Desire

So what’s wrong with desire anyway? With Buddhism’s focus on desire and attachment as negative mind-sets, one could be forgiven for lumping Buddhism amongst those monotheistic religions which serve a heavy portion of guilt along with their sins. If suffering is caused by desire and we continue to desire, we are constantly creating suffering are we not? Maybe there are different kinds of desire. Maybe what we think of as suffering isn’t really suffering. According to the Darmapada, life is suffering. All aspects of life. Birth is suffering, aging, sickness, death, separation from what is pleasing is suffering and of course not getting what you want is suffering. Suffering is further defined as “this craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination.” On the surface this sounds kind of problematic. After all, as human beings we are driven by our desires. It is because of desire that we achieve great things. It is how we are capable of great passion and depth of feeling. But because the objects of our desire are transient, as all things are, their loss is inevitable and suffering will necessarily follow.

There is an element of desire in all human relationships. Whether this desire stands as a cause of future suffering and negative karma is completely related to the origin of the desire. In other words, does the desire have its origin in the ego. This is an important question because suffering is always, ultimately, rooted in an excess of self-concern.

"Self-cherishing makes us feel depressed whenever our wishes are not fulfilled, we fail in our ambitions, or our life does not turn out the way we planned. If we examine all the times we have been miserable we shall discover that they are characterized by an excessive concern for our own welfare." (The Dalai Lama, Eight Steps To Happiness, Tharpa, 2000, p.86)

Well, that will knock you out off your pity pot. We are not unhappy simply because the world is unjust, but because we worry about ourselves too much. As an example, the pain and suffering which may arise in romantic relationships is probably rooted in an exaggerated attachment to our own happiness; the lover is seen as a vital source of happiness and we feel anxiety, depression and despair at the prospect, or reality, of losing that happiness. So what is the way out of this narcissism? Less ego. Place the other person at the center and want nothing but the best for them. This takes the selfishness out of the equation and allows a more mature relationship to develop. This goes for all types of human relationships, not just romantic ones.

This is pretty tough to do. We are so wrapped up in ourselves that we often don’t even notice that there are other people around. I was reading an article in the City section of the Times today which discussed why New Yorkers often don’t see people they know on the street even when they walk right past them: “Even when we’re not attached to I-Pods, we are perpetually preoccupied. It’s the same look we affect when we’re jogging or working out: grim, purposeful, completely given over to a higher cause-ourselves”. In order to fix the world’s karma, not to mention our own we need to pay a lot less attention to our own higher causes and a lot more to those of the people around us. That's how to break the causal chain. Peace.