As rivers into the ocean, so are sensory pleasures

Rivers flow into the ocean and the ocean does not fill. Sensory pleasures are consumed and desire does not satiate. Vasiṣṭha does not condemn pleasure — he points out its structure: it is a promise that renews itself, not a promise that fulfills. Each pleasurable experience renews the desire to repeat it, and each repetition diminishes its intensity, requiring new pursuit. It is a circuit that Buddhist tradition would call taṇhā and that the Vāsiṣṭha diagnoses with the same clinical precision.