Skip to main content

subha is skin deep: a collection of pictures. (part of safe asubha practice edition)

 


for a-subha (non-beauty, foul perception), Ajahn Mun points out the skin (from 31asb body parts)  is especially important


Ajahn Mun: "When we get infatuated with the human body, the skin is what we are infatuated with. When we conceive of the body as being beautiful (subha) and attractive, and develop love, desire, and longing for it, it’s because of what we conceive of the skin. When we see a body, we suppose it to have a complexion—fair, ruddy, dark, etc.—because of what we conceive the color of the skin to be. If the body didn’t have skin, who would conceive it to be beautiful or attractive? Who would love it, like it, or desire it? We’d regard it with nothing but hatred, loathing, and disgust. If it weren’t wrapped in skin, the flesh, tendons, and other parts of the body wouldn’t hold together and couldn’t be used to accomplish anything at all—which is why we say the skin is especially important. The fact that we can keep on living is because of the skin. The fact that we get deluded into seeing the body as beautiful and attractive is because it has skin. This is why preceptors teach only as far as the skin.


If we set our minds on considering the skin until we see it as disgusting and gain a vision of its unloveliness appearing unmistakably to the heart, we are bound to see the inherent truths of inconstancy, stress, and not-selfness. This will cure our delusions of beauty and attractiveness that are fixated on the skin. We will no longer focus any conceivings on it or find it appealing or desirable, for we have seen it for what it is." - From https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/HeartReleased/Section0005.html



It doesn't take much to alter the perception subha











Misc. Skin media



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Advice to younger meditators on jhāna, sex, porn, masturbation

Someone asked: Is porn considered harmful sexual.activity? I don't have a sex life because I don't have a partner and I don't wish to engage in casual sex so I use porn to quench the biological urge to orgasm. I can't see that's it's harmful because nobody is being forced into it. The actors are all paid well and claim to enjoy it etc. The only harm I can see is that it's so accessible these days on smart devices and so children may access it but I believe that this is the parents responsibility to not allow unsupervised use of devices etc. Views? Frankk response: In another thread, you asked about pleasant sensations and jhāna.  I'm guessing you're young, so here's some important advice you won't get from suttas   if you're serious about jhāna.  (since monastics are already celibate by rule)   If you want to attain stable and higher jhānas,   celibacy and noble silence to the best of your ability are the feedstock and prerequiste to tha...
Post a Comment
Read more

SN 48.40 Ven. Thanissaro comments on Ven. Sunyo's analysis

This was Ven. Sunyo's analysis of SN 48.40: https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2024/05/exciting-news-honest-ebt-scholars-like.html And here is Ven. Thanissaro's response to that analysis: I think there’s a better way to tackle the issue of SN 48:40 than by appealing to the oldest layers of commentarial literature. That way is to point out that SN 48:40, as we have it, doesn’t pass the test in DN 16 for determining what’s genuine Dhamma and what’s not. There the standard is, not the authority of the person who’s claiming to report the Buddha’s teachings, but whether the teachings he’s reporting are actually in accordance with the principles of the Dhamma that you know. So the simple fact that those who have passed the Buddha’s teachings down to us say that a particular passage is what the Buddha actually taught is not sufficient grounds for accepting it. In the case of the jhānas—the point at issue here— we have to take as our guide the standard formula for the jhānas, a...
Post a Comment
Read more

1min. video: Dalai Lama kissing boy and asking him to suck his tongue

To give more context, this is a public event,  * everyone knows cameras are rolling  *  it's a room full of children * the boy's mom is standing off camera a few feet away watching all of this * the boy initiated contact, he had already had a hug with Dalai Lama earlier and then asked Dalai Lama for another hug which triggered this segment  17 min. video showing what happened before that 1 min. clip and after, with some explanation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT0qey5Ts78 16min talk from Ajahn Acalo with his thoughts on Dalai Lama kissing boy, relevance to Bhikkhu monastic code, sexual predators in religion in general, and how celibate monastics deal with sexual energy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK2m0TcUib0 The child's comments about the incident in a filmed interview later https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/world-news/2023/04/18/643eba5d46163ffc078b457c.html The child: It's a great experience It was amazing to meet His Holiness and I think it's a great ex...
Post a Comment
Read more