Desire - renounce it or embrace it?

[Heneni]

Desire embraced can be channeled productive and positive ways. Desire abhorred or denied manifests in uncontrolled destructive and negative ways.

I dont think it will become uncontrolled and destructive if you let your spirit dictate your human/physical desires and not the other way around. If our human/physical desires obeys our spirit, it cant be destructive and it cant influence us negatively.

Heneni

 

[Halcyon]

Many sincere people drawn to Eastern spirituality are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In identifying the cause fo suffering as desire, they struggle to eliminate it from their being. A number of these people have come to consult me, wondering why their spiritual pursuits have nto brought them the peace of mind they were expecting. To sit with them in a room is to feel people not quite at peace with themselves. There can be a closed, anxious or fearful quality underlying the way they express themselves. When they become more honest about their desires, a different feeling emerges. They become more present, alive, open, and tender. The brittleness disappears. It becomes easier to breathe. All of the feelings that I associate with meditation, that I want to make accessible to people through the medium of psychotherapy, open up when people become able to treat their desires as their own.

This actually seems to bear all the hallmarks of somebody repressing their desires, and most probably the related emotions too - rather than a person who is seeking to let go of desire.
Perhaps some people in their willingness to follow their religion are following blindly, taking the four noble truths as commandments "thou shalt not desire" rather than observations to contemplate.

This is cliche to most Buddhists, but it's true. If you find yourself thinking, for example, "i need a beer, need a beer, need a BEER!" and you choose to repress your desire along the "thou shalt not" line of thinking - "I won't have a beer! I'm not allowing myself", then you're gonna end up just like the person described in the book passage. If on the other hand you contemplate your desire and ask "Do I really need a beer?" then the chances are you'll rid the desire of all its power and it'll fade away, you could take or leave the beer.

 

[doppelganger]

I dont think it will become uncontrolled and destructive if you let your spirit dictate your human/physical desires and not the other way around.

I don't know what this is a reference to.

 

[doppelganger]

how can it manifest when channeled in productive ways?

By accounting for its effects on how I think about myself in relation to others. Thought follows desire. Not being aware of my desire means not being in control of thought. Of course, it's not an "on/off" proposition. There are varying degrees and nobody accounts for more than a small amount of the effect of desire on their thoughts. But a little bit can go a long way.

 

[Random]

Desire attached to the concept of self-fulfilment is problematic. No thing that is desired (when attained) will complete you, or perfect your notion of self. Linking one idea (I want this...) with another (when I have this, everything will be perfect) causes distress and suffering, when inevitably it is realized this attachment was false to begin with, and it wasn't true. This being because the "everything" we want to perfect is wholly and irreversibly conditional, impermanent and temporary. But desire apart from self-fulfilment is merely need, and that's not perfect either. LOL!

I don't worry about it anymore personally, just go with and listen to my feelings.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

By accounting for its effects on how I think about myself in relation to others. Thought follows desire. Not being aware of my desire means not being in control of thought. Of course, it's not an "on/off" proposition. There are varying degrees and nobody accounts for more than a small amount of the effect of desire on their thoughts. But a little bit can go a long way.

If I may - about the "on/off" comment - are there not times when one can find themselves desiring an idea, concept, thing, person, food, etc....and the very next moment find themselves desiring nothing of that very same object? I may be going off on a tangent here, but I hope you're following what I'm saying. And therefore, I'm curious if the idea that thought-follows-desire is universal.

 

[Sunstone]

Desire, like so much else in this world, is like fire. If you know how to manage it, it warms and enlightens. If you are foolish in how you handle it, it burns.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Desire, like so much else in this world, is like fire. If you know how to manage it, it warms and enlightens. If you are foolish in how you handle it, it burns.

And if you can assemble desire into a chain reaction where it reaches critical mass, you can create a blast that reaches out many miles and you can see a mushroom cloud rising slowly into the air.

 

[doppelganger]

If I may - about the "on/off" comment - are there not times when one can find themselves desiring an idea, concept, thing, person, food, etc....and the very next moment find themselves desiring nothing of that very same object?

Sure. Desires shift from moment to moment.

I'm curious if the idea that thought-follows-desire is universal.

In what way is an idea "universal"? I don't think I am following you.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Sure. Desires shift from moment to moment.

In what way is an idea "universal"? I don't think I am following you.

Oh, I was just wondering if you were positing an absolute with the "thought-follows-desire" comment you gave earlier.

Silly Mystic. I'll be over here on the trampoline. :trampo:

 

[Comicaze247]

Hi, Mystic -

In my experience, there is nothing problematic about desire itself. What needs to be eliminated is not the desire itself, but the attachment to the fulfillment of that desire. If we are not attached to that fulfillment, we can still be open to the desire itself, and deal with it appropriately.

