Please read - Very, Very Important!

betaboy

Shalom,

I understand that craving is a problem - no craving, no stress associated with it. But it doesn't end there. I will give an example to make this clear - let's say I have no craving reg. my job or money etc. Let's say my friend has a fancy car, and I don't. He has a great job and I don't. Wouldn't these facts create negative emotions like envy, resentment etc. So even if craving for a good job or money/car is absent, wouldn't the mere facts of life create the stress that craving creates?

So my question is, even without craving, are we not gonna experience the same misery that craving causes? So what's the use of ridding oneself of craving?

Thanks for reading.

robot

Pretty confusing and not that important. Just try to be happy for your friend. If you can do that much of the misery you feel may subside.

lobster

So my question is, even without craving, are we not gonna experience the same misery that craving causes? So what's the use of ridding oneself of craving?

There is a difference between frenzy and mild interest. One overwhelms and the other involves a lot less dukkha. Is it a really wonderful vehicle like the dharma or just fast, flashy and doomed for dust and rust . . .?

misecmisc1

my theoretical understanding says: as per Dependent