[DhammaSponge]

I wasn’t too sure exactly where to put this since I haven’t experienced any magga phala or definitively removed miccha ditthi beyond a reasonable doubt…

But so far, I have seen a few fruits in contemplating Dhamma as Lal has presented it. I can give a few psychological attachments I’ve struggled with my entire life and then explain how Dhamma helped me through (so far). 

The very first post I came across on this website was on dealing with pornography addiction. I didn’t get too much from it initially, even though I was somewhat familiar with mainstream Buddhist interpretations of Dhamma concepts, but that was a seed for me that let me keep exploring various concepts like Paticca Samuppada or Abidhamma.

I was initally annoyed that, even though I have a girlfriend, I couldn’t quit this habit that I’ve had for fifteen years (with maybe an occasional two month remission that went into relapse). I felt very frustrated with certain advice, like the Alchoholics Anonymous method that clicked in with my Pentacostal Christian upbringing (it’s a sin brother, you will always be an addict and you’ll go back into addiction if you use again), which really grinded against my perfectionist attitude towards some things. I was also encouraged to practice breath meditation, as some claimed it helped them break their own addiction, but this just frustrated me more as it felt like I was being told “I wasn’t mindful enough, so I have to be more mindful next time to beat this addiction”. It gave me this impression that I would have to invest fifty thousand hours into breath meditation or get ordained (as one monk mentioned in a desana he gave where he gave up the craving of smoking after becoming a monk) to get even a semblance of progress with my cravings.

With this entire new set of concepts for my brain to munch on, I have managed for the first time in over three years to not engage in this deep-rooted habit for over three weeks. I think if get to the three month mark (something I’ve never done before since I was thirteen), that would increase saddha for me. 

If anybody is curious what ideas helped for me, I can give a brief summary:

• Most pleasures are a reprieve from a vexation we have enacted upon ourselves due to attachment. I’ve been exposed to this idea before through Allen Carr’s “Easy Way to Quit Smoking” but extrapolated to other addictions. However, this in itself felt like an empty idea since I could not shake off the idea that something that is sweet is inherently sweet and inherently pleasurable. 
• Which neatly segues to the next resonating point: our subtle minds have never interacted with external objects, ever. We have only worked with mind-encoded versions of said objects. This is partly why external objects are considered devoid of pleasure or essence. With porn, one could imagine that one is not just reacting to a mental image, but also a mental image of an image!
• Now to enter rebirth territory: whatever habits or addictions we have are most likely gati that have been carried over from a previous life, or maybe even a previous bhava. I have often felt quite tempted to blame my parents for whatever bad habits they have given me, intentionally or unintentionally. But with this framework, it is simply less personal. In the context of rebirth (something I am very open to but not a blind believer of), after my previous death, my gandhabba simply sought a mother and a father that had a similar gati. This is nothing to fault them by. Actually, if we are to take the gandhabba concept further, I would be actually quite grateful that my mother and father conceived me, since they gave me a chance to change my gati for the better in this human birth, to not mention that my bhava could have ended in limbo if I didn’t find the compatible parents soon enough. 
• The most important I would say: although not a papa kamma, engaging in porn addiction is an akusala kamma, especially if done while having a partner. But even without that, willfully engaging in a system where other humans are being exploited, especially when the tastes for such a system can escalate, is still akusala kamma. My main phrase that helped me get through my urges was that using was literally entraining my mind to grasp an apaya birth at the end of this bhava, especially since it would by no means be guaranteed that I would be privy to Dhamma knowledge in the next life. <br />
  • As a way to reinforce the perils of seeking an animal rebirth, I came across a picture of a rabbit with tentacle like growths around its mouth. I learned that this was caused by infection with a virus that caused tumors to extend around the mouth area, inhibiting the rabbit’s ability to eat and eventually leading to death from starvation. This is what would inevitably come for me if I continued cultivating the gati of a rabbit, aka desiring to copulate like one. Just imagine all the diseases in the world that exist and that only a tiny fraction of them will be cured since they happen to infect humans, even less so if one has the “privilege” of being considered a cute animal by said humans. 

I still enjoy doing my lab work as a Ph.D student (especially since I am fortunate to work with bacteria and not with sentient animals like mice or insects), as well as studying the language of my girlfriend and learning piano, but not with this incessantly neurotic notion that learning this new etude or getting to this level of fluency or reaching this level of scientific output will make me any happier or fulfilled, or that I will even get to keep any of it when my time is up in this life. I find it very relieving that we all have been Liszts, Teslas or Paganinis an infinite amount of times, so there’s no pressure in learning anything that doesn’t get me closer to the first magga phala. I continue enjoying reading content on this website, and I always look forward to when Lal publishes another post that will get me closer to getting rid of the first three samoyana that prevent me from being a Sotapanna. 

I feel immensely privileged in being exposed to the original Buddha Dhamma. My only regret is that I didn’t come across this sooner. Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu! 

1 user thanked author for this post.

Jittananto

[Lal]

Thank you very much for sharing your experience, DhammaSponge!

• Your descriptive comment reveals that you have indeed grasped the fundamentals. Buddha Dhamma can be very deep, but once one starts on the path, Dhamma itself will guide one to deeper aspects. It is important to keep at it, just to make certain that the Sotapanna phala moment is realized. Once that is done, an immense amount of future suffering would be removed.
• I am planning a post exclusively on attaining the Sotapanna stage (based on the material discussed so far in the new “Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta – New Series” section) in a couple of weeks. It is necessary to complete the background material first. Of course, some people can attain the Sotapanna stage without going that deep, but even for them it would be a good refresher.
• By the way, the post that DhammaSponge referred to is “Craving for Pornography – How to Reduce the Tendency.”

2 users thanked author for this post.

Jittananto, DhammaSponge

[DhammaSponge]

I greatly look forward to these new posts, Lal! I am constantly looking for any sense pleasure that would be worth doing at the expense of other people, the same way Diogenes looked through the agora with his lantern looking for a wise man. Experiencing Sotapanna phala would just be relieving since it would make such inquiry obsolete. 

1 user thanked author for this post.

Jittananto

[Christian]

You can enhance the process by listening to Dhamma discourses like this one, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDA-i34d7c4

[Author]

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