The Nature of Desire Contemplation: Was Buddha Wrong?

[r0ckyreed]

I have been contemplating the nature of desire for a couple hours now from scratch and here is what I have come up with so far. I am still refining my ideas.

What is desire?

- Desire is the minds capacity, action, and tendency for wanting some thing.

- This definition is broad to encompass all forms and levels of desire.

- Desire is not as simple as wanting this or that. Desire is the emotional energy that gives birth to all action.

Forms of desire:

1. Improvement

2. Maintain

3. Possess

4. Create

5. Destroy

6. Let go

7. Comfort/security

8. approval/recognition/attention

9. Love

Levels of desire:

1. shallow vs. deep

2. explicit vs. implicit 

3. healthy vs. unhealthy (helpful vs. unhelpful)

4. Conscious vs. unconscious

5. authentic vs. inauthentic (important one here)

6. self vs. other (desire for yourself and for other)

7. Central vs. peripheral desires 

Was Buddha Wrong?

Desire and attachment have overlap but aren’t the same. If you have absolutely no desires, you would be dead. To survive is to desire. Think of every action you take as a desire. You could even think of each cell of your body as having a desire to survive and maintain the systems of your body. Desire is not always conscious.

Desire is the foundation for everything. To even use your energy to sit down and meditate needs desire. Life cannot be lived without some form of desire. There is even a certain desire in detaching from attachments. Why detach at all? 

The key difference between attachment and desire is that not all desire is attachment. Attachment is a shallow form of desire that is clingy and holds onto things, whereas a more broader or healthier desire is about being fluid and flexible in the ability of letting go. 

Liberation from suffering is having the right priorities and healthy desires put in place. Liberation is holistic, which means that all different forms and levels of desires need to be integrated. 

You don’t just have one desire. You have multiple desires that can often be competing with each other. I call these conflicting desires. Contemplate all the conflicting desires you have.

Here are some of mine:

1. Desire to be physically fit vs. desire to eat junk food.

2. Desire to be ambitious/disciplined vs. desire to be lazy/playful

3. Desire for solitude vs. desire to socialize 

4. Desire to be outdoors vs. indoors

5. Desire to detach from media vs. desire to remain attached.

6. Desire to meditate vs. desire to go to bars

We also have a desire-center and desire-periphery. Desire-center is when desire is at the forefront of your attention, which is not always your most healthiest desire. Desire-periphery are all the other desires in the background that can compete with desire-center. Distraction is when inauthentic, shallow, and unimportant desires take up the space in the desire-center.

The highest peace is the highest desire. When Dumbledore and Harry Potter were at the Mirror of Erised (I noticed this is desire backwards :D), Dumbledore says “The happiest man on earth can look into the mirror and see only himself exactly as he is.” The Mirror represents our deepest desire. The happiest person desires nothing but to see reality exactly as it is, to become one and whole with it.

Dumbledore also warns Harry not to “dwell on dreams and forget to live.” Unhealthy desire turns into obsession, which could lead into suffering.

You can even see the importance of desire portrayed in other pop culture films such as Aladdin (Genie lamp), Pirates of Caribbean (Jack’s compass), Bruce Almighty, Bedazzled, and others. 

The key is a lot of people seem to be misguided on what they truly want. You may desire fame or money or drugs or whatever, but is that what you truly desire? Introspection skill is a must here. An important part of the process is sorting out authentic vs inauthentic desires. The inauthentic can lead to a lot of suffering. Whereas, authentic desires can lead us to more freedom.

Desire is not the enemy. Desire is rather the foundation and essence for life itself and living up to your full potential. The highest desire goes full circle into detachment and acceptance. Detachment isn’t a lack of desire, but rather the lack of putting emotional investment and identification in things/events.

What do you all think? Was the Buddha wrong about desire being the cause of suffering? Let me know!

 

Edited May 26, 2022 by r0ckyreed

[Gesundheit2]

?

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, r0ckyreed said:

Was the Buddha wrong about desire being the cause of suffering?

Doesn't contradict what you said.

Yes, desire causes suffering, but life itself is suffering and you're not gonna escape it other than through totally surrendering your life.

