II. Sādhana Pāda · The afflictions (2.3–2.9)
2.7 · The Sweet Pull
Attachment follows pleasure.
Word by word
- sukha
- pleasure
- anuśayī
- following after, resting on
- rāgaḥ
- attachment; also colour, and a melodic mode in music
Where it fits
With a false sense of self in place (2.6), the next two afflictions describe how it moves. First, toward what has pleased it. Vyāsa defines attachment as craving that follows the memory of pleasure (Woods p. 116), so stored impressions are already at work. Its mirror image, aversion, follows in 2.8.
Reading
With a false sense of self in place (2.6), the next two afflictions show how it moves: first toward what has pleased it. Anuśayin means 'lying down after': attachment is the residue a pleasant experience leaves behind, a pull to have it again. Vyāsa defines it through memory: the craving, in one who has known pleasure, for that pleasure or its means, arising from remembering it. Rāga also means colour, and in music it is the mode that tints every note after it. The pleasure itself isn't the problem. The wanting it again is.
Vyāsa
“In someone who has known pleasure, the greed, thirst or craving for pleasure, or for the means to it, that comes from remembering pleasure: that is attachment.”
Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya, the oldest commentary. New translation from the Sanskrit, with reference to Woods (1914), p. 116.
Practice
Eat or drink something you enjoy, slowly. When it's finished, watch for the wish for more. Don't act on it for five minutes. Notice where the wish lives in the body.
A question to sit with
What pleasure is pulling at you?