Ecclesiastes 2:3 · World English Bible
I searched in my heart how to cheer my flesh with wine, my heart yet guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold of folly, until I might see what it was good for the sons of men that they should do under heaven all the days of their lives.
Taṇhā: Craving Before the wine is poured, the searching "in the heart" for how to be cheered is thirst already pacing the floor, hunting its next cup. Each fresh plan to gladden the flesh is the same dry mouth reaching again, certain the answer sits one taste away.
From the Buddhism reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
BUDDHISM
Taṇhā: Craving Before the wine is poured, the searching "in the heart" for how to be cheered is thirst already pacing the floor, hunting its next cup. Each fresh plan to gladden the flesh is the same dry mouth reaching again, certain the answer sits one taste away. That reaching is the hand behind every pleasure grabbed here, the thirst that keeps a rich man restless.
Kāmasukhallikānuyoga: Chasing sensual pleasure To "cheer my flesh with wine" is to make the body's delight the whole road, and to drive down it to the end. It is the wager that a life can be filled by chasing sweetness, cup after cup, bed after bed. The Buddha walked this same road before calling it one of two ways that lead nowhere good, and here a king takes it on purpose, only to learn where it lets out.
Pamāda: Heedlessness Wine's warmth is the very fog that loosens the mind's grip and lets the night watchman nod off at his post. The "cheer" it pours is a dimming in disguise, a hand cupped over the lamp until the flame gutters low. Lift the cup to feel good, and the first thing it softens is the alertness a man would need to see anything clearly.
Sampajañña: Clear comprehension "My heart yet guiding me with wisdom" is that clear knowing kept awake inside the indulgence, the watchman who will not sleep though the wine keeps whispering lie down. It holds a steady eye on the flesh being cheered, tasting the sweetness and noting it in the same breath. This is narrow work: one hand lifts the cup while the other keeps the lamp burning, so the drinking can be watched all the way through.
Dukkha: Unsatisfactoriness The whole point of the drinking and the grabbing at folly is to "see what it was good" to do, and that hunt runs only because nothing held so far has been enough. A cup fills and empties and the hand reaches again; the sweetness thins before the glass is even set down. Spread across "all the days of their lives," this is the low ache under every pleasure, the reason a man who owns everything still goes looking.
Buddhism lens
When I reach for comfort, am I awake for it, or hoping it will put me to sleep?
He said to stay awake to your own impressions and test each one before it carries you off. Being pulled along by a pleasure is not the same as walking into it with your eyes open.
There is no greater misfortune than not knowing when you have enough. The wanting itself, not the lack, is what keeps a person poor.
He spoke of a thirst that keeps a person at the river's edge drinking and still crying out for water. The problem was never the supply.
Free · No account needed
Lensightful opens every verse of the Bible through the traditions you choose. Save readings, ask a follow-up question, and get one verse a day.
Get Lensightful on the App Store
Buddhism