Daily Quote, Friday May 15, 2009.

Good morning,

Back to regular service on the blog and regular weather!

All self-centered activity is based on pleasure.

All self-centered activity is based on pleasure, and pleasure...does breed sorrow, pain. Enjoyment is one thing and pleasure is another. Yesterday was a lovely day. There were clear, intensely blue skies, and every tree, every blade of grass, every buttercup in the field was full of light and delight. One sees all that with a pulsating feeling of enjoyment. But, when that enjoyment is translated as pleasure and I say, 'I wish today were another day like yesterday so that I could have more enjoyment, greater pleasure,' then the pain begins.

So, there is enjoyment which is natural, spontaneous, healthy, immediate; but when that enjoyment is translated by memory into pleasure and there is the demand for its continuity, which breeds the avoidance of pain, then there is sorrow. Now, I see this whole process and I also see that it must end - but not because I want something more, not because I want greater pleasure - it must end because it is natural to have a very good mind, a mind that is young, healthy, reasonable, sane, strong. When I see the truth of this, then what takes place?

Collected Works, Vol. XV - 236