[r0ckyreed]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes, desire causes suffering, but life itself is suffering and you're not gonna escape it other than through totally surrendering your life.

I would say that more specifically ignorance or selfishness is at the root of suffering. People can be misguided and ignorant about what they really want. And they can spend years climbing the wrong mountain. Not all roads lead to nirvana. Some roads lead to peaks and some to valleys.

I think it is about raising consciousness to love and see the magic in reality and to not be attached to outcome but engaged in the moment. But to raise consciousness has to start with a desire and takes discipline. Without desire, where can we go?

Do we really want to escape suffering and life, or do we want to learn how to love and embrace it such that it no longer has same affect?

This goes to my next questions: Can you truly be free from desire and still live? Can you really surrender what you truly desire? What does it even mean to surrender your life and transcend survival? Can you really transcend survival? What would that look like?  

Would you truly want to only experience one emotion of happiness and peace or be able to experience the full range of emotions more consciously? This reminds of The Dark Knight Rises. Batman says he doesn’t fear death which is why he failed at climbing his way to freedom. He was then advised to invite fear back into his life and use it to give him the strength to make the climb.

For the longest time, I thought that I wanted to become fearless and only experience peace/happiness like a Jedi detaching from all negative emotions, but I realized that I would rather have courage to experience the range of emotion more consciously. Courage isn’t the absence of emotion, but it is rather the embracement of emotion to take action.

What do you think? Thanks!

 

 

Edited May 26, 2022 by r0ckyreed

[gettoefl]

desire is trying to exercise choice

when in fact there isn't any

you are trying to control your experience and your environment

no can do try as you may

when i go to the supermarket i let existence make every choice and it comes up with the best stuff

of course i am exaggerating somewhat but what i mean is

can you go outside today and leave yourself in the hands on existence?

[r0ckyreed]

I think I got it now. Happiness is being satisfied of the present moment and suffering is being dissatisfied with the present moment, desiring something that is other than the present moment.

The Buddha wasn’t arguing against all desire but of a specific unhealthy kind that leads to attachment which leads to suffering??

To me, satisfaction is the acceptance of reality as it is. In the state of satisfaction, our desires are more focused on the here and now.

Instead of dreaming of a fantasy in the future, desire in the state of satisfaction could be the desire to do nothing but to bask in the beauty of meditation. Desire could be just to sit peacefully and fully taking in sensations. The energy of desire is in the present moment.

2 hours ago, gettoefl said:

can you go outside today and leave yourself in the hands on existence?

Not sure what that means yet. Looking back at my life, everything I have done started with a will, with a desire.

But desire is paradoxical because sometimes the act of letting go of something can get you what you truly want. I can be in my own way.

Edited May 26, 2022 by r0ckyreed

[gettoefl]

48 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

 

Not sure what that means yet. Looking back at my life, everything I have done started with a will, with a desire.

But desire is paradoxical because sometimes the act of letting go of something can get you what you truly want. I can be in my own way.

i would say the godly desire is full alignment with the here and now ... sometimes called flow state or god mode

jesus put it like this: not my will but yours be done o god

[ZzzleepingBear]

16 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

What do you all think? Was the Buddha wrong about desire being the cause of suffering?

No. But it could be misinterpreted, there lies the problem.

When you desire something, you crave something in hope to fulfill a satisfaction in some kind of pleasure. This craving goes far beyond needs or reasonable aspirations to live a balanced life. If a desires main purpose is to satisfy pleasure, it then becomes a closed loop. Or a behaviour cycle.

If you desire to satisfy your pleasure, you have to know that pleasure is a heightened state, that's why it feels so good. But what comes up must eventually come down. This is why emotions can be refered to as being on a rollercoaster. And you then have to come to terms with, what part of your desire that you haven't come to terms with yet. Inorder to break the cycle.

Desire is a driving force, but not a destination. So you can have all kind of desires as long as you don't expect pleasure to be the final end goal of your desires. Pleasure comes and goes, and once that is fully understood, there is no need to conflate the driving force of desire as a highway to fulfill pleasure.

 

[SeaMonster]

19 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

What do you all think? Was the Buddha wrong about desire being the cause of suffering? Let me know!

I'm not even sure that "desire" is an adequate translation and I'm not a Sanskrit or Pali expert to really know what Buddha was talking about.

It probably means a type of ego-clinging kind of desire like you said.

The only "bad" or clinging desires are those that are only present when the ego is present.  If they are present when the ego has been totally seen through, then they aren't "bad" desires.

The ego only sees its own agenda, it doesn't know if its agenda is healthy or right.  So if the ego wants A, it cannot see that maybe getting A isn't ultimately good.  It's a blinkered kind of -- blind -- desire. 

Edited May 26, 2022 by SeaMonster

[hyruga]

Haha what about the desire to know more about desires. The desire for knowledge. 

I think someone called it buddi or something.

[r0ckyreed]

5 hours ago, hyruga said:

Haha what about the desire to know more about desires. The desire for knowledge. 

I think someone called it buddi or something.

Good one. I’m sure that could fall under desire for possession or comfort/security. I’ll add that one to my list.

 

6 hours ago, SeaMonster said:

I'm not even sure that "desire" is an adequate translation

I agree. I think Buddha was talking about a specific form of unhealthy desire/attachment. I think it is a mistake to generalize all desire as suffering or even to say that “life is suffering.” Suffering is part of life and so is joy.

9 hours ago, ZzzleepingBear said:

Desire is a driving force, but not a destination. So you can have all kind of desires as long as you don't expect pleasure to be the final end goal of your desires. Pleasure comes and goes, and once that is fully understood, there is no need to conflate the driving force of desire as a highway to fulfill pleasure.

I think this is correct. Desire is the driving force for life. I wouldn’t say that all desire is hedonistic, but many unhealthy desires sure can be. Higher forms of desire I think are more eudaimonic. 

 

 

Edited May 27, 2022 by r0ckyreed

[Jodistrict]

It’s an imprecise translation of “Tanha” from Sanskrit to English.  It means “craving” or “clinging”.   You can’t stop having desires.  They come from the unconscious.   But if you don’t cling to the desires,  you won’t suffer.  

[Chrisd]

15 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

I would say that more specifically ignorance or selfishness is at the root of suffering. People can be misguided and ignorant about what they really want. And they can spend years climbing the wrong mountain. Not all roads lead to nirvana. Some roads lead to peaks and some to valleys.

I think it is about raising consciousness to love and see the magic in reality and to not be attached to outcome but engaged in the moment. But to raise consciousness has to start with a desire and takes discipline. Without desire, where can we go?

Do we really want to escape suffering and life, or do we want to learn how to love and embrace it such that it no longer has same affect?

This goes to my next questions: Can you truly be free from desire and still live? Can you really surrender what you truly desire? What does it even mean to surrender your life and transcend survival? Can you really transcend survival? What would that look like?  

Would you truly want to only experience one emotion of happiness and peace or be able to experience the full range of emotions more consciously? This reminds of The Dark Knight Rises. Batman says he doesn’t fear death which is why he failed at climbing his way to freedom. He was then advised to invite fear back into his life and use it to give him the strength to make the climb.

For the longest time, I thought that I wanted to become fearless and only experience peace/happiness like a Jedi detaching from all negative emotions, but I realized that I would rather have courage to experience the range of emotion more consciously. Courage isn’t the absence of emotion, but it is rather the embracement of emotion to take action.

What do you think? Thanks!

 

 

Great questions. Nisargadatta comes to mind. Have you read "I am that"?

Q: Are you living in the Supreme Unknown?
M: Where else?
Q: What makes you say so?
M: No desire ever arises in my mind.
Q: Are you then unconscious?
M: Of course not! I am fully conscious, but since no desire or fear enters my mind, there is perfect
silence.

A penny for your thoughts.

[r0ckyreed]

8 hours ago, Jodistrict said:

But if you don’t cling to the desires,  you won’t suffer.  

Isn’t that also a desire? 

I say that because if I have an itch on my ear, a part of my mind really really wants to scratch it, but I have a desire to be in control of my emotions, so I refrain from engagement. The act of refraining from one desire appear to be the engagement in another.

I agree with you about the desire to cling as a cause for suffering. I think that is what Buddha meant specifically. But not all desire is clinging. Like you said, desire is life. Without desire, there is no reason to put food in mouth.

Peter Ralston I think even falls into the same trap of demonizing desire as well. He fails to account for unconscious desires that are currently present. I don’t think all desire is about the future. But I think the most common use of the concept of how much people use it is what Peter Ralston was talking about - The unhealthy form of desire. I’ll talk about that more after I have contemplated in more to see my blind spots on this issue. 

7 hours ago, Chrisd said:

Great questions. Nisargadatta comes to mind. Have you read "I am that"?

Nope.

7 hours ago, Chrisd said:

Q: Are you living in the Supreme Unknown?
M: Where else?
Q: What makes you say so?
M: No desire ever arises in my mind.
Q: Are you then unconscious?
M: Of course not! I am fully conscious, but since no desire or fear enters my mind, there is perfect
silence.

A penny for your thoughts.

Why does he have a preference for silencing the mind? Maybe you could say that he is so conscious that all mind activity stops. But he has many desires going on in that moment such as the will to even breathe, to even converse with another person, to even move a muscle or stay perfectly still takes will which is desire. That is what I would say.

I would also question his seemingly negative attitudes towards fear and desire. There is nothing I see specifically wrong with emotions of fear and desire for instance. It is how the emotions are used. Is one conscious of their emotions and acting in conscious ways or not?

For me personally, I see a problem with striving to become emotionless. Fear and desire are both powerful forces that can be used for the highest love or highest destruction.

The denial of desire, of ones feelings is the denial of the heart. The Alchemist is a good book on following your the highest desire of your heart. 

That is my thoughts right now, but I will contemplate it some more.

Edited May 27, 2022 by r0ckyreed

[gettoefl]

3 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

 

Why does he have a preference for silencing the mind? Maybe you could say that he is so conscious that all mind activity stops. But he has many desires going on in that moment such as the will to even breathe, to even converse with another person, to even move a muscle or stay perfectly still takes will which is desire. That is what I would say.

I would also question his seemingly negative attitudes towards fear and desire. There is nothing I see specifically wrong with emotions of fear and desire for instance. It is how the emotions are used. Is one conscious of their emotions and acting in conscious ways or not?

For me personally, I see a problem with striving to become emotionless. Fear and desire are both powerful forces that can be used for the highest love or highest destruction.

The denial of desire, of ones feelings is the denial of the heart. The Alchemist is a good book on following your the highest desire of your heart. 

That is my thoughts right now, but I will contemplate it some more.

he is one of the most awake people who ever lived and i say expressed it better than anyone who ever lived

he doesn't prefer to silence the mind ... when you wake up there is no more noise

nobody wills to breathe ... if you don't believe me try to stop breathing for a while and let me know how that works for you

he has no negativity period and he does not strive to be emotionless ... emotions come emotions go but they do not control his life

do yourself a favor and read this book ... it is one of the few books i read every single day of my life (i have a twitter feed that drops it daily) ... one needs to read it at least 20 times to get the full meat from it

[gettoefl]

11 hours ago, Chrisd said:

Great questions. Nisargadatta comes to mind. Have you read "I am that"?

Q: Are you living in the Supreme Unknown?
M: Where else?
Q: What makes you say so?
M: No desire ever arises in my mind.
Q: Are you then unconscious?
M: Of course not! I am fully conscious, but since no desire or fear enters my mind, there is perfect
silence.

A penny for your thoughts.

so much richness and depth here

he is explaining the supreme state a human can reach - in this state no desire or no fear arises

what is desire? seeking to change what is

what is fear? seeking to maintain what is

namely these two words are opposites!

embrace what is and you have the supreme mind

[gettoefl]

desire is desire of more

fear is fear of less

[r0ckyreed]

6 hours ago, gettoefl said:

he is one of the most awake people who ever lived and i say expressed it better than anyone who ever lived

How do you really know that? Unless you can read people’s minds, or have awakened to the highest, you can’t possibly know what or who has reached the highest levels of consciousness?

Even if you do awaken, you are so conscious that there are no others who are awake with you. It’s just you.

What I learned here on this forum is that anyone can claim they are awake when they are really full of crap. What criteria do you use to determine if someone is awake? If you are already awake, then this question of who is most woke is absurd.

6 hours ago, gettoefl said:

he doesn't prefer to silence the mind ... when you wake up there is no more noise

Maybe so. Maybe there is music now instead of noise. I can’t imagine anyone living without thinking. I mean how does he even do math and keep track of his finances from his teachings lol. You see the issue with people who claim they have no thought but yet still go to the bank and survive? I believe no-mind can be short-term, but eventually you have to have a strategy for how your gonna get your next meal. Maybe what he really means is that his mind is playing like music instead of hammering like a monkey. He still has thoughts, but his thoughts are more deliberate and if higher quality. I would even consider talking to be a form of thought and even action if we wanna go deep with where your thought ends and action begins. Where is the boundary? To have no thought is death.

6 hours ago, gettoefl said:

nobody wills to breathe ... if you don't believe me try to stop breathing for a while and let me know how that works for you

That actually is one of the examples I listed in my journal that illustrates my point. If you had no desire, there would be no point in breathing. Why breathe? You both conscious and unconsciously will to breathe. Like I said in my first post. Our desires can be conscious or unconscious. Why breathe? Why do our cells bother to preserve our body and immune system? Why do we eat? Why meditate? It is our desire for life. If you hold your breath, you will feel your desire for life. If you didn’t desire life, then you wouldn’t breathe and live.

 

7 hours ago, gettoefl said:

he has no negativity period

How do we know? 

We put these gurus on pedestals and idolize them. And at the same time, that idolization blocks you from realizing that they are you.

7 hours ago, gettoefl said:

do yourself a favor and read this book

What’s the name of the book?

Thank you for helping me clarify my points in my contemplation on desire.

[gettoefl]

6 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

How do you really know that? Unless you can read people’s minds, or have awakened to the highest, you can’t possibly know what or who has reached the highest levels of consciousness?

Even if you do awaken, you are so conscious that there are no others who are awake with you. It’s just you.

What I learned here on this forum is that anyone can claim they are awake when they are really full of crap. What criteria do you use to determine if someone is awake? If you are already awake, then this question of who is most woke is absurd.

Maybe so. Maybe there is music now instead of noise. I can’t imagine anyone living without thinking. I mean how does he even do math and keep track of his finances from his teachings lol. You see the issue with people who claim they have no thought but yet still go to the bank and survive? I believe no-mind can be short-term, but eventually you have to have a strategy for how your gonna get your next meal. Maybe what he really means is that his mind is playing like music instead of hammering like a monkey. He still has thoughts, but his thoughts are more deliberate and if higher quality. I would even consider talking to be a form of thought and even action if we wanna go deep with where your thought ends and action begins. Where is the boundary? To have no thought is death.

That actually is one of the examples I listed in my journal that illustrates my point. If you had no desire, there would be no point in breathing. Why breathe? You both conscious and unconsciously will to breathe. Like I said in my first post. Our desires can be conscious or unconscious. Why breathe? Why do our cells bother to preserve our body and immune system? Why do we eat? Why meditate? It is our desire for life. If you hold your breath, you will feel your desire for life. If you didn’t desire life, then you wouldn’t breathe and live.

 

How do we know? 

We put these gurus on pedestals and idolize them. And at the same time, that idolization blocks you from realizing that they are you.

What’s the name of the book?

Thank you for helping me clarify my points in my contemplation on desire.

the man nisargadatta maharaj is just the most beautiful person who i ever encountered, so much love wisdom tenderness compassion relatability and i am not one to gush sentimentally over others

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_That

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisargadatta_Maharaj

 

will try to add some more later

[gettoefl]

14 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

How do you really know that

many claim to be awake yes ... but how many are saying another is awake ... i don't claim any awakening but i do claim to know awake when i see it ... as an aside, david hawkins has a table of levels of consciousness 0-1000 with jesus krishna buddha at the 1000 ... if memory serves me right NM was about 850 which is extremely high ... i don't trust things blindly but this definitely resonates with me ... NM together with Ramama Maharshi are the best expositors of non-dual awakening for me and i recommend people study their material deeply

Edited May 28, 2022 by gettoefl