Everything in this world exists because it serves a purpose, whether or not that purpose is immediately visible to us. When Buddha approached any topic, he often prompted reflection through three questions:

What is good about it?

What is bad about it?

How to escape both?

Our sense organs play essential roles in our lives. By looking back at simpler organisms—such as single-celled life forms or even worms—we see a basic structure: an entrance, a food chamber or tube, and an exit. These organisms use their senses to locate what’s good (food) and to escape from what is bad (danger). As evolution unfolded, living beings developed additional senses and ways to move toward what they liked and away from what they didn’t. For all creatures except the majority of humans, this process appears to be the extent of life’s purpose. But something shifted with humans: we possess the unique capacity to remember, reflect, and learn from past experiences, even from generations before us. Unlike animals, humans can develop wisdom and morality, attributes that are relatively useless in the animal world, where loyalty is the closest quality and typically arises from comfort, food, and safety.

THE GOOD:

So, returning to the initial contemplation, our senses—and by extension, our feelings, emotions, and mental states—serve a purpose, even those emotions often labeled undesirable. Take anger, for instance: it’s often seen as a sin or a blemish on a ‘pure’ mind. Here is the list of top undesirable feelings and emotions: anger, fear, jealousy, guilt, and shame. Let’s explore what some of them brings that is beneficial:

1. Anger

Motivates Action: Anger can drive people to confront injustice, stand up for themselves, and advocate for others.

Clarifies Boundaries: Feeling anger often points to where personal boundaries have been crossed, helping clarify limits.

Energizes: Anger can increase physical energy and focus, helping people tackle challenges with determination.

Encourages Assertiveness: It can help people develop assertive communication, standing up for their needs without aggression.

Facilitates Change: Social movements and reforms are often fueled by collective anger toward inequality or wrongdoing.

2. Fear

Promotes Caution: Fear can help prevent reckless decisions by encouraging us to think through potential risks.

Enhances Focus: In small doses, fear can heighten awareness, increasing alertness and attention to detail.

Increases Resilience: Confronting and managing fear can build confidence and resilience in the face of future challenges.

Triggers Self-Reflection: Fear often highlights personal insecurities, which can prompt self-growth and better self-understanding.

Guides Survival: Fear is instinctive for self-preservation, motivating us to avoid harm.

3. Guilt

Encourages Accountability: Guilt prompts us to take responsibility for our actions and consider others’ feelings.

Promotes Empathy: It can heighten sensitivity to others’ needs and suffering, fostering compassion.

Guides Ethical Behavior: Guilt often reinforces moral principles, helping us align with personal and social values.

Motivates Amends: Feeling guilty can drive us to apologize, make amends, and restore relationships.

Fosters Growth: Reflecting on guilt offers insights for personal growth and encourages healthier future choices.

Well, if even the ‘bad’ emotions and feelings serve a good purpose, it’s easy to notice how many pleasant experiences our sense organs can deliver to us. We enjoy beautiful scenery and adore our loved ones with our eyes; we appreciate the sounds of nature and wonderful music with our ears; we delight in exquisite aromas and delicious foods with our noses; we savor wonderful flavors with our tongues; and we are blessed with comfort and pleasure through the sensations we receive from our bodies. All of this blends together in our minds, creating joy, happiness, entertainment, bliss, and delight.

The good? Our sense organs are the source of so many wonderful experiences! As the Buddha put it: ‘The pleasure and happiness that arise—this is its gratification’ (SN 35.13 Paṭhamapubbesambodhasutta).

THE BAD

What, then, is the bad? As I mentioned in a previous post, this is the source of our unpleasant experiences: impermanence. Everything is impermanent; eventually, our eyes and ears will fail. Have you ever spoken with someone in their senior years and asked them how they are doing? Most of the time, they will share that their eyesight isn’t good anymore—they can’t read. Their hearing is failing—they can’t even hear you. And their bodies, once so youthful and energetic, bodies that brought them so much pleasure, are now aching everywhere.

Impermanence leads to suffering. Whatever we use right now to find joy and happiness in our lives will eventually become a source of misfortune—especially if we rely on sensual joys alone. Buddha would often say: “seeking joy —is seeking suffering”

ESCAPE

But there is an escape, and it doesn’t involve despair. Buddha’s pragmatism teaches that without hardship, we wouldn’t seek freedom. The very fact that everything has an element of suffering becomes a doorway to liberation. And though often misunderstood, freedom lies not in the extremes of indulgence or deprivation but in recognizing non-self and understanding the causes and conditions that bind us.

Many people misinterpret “escape” as an action, as if simply refraining from pleasure will lead to freedom or as if removing a sense organ would liberate one from desires once and for all. Liberation doesn’t have to look any particular way. Neither monks are inherently more liberated, nor are laypeople in a better position. True liberation goes beyond appearances; it’s about insight—seeing impermanence, suffering, and non-self in all things, both outside and within oneself. This recognition brings a natural disillusionment with sensory pleasures, allowing them to fade, and thus freeing the mind.

But here’s the key: rather than merely abandoning sensory pleasures, the mind needs something other than a depressing thought like “everything is suffering.” It needs something to hold onto, yet unconditioned by the transient nature of the sense organs. This is where the joy and bliss found in the first stages of concentration come in. Once the mind experiences joy that is free from sensuality, the allure of chasing after rough, sensory pleasures fades. And if a person deeply desires, even the more refined joys and blisses of the “form realm” (in Buddhism, the stage of existence beyond the sensory realm) can eventually be released, making way for the tranquility and serenity of pure consciousness beyond the duality of the conditional realm, paving the path toward liberation.

A fully or partially liberated mind does not have to fit into anyone’s narrative. It doesn’t have to look any particular way. In the beginning the personality that operates in the conditional realms will still have the most pervasive limitations. The difference lies in the mind’s ability to exist, for a desired period, within different “sets of rules,” in the form realm or even the formless realm.

In my experience, those who focus on transcending desires view life as more than attachment or avoidance, more than black and white. Instead, they cultivate an awareness where sensory joys and sorrows coexist without judgment. True escape is not about suppressing desires; it’s about transcending the mind itself, welcoming everything that exists without clinging to it.