Transforming adversity · Verse 21 of 37
Verse 21: Sense pleasures: salt water
Verse 21 of The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas, the fourteenth-century Tibetan poem by Gyalse Tokme Zangpo (1295–1369). It belongs to the section on transforming adversity.
Enjoying sense pleasures is like drinking salt water: the more you drink, the greater your thirst. Therefore, immediately abandon all things that give rise to clinging attachment. This is the way of a bodhisattva.
The practice of all the bodhisattvas is to turn away immediately
From those things which bring desire and attachment.
For the pleasures of the senses are just like salty water:
The more we taste of them, the more our thirst increases.
Sensual pleasures are like salty water:
The deeper you drink, the thirstier you become.
Any object that you attach to,
Right away, let it go — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.
A facilitator's reading across the commentaries
KTGR's three models (Milarepa/Marpa/Gampopa) is the frame a lay group needs — the verse doesn't mandate renunciation of contact, it mandates the end of the thirst-loop. HHDL's structural marker matters for your arc: next session the text turns to emptiness.
GR Garchen Rinpoche · HHDL H.H. the Dalai Lama · AB Dr. Alexander Berzin · KTGR Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche · KS Khenpo Sodargye · TC Ven. Thubten Chodron · KM Ken McLeod
What the teachers say
Garchen Rinpoche Drikung Kagyu
Identify your strongest desire and analyze in meditation how much suffering it brings, this life and next. Food that satisfies hunger and clothing that warms suffice; at death only the desire-thoughts remain, landing one among hungry ghosts. Candid digression: if students donate but don't practice bodhicitta, "I have failed"; instruction to self-visualize as Avalokiteshvara radiating love while reciting the six syllables. "Worldly desires for pleasure are like a mirage without substance."
Full commentary: 37practices.info (37practices.info serves this as one long page; find the verse by number.)
H.H. the Dalai Lama Gelug
Plain speech: sexual pleasure "appears immediately to us as happiness but deep down it is a cause of suffering," with Nagarjuna's itch: "To scratch an itch is pleasurable but to be without the itch is even better." Structural marker: relative bodhicitta ends here; absolute bodhicitta (vv22–24) begins.
Full commentary: 37practices.info (37practices.info serves this as one long page; find the verse by number.)
Dr. Alexander Berzin Gelug
Distinguishes longing desire (craving what we lack) from clinging attachment (won't release what we have). Modern examples: the friend hoarding unread Dharma books, parents who can't let grown children go, smartphone and news addiction — "the more we accumulate, the thirstier we get." Abandoning objects is provisional; voidness (v23) is the cure.
Full commentary: studybuddhism.com
Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche Karma Kagyu
Three lifestyle models: Milarepa abandoned sense objects entirely; Marpa the householder enjoyed them knowing them dreamlike; Gampopa the monk between. True relinquishment is abandoning attachment through emptiness, not necessarily contact.
Full commentary: dharmaebooks.org (Free ebook, trans. Suzanne Schefczyk.)
Khenpo Sodargye Nyingma, Larung Gar
"Ants cling to scraps of food, while lions cling to chunks of meat" — desire scales but is identical. Two ways to relinquish: give up the object, or the attachment; beginners may need physical distance until contentment stabilizes. Stories: the Karmapa immediately gave away anything he liked too much; the doctor who could turn any plant, even poison, into medicine — as practitioners should use all situations. "Even though there is rain of precious jewels, greedy people still do not feel content."
Full commentary: khenposodargye.org (Free ebook PDF.)
Ven. Thubten Chodron Sravasti Abbey, Gelug
Winter Retreat vv16–21 talk.
Full commentary: thubtenchodron.org
Ken McLeod Shambhala / independent
Talk 8: desire as saltwater thirst. Tricycle v21 reply: examine the sensations of attachment directly, or regard the object "as you might a purely natural sound—perhaps leaves rustling in the wind."
Full commentary: unfetteredmind.org (Tricycle's per-verse written commentary is behind a subscriber paywall.)
Further reading: Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, The Heart of Compassion (Shambhala). A purchased book — no text is reproduced here.