Hello!
Could someone help me to understand what is a normal way of seeing beauty while practicing Buddhism?
Me and my boyfriend both trying our best to see things right, but it’s hard to find agreement on this topic.
His idea is that it could be a good practice to see beauty as it is (as a true beauty) and consider it in details (he talks about women and their forms etc.) Idea is that with renunciation of beauty we can still perceive beauty as it is with all the details, pay attention to it. I can hardly understand how it works with renunciation. And it doesn’t feel right if my boyfriend pays attention to so many details in other women so often. It somehow bothers me because exactly this actions grew his greed towards women’s beauty previously, though he didn’t renounce anything that time. Maybe you know how could we deal with greed and have a normal way of seeing things? (Like not avoiding beauty, run from it and hide eyes, but live normally)
He thinks that it’s ok to look at every women’s body, face etc., so he truly knows all the things as it is. Since all women look different, this is the reason to see details of every woman. He also tells that he will pay attention to details in other people as well. He thinks that these details are very important, and we lose something if we don’t see that, is that true? Reference is to the third sutta (see beauty and ugly with “I know and see”). He doesn’t want to limit himself, and wants to have an opportunity to see everything without greed.
Also there are some suttas that talk about perceiving beauty intentionally:
They’re focused only on beauty.
This is the third liberation.
https://suttacentral.net/dn33/en/sujato?layout=linebyline&reference=none¬es=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin
For insight into greed, eight things should be developed
they’re focused only on beauty
https://suttacentral.net/an8.120/en/sujato?layout=linebyline&reference=none¬es=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin
Perceiving form internally, someone sees visions externally, limited, both pretty and ugly.
https://suttacentral.net/an10.29/en/sujato?layout=linebyline&reference=none¬es=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin