Sex and the Happiest Man in the World

Wisdom Quarterly

Sex and Charlie Sheen's "threelationship" (not cheating but openly polyamorous) with porn star "Bree Olson" (Rachel Oberlin) and Nat the Nanny.

Charlie Sheen is magic, right? He is "the happiest man in the world," right? He has achieved all that we aspire to -- sensual pleasures with porn stars, prostitutes, and ex-nannies; the highest grade "feel good" drugs and drinks; long life; beauty; fame; wealth; and he's already recognized that he is not of this "terrestrial realm." Right?

There is a wonderful lesson is his brilliant meltdown and full-spectrum implosion. Many have heard -- and intuitively disagreed -- with the Buddha's assertion that as the first noble truth that "Life is beset by suffering." This is often mistranslated as "All life is suffering" or that "Eventually there is suffering in life."

People think it means that all life all the time is unpleasant. It doesn't mean that at all. Because we think that, we naturally disagree. There is a great deal of pleasure in life. There is a great deal of pleasure in human existence, even in the animal realm; even ghosts and demons and hellions must have some fun -- to say nothing of the way celestials party in space and spirit worlds.

If it were not so, beings would not cling to these states. It is because they know of no higher pleasure that they grasp and wish for more of this.

Charlie Sheen is living the height of human pleasure, right? How fun does that look!

What does it mean?
Here is the lesson. Sensual pleasures are ultimately unsatisfactory and unfulfilling. Even in the midst of such pleasure -- while high during a threesome nested in a committed relationship, rolling in money, still handsome, involved in sports, influential, articulate, respected, with all our faculties... there is disappointment (dukkha). There is desperation. And ruin is at hand.

Let's enjoy it while we can and be in the moment, for the end is at hand. But even during it, one grasps and can't hold on. "Not having been, [states] come to be; once having been, they cease."

Even in Charlie's happiness -- and he is happy(!) -- there is a lack of fulfillment, disappointment, misery, insatiability, even depravity; there is aging, loss, and instability. And it's what we all want, what we're striving for and envious of, right?

This is the radical and liberating teaching of the Four Noble Truths. These truths are ennobling and liberating IF penetrated and implemented:

1. There is a problem.
2. There is a cause.
3. There is a solution.
4. There is a way to the solution.

What is the problem? Disappointment. Inundated by sensual pleasure, wealth, strength, beauty, one is yet dissatisfied, unappeased, unfulfilled, empty, unsafe, at the mercy of fortune... disappointed.

Never mind the misery to come -- the drug crash, the ruined health, the horrible aging, the decrepitude, the loss of beauty, the loss of reputation, the loss of wealth, the loss of his faculties, the loss of everything he values.

The Three Marks of Existence

Never mind the accumulation of "bad" karma (actions rooted in craving, aversion, delusion, or fear resulting, when they ripen, as suffering), the demerit, the ignominy, the pain-to-come.

1. That's not the "suffering" the Buddha was talking about. That is obvious and indisputable.
2. He was not talking about the eventual loss of everything. That is obvious and indisputable.
3. He was not talking about an ego that is not what it seems. That is obvious and indisputable.

The Buddha was pointing out what only a fully enlightened teaching buddha can first discern and reveal to the world with its people and princes, deities and divinities, degenerates and demons:

This moment -- as we are overcome by craving and greed, thirst and desire, lust and neediness -- is miserable. That's why we so desperately crave, grasp at, and cling to sensual pleasures.

This moment -- as internal states arise, turn, and pass away -- is dissolving. That's why we so desperately crave, grasp at, and cling to these states.

This self/soul/ego -- which is really only an amalgamation of (1) body, (2) sensations, (3) perceptions, (4) intentions, (5) and consciousness called the Five Aggregates of Clinging -- is not what it seems as it tries to cling to itself. That's why we so desperately crave, grasp, and cling to it as "I," "me," and its pleasures as "mine."

Meanwhile, the world goes up in flames...

Elsewhere on the planet, people experience suffering as displacement and pain. Asia's food prices, the cause of riots around the world, increase due to rampant banker speculation.

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• Sensual pleasures are insatiable:
  "Not by a shower of gold coins does contentment arise in sensual pleasures. Of little sweetness and painful are sensual pleasures. Knowing this, the wise person finds no delight even in heavenly pleasures. The disciple of the Fully Enlightened One delights in the destruction of craving" (Dhp. XIV, 186-187)
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