Western Practitioner: Some Thoughts on the Nature of Beauty and Desire

(Clearwisdom.net) There is a girl who is so beautiful that both men and women are in awe looking at her, admiring her looks. Although I don't usually pay attention to such things, I sometimes looked at her pictures too, since she was one of my "friends" on a certain website. I initially added her as a friend to clarify the truth to, but I too could not stay impartial to her beauty.

Every time I looked at her photo, a whole bunch of feelings would arise in me. Yesterday, I sat down quietly in my room to observe those feelings, to look inward for the root cause, and I saw that I admired beauty, and that looking at her pictures gave me pleasure. I saw how that feeling was intensified and pleasure turned into desire to become her. I am rather a loner by nature, so I asked myself, "If you were to become her, what is the purpose? You shy away from people, you don't care about matters of lust or the concerns of most other men, you enjoy your solitude, so why would you want to have that beauty?" Somewhere deep inside, I saw a desire. I saw that pleasure leads to desire. A desire not only exists on the most coarse material plane, but also in subtle planes. A desire, a "want," is an illusion of wanting something external. In cultivation circles it is said that the eyes are windows for desire.

Master said,

"In qigong practice, however, going awry and following an evil way simply refer to people searching for external help. With Buddhism in particular, if you search for external help, you are said to have taken a demonic way." (Zhuan Falun)

As I understand it, the divine is found within. It is our intrinsic nature. It is already there, hidden inside us, like a pearl inside a seashell.

Because mind and matter are one and the same, the divine is not separate from the illusion (material existence), it permeates it. The illusion can never penetrate the divine, but the divine penetrates all illusion, and it is everywhere. Since it is everywhere, it is reflected everywhere.

Master said that different Fa exist at different levels. Zhen-Shan-Ren (Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance) manifests itself differently at each level,

"This characteristic, Zhen-Shan-Ren, is in the microscopic particles of air, rock, wood, soil, iron and steel, the human body, as well as in all matter." (Zhuan Falun)

Shan for instance, at a higher level of it's manifestation, is compassion. But at lower levels it manifests as kindness towards fellow men, love for siblings, love between a man and a woman, and in many other ways. A practitioner's longing for consummation is also a manifestation of Shan at a particular level.

In the ancient Sanskrit language, God sometimes is referred to as Satyam Shivam Sundaram (meaning, as I understand it, "Truth is God and God is beautiful"). Master tells us that at higher levels everything is very beautiful and that the sentient beings there are beautiful as well. The higher the level, the more youthful appearing and more beautiful the beings are. Beauty is a divine quality. And since the divine penetrates everything, we see it's manifestation at this level too. Why is beauty so attractive to people? Because it is a reflection of divine beauty, a reflection of where we came from, and we are all part of it. But if we continuously stare at the reflection, we will never find the source.

Master wrote,

"...Groping blindly, walking in darkness,
they try to scoop the moon's reflection from water."
("Acting with Intent" from Hong Yin)

Slowly, like peeling the skin of an onion, we are approaching our true nature. We should strive to reach beyond the realm of imagination, beyond desire, beyond the senses and the mind. We must sever all desires and attachments of everyday people.

Master also wrote,

"Abiding in the Dao

Present, but the heart elsewhere--
Perfectly reconciled with the world.
Looking, but caring not to see--
Free of delusion and doubt.
Listening, but caring not to hear--
A mind so hard to disturb.
Eating, but caring not to taste--
The palate's attachments severed.
Doing, but without pursuit--
So constant, abiding in the Dao.
Calm, but without strain of thought--
The truly wondrous can be seen."
(Hong Yin)

I sat silently, reflecting and going deeper within, and saw that what I truly want is found within myself, it is already there. One simply has to turn the attention inward.