I was about to say the same thing, just not as well, haha. I couldn't have said it better :clap

 

[methylatedghosts]

people seem to have already voiced what I've thought...

Desire is not a bad thing at all, in fact it has a part in our motivation to do things. But like has been already said, it's giving the desire power that can cause a problem.

I desire a world without war, a world of peace.
I also desire chocolate cake over brussel sprouts

But it's in making a need of that desire is where you begin to feel like you're losing control. *needing* a world without war, a world of peace, will inevitably lead to much frustration. *Needing* chocolate cake over brussel sprouts will leave you hungry.

I think desire is simply a preferred state of being.

Hell, some people might say they desire to be without desire... which is a little backwards if you ask me. Eliminate desire? I don't think it's possible. Observing desire for what it is, and letting it be what it is, thus keeping it Desireable rather than a need? Yeah.. I think that's something that each person can strive for

 

[UnTheist]

Frikin embrace it!

 

[TashaN]

Not all desires are meant to be expressed, because there are a lot of unpleasant desires which one have to eliminate. The question is, how to find them, define them, then treat them.

 

[Sunstone]

Not all desires are meant to be expressed, because there are a lot of unpleasant desires which one have to eliminate. The question is, how to find them, define them, then treat them.

I would pretty much agree with you here, although I tend to say all desire is like fire. We either learn to manage it so it will bring us warmth and light, or we mismanage it and get burnt. There are times, though, when you do not want a fire. What do you do then?

 

[ranjana]

that would be some seriously fantastic advice: (re: not having the fire at all!) we know that repression just adds fuel; so the answer must be in letting the fire consume itself by not giving it any fuel at all. In a practical sense, would this be like removing oneself from the presence of certain triggers of desire?

although the trigger is not without, it is within. so an internal shift is necessary. it is painful in my experience, to give up desires that just cause pain, but it is a liberation too. even if i enjoy 'falling in lust' i never enjoy the hangover.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I'm re-reading a good book called Open to Desire by Mark Epstein, M.D. that discusses how we possibly could be setting ourselves up for failure in the long run when we take great pains to eliminate all desire (sensual and sexual) from our surroundings and pysche.

From the book:

Many sincere people drawn to Eastern spirituality are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In identifying the cause fo suffering as desire, they struggle to eliminate it from their being. A number of these people have come to consult me, wondering why their spiritual pursuits have nto brought them the peace of mind they were expecting. To sit with them in a room is to feel people not quite at peace with themselves. There can be a closed, anxious or fearful quality underlying the way they express themselves. When they become more honest about their desires, a different feeling emerges. They become more present, alive, open, and tender. The brittleness disappears. It becomes easier to breathe. All of the feelings that I associate with meditation, that I want to make accessible to people through the medium of psychotherapy, open up when people become able to treat their desires as their own.

Is Dr. Epstein mistaken? Or is he on to something? How effective are the kinds of ahimsa and limitations and "thou shalt not's" are we when we demonize and run away from our desires?

IMHO, it is a gross over-simplification to say that Eastern religions identify desire as a cause of suffering, there is so much more to it.

Western man's over emphasis/preoccupation with desire for pleasure and avoidance of pain in the phenomenal world exemplifies a mind that does not yet understand it's own true nature.

The true nature of MIND is non-dual, but the inherent unity of that nature is obscured if the mortal mind is being continuously caught up in the apparent endless array of duality evident to it's ego-self sense perceptions, i.e. pleasure/pain., good/evil, here/there, etc.. It is this self-contradictory nature of the ego mind trying to identify with one side of it's nature while simultaneously denying ownership of the other side that ultimately causes confusion and suffering. For a meditative mind that is still and free from conceptual thinking, there are no 'dualities', just an undivided 'peace' that passes understanding.

Here is little Taoist piece that highlights the inherent contradictory nature within the unenlightened's mortal mind and heart.

Be aware the impulses of the will,
Unravel the errors of the mind,
Untie the knots of the virtue,
Unblock the free flow of Tao.

Glory and riches, prominence and position, fame and profit, these six are the impulses of the will,

Personal appearance and style, beauty and cleverness, excitement and memory,these six are the errors of the mind,

Hatred and desire, pleasure and anger, sadness and joy, these six are the knots of the virtue,

Rejection and acceptance, receiving and giving, knowledge and ability, these six obstruct the free flow of Tau.

When the four conditions and their six causes no longer disturb your heart,
Then you will be correct, being correct, you are calm,
Being calm, you are clear, being clear, you are empty,
Emptiness,...the state of doing nothing in which everything get's done.