The Buddha was not a renunciate—the monks were renunciates, Siddhartha the seeker was a renunciate but when Siddhartha became the ‘Awakened one’ he ceased renunciation. It’s often said the Buddha’s liberation was a ‘transcending of desire’ (including the desire for pleasure), but the Sanskrit word used often translated as desire (tṛṣṇā) actually means ‘thirst’. It’s far more accurate to say he stopped craving pleasure. Yet, as a human species it would seem we are hardwired to seek out pleasure, how does one not be moved by pleasure? You go to the source.
In the Cūḷadukkhakkhandha Sutta[1], the Buddha consults Mahānāma (his cousin), who says, although he has moved beyond greed, hate and delusion he still craves sensual pleasures. The Buddha instructs him that the solution is “to attains the rapture and pleasure that is apart from sensual pleasures” so that he is no longer attracted to these things. In other words he is told it is not enough to take away greed, hate, delusion, you must also be filled with a kind of inner pleasure that satiates this ‘thirst’. In recent years scientists have even observed these kind of meditations under rMRIs lighting up the same centers as physical orgasm—they are literally experiencing the same pleasure we usually associate with sex but completely internally[1].
This experience is not new, it is well known in kundalini yoga circles which harnesses these same primordial energies, as to daoist and tantric traditions [1]. In ___ Ramakrishna described a man in the ecstatic love of God in whom every pore of the skin, down to the roots of the hair, becomes like a sexual organ[1]. In ___ Teresa of Ávila described a love from God that pierced her heart and made her moan in ecstasy[1]. The traditions are different to be sure but some things are universal. Pleasure can be spiritual and even remedy pleasure that’s
“All the pleasures known to men, all the pleasures known to the gods, compared to the joy of nirvana are not even a sixteenth part.”
“there is no part of his body that the rapture and pleasure do not reach.”
— The Buddha