Paradoxical struggle between being too clean and too sinful

[Winston]

Have you noticed the following:

If you try to be very good, pure, clean, moralistic and virtuous (like the heroes in comic books and fairy tales are), it doesn't work because it gets boring after a while. You start to feel like you have to sin in order to "live a little". Otherwise life gets boring and feels too repressed.

But on the other hand, if you live a hedonistic sin of constant pleasure and sin, catering to your carnal desires all the time, you start to feel like you are corrupting and defiling yourself. At that point, you miss having a spiritual life, having virtues and morals, and the benefits of having a good clean healthy lifestyle.

It's like you have to sin in order to appreciate the value of moral virtues, and conversely, you have to abstain from sin and guilty pleasures, in order to miss them again and be tempted by them.

How can you win? How can you have a stable balance in the middle, when both sides are constantly drawing at you?

I wonder how Buddha dealt with this.

It's like the grass is always greener on the other side, as if our mind is playing tricks on us.

This even applies to simple matters. For example, if you stay home too much, you start to miss going out and feel like you need some motion and fresh air outside. But if you are out all the time, you start to miss the comforts and conveniences of home and having a personal space.

Also, when you are in a relationship, you miss the freedom and non-attachment of being single. But when you are single, you miss the love, companionship and comfort of having a partner.

Either way, you always want what you don't have at the moment, both in the simple things and larger areas. Why is that?

It's like when you look deeper at life, everything seems to be a paradox, contradiction and oxymoron. Kind of like everything in existence is a "union of opposites" as depicted in the Chinese Ying Yang circular symbol.

Any of you notice this or think about it? Is there a philosophical, psychological or spiritual explanation for this?

[jmbPtforlife]

Well Buddha would have wanted you to strive to be desire less and embrace nothingness (bit of a simplification)

I think you hit the nail on the head a little better with:
It's like when you look deeper at life, everything seems to be a paradox, contradiction and oxymoron. Kind of like everything in existence is a "union of opposites" as depicted in the Chinese Ying Yang circular symbol.

Buddha would have wanted you to take a wholly different path then what you currently are doing (from what I know).

[CGrantAnderson]

If you study just a little about Buddha you will find that he came from royalty so he was well acquainted with getting everything. Then he tried the path of poverty and self-denial and almost starved to death. A woman who saw him close to death fetched him goat's milk laced with wine. Which he drank while sitting under the bodi tree. That is when he had his enlightenment. So it was a woman who probably saved his life. And enabled him to become enlightened. The woman's name, and often the fact of her selfless gesture, is lost to history. Afterwards, Buddha chose the middle path, the path between narcissism and vice and that of self-denial and starvation.

I've found that in most (all?) things in life one needs to walk the Middle Path (even non-Buddhists). And most likely one will zig zag from one side to the other. Such is life.

Honestly, Winston, I think that it's time that you do a little studying and looking in to some spiritual things because you are asking the questions that show that your Spirit inside you is peeking out and is looking for some spiritual sustenance.

I am not a Buddhist but I can recommend that you look into general spiritual teachings and look for something that resonates with you inside. Explore that for a while and see if it helps. The poorest child in Thailand gets more spiritual teachings then the oldest adult in America. So you're starving for something that you cannot yet name.

Keep asking questions.

- Grant

[Winston]

Have you heard the saying "Only the good die young"? What does that mean? Does that mean the most good, most pure, most innocent and the most selfless people usually die young? If so, isn't it better to be a mix of good and bad traits, and not to be too good? The most evil tyrants in history did not die young, at least most of them didn't.

[paulo]

in our garden we always see snakes and neighbours garden looks greener and no snakes,...until we get there