There is a particular Buddhist story that reassured me I had found the right path.

The story goes that Prince Siddhartha Gautama was deep in spiritual practice – arduous, unforgiving practice. He had tried everything from breath-holding to extreme fasting. But none of it brought the freedom from suffering he sought.

As is sometimes the case in those moments, he was graced with a memory. He remembered being a child, sitting under the shade of a rose apple tree while his father worked nearby. As he sat there, free from preoccupation, his mind settled and his experience became infused with a deep sense of pleasure and ease.

This memory gestured at what later became a fundamental Buddhist idea: put simply, extreme self-denial is not the path to freedom. More radically, could it be that a certain kind of pleasure – a more refined pleasure – might help point the way?

I’ve always been intrigued by pleasure, its limits but also its invitation. The pleasure Siddhartha remembered was not wily or sneaky, waiting to trick him into attachment, but rather carried him towards freedom of heart.

Admittedly, the Buddha distinguished this kind of pleasure from sensual pleasures, which can become tangled with craving, acquisition and a mistaken belief that happiness lies in getting more.

But the point is not to become sceptical or suspicious of........

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