you might see bodies you find attractive, hear old songs, smell perfume etc. So the Buddha turns around and instructs him on the nature of form.

“Rāhula, you should truly see any kind of form at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; solid or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near: all form—with right understanding: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’”

Rāhula goes back to his kuti to meditate and starts doing mindfulness of breathing, but when he goes to ask for more advice the Buddha redirects him to develop a practice based on the elements, grounded in the body.

These meditation exist to make bodies and form seem ‘normal’, ‘natural’ etc. and thus not self. The first 4 of the body parts, under earth element, are what novice monastics are given as a meditation object when they ordain (in my lineage). The Buddha then instructs Rāhula to develop wholesome emotional states through the brahamaviharas, this is far more enjoyable than lust and desire. Only then does he teach him breath meditation.

I’m not saying this is the order which we should all practice in. However, it’s a really interesting approach to working with natural and normal states which arise.

I don’t know what your relationship with your own body is and what your temperament is, but if it is not too aversive then you might find it cooling and even interesting to watch some anatomy or autoposy videos.

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When I stayed at a Chán temple, we were instructed to visualize pure light as we lay down to sleep.

A common technique in the forest tradition is to just keep meditating (see AN 7.61 for example) until you’re collapsing from exhaustion, leaving no time for the kilesas between meditation and knocking out. This can really leave you quite tired the next day, but thankfully as monks we don’t have too many responsibilities.

For the modern day, the main thing I’d like to tell everyone is to keep your phone away from your bed. I’m not sure if you, @BetterThanMostBogdan , need to hear that, but I’m sure someone on this thread does!! :laughing:

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Not only the asubha, but also the ādīnava/danger aspect of the sense pleasures. When thoughts of sense pleasures arise, we usually only think about the gratification, not the danger. It’s similar to asubha, but a different aspect. So for example if we are longing for the happiness of a past relationship, switch to thinking about all of the aspects of that relationship that were dangerous.

Also, the best advice from the suttas is to give up lay life completely. And I don’t mention that because I think you should ordain. Rather I think it’s important that acknowledging that the Buddha thought these things were difficult enough for lay people that he made the holy life as the better option. So just to keep an awareness that you are trying to do something very difficult in not ideal circumstances. Which isn’t to say that monastic life is a magic cure.

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This got me wondering. In tibetan buddhism there are quite a lot of practices to maintain awareness while sleeping or dreaming. I read several autobiographies of tibetan masters where they clearly state that they maintain awareness 24h/7 and this makes sleep actually more restorative. In chan and Theravada isn’t there a point where the satisampajanna cultivated in the day naturally flows in sleep too?

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That’s what I’ve heard. And, of course, the need for sleep can go way down as concentration develops.

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That’s confused thinking. Hunger is a natural reaction when the small amount of food is taken. And precisely, taking small amount of food daily is very helpful for being awake - good monks don’t sleep much at night - and for absence of sexual thoughts. Hunger, when accepted deliberately, while is still unpleasant bodily feeling, can be associated with pleasant mental feeling and substantial rise of energy, allowing one to stay awake at night.

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Excellent point! I think that asuba would be a practice to bring awareness and understanding of the nature of the body in order to lessen one’s attraction to a body. Thoroughly understanding and knowing the true level of the danger of those sense pleasures can bring about abandoning any indulging in them.

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Great answers, thanks. Last few days I’ve kept my phone on the other side of my house at night and it’s made terrible craving endurable. And especially during holidays this is more of an achievement due to increased stress.

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