This is how Buddha describes how he enjoyed his princely life (abridged):

"I enjoyed myself, provided and endowed with the five cords of sensual pleasures (associated with all five senses) that are wished for, desired, agreeable, likeable and attractive. I had three palaces, one for the rainy season, one for the winter, and one for the summer. I lived in the rains' palace for the four months of the rainy season, enjoying myself with musicians, none male, and I did not go down to the lower palace."

Yet he let go of all these comforts and pleasures.

We are all engaged in the pursuit of pleasure – physically and mentally – in some form or other: sensual, achievement, artistic, intellectual, spiritual and meditative pleasures. Pleasure is a basic demand of life and without it existence becomes dull, stupid and meaningless. Enjoying pleasure is not a sin, but we had better understand it clearly as it shapes our lives and determines our happiness and suffering.

In general, our pleasures and entertainments are based on creating drama – building excitement, tension and sometimes even pain, and then releasing it to feel pleasure. We tend to like movies, novels, sports, etc. with this pattern. This is a "hot" form of pleasure. Music also plays with our emotions, moving ups and downs to create a sense of pleasure. There are also "warm" and "cool" (not cold) forms of pleasures. The “warm” form of pleasure is joyful and we feel the warmth of it. The "cool" form of pleasure is refreshingly cool and blissful; it comes from deep letting go. There is no need to build up first in order to release it to feel pleasure, because we already have enough deep rooted tightness, tension, stress, worry, anxiety, greed, expectation, jealousy, fear, anger and aggression to release them.

Hot-pleasure is highly fleeting, as it always has to come down from the build up, excited energy. Whereas cool-pleasure tends to grow deep steadily over time. Hot-pleasure is highly addictive, and it makes us slaves of craving without lasting satisfaction. Hot-pleasure is a coarse form of pleasure, while the cool-pleasure is highly refined, subtle and sublime. When we are heavily addicted to hot-pleasures, we lose the capacity to enjoy the subtle cool-pleasures.

Simile: When we enjoy the flashy and glamorous lights of Las Vegas, we cannot see and appreciate the sublime beauty of the stars in the dark night – some of which travelled millions of years to reach our retina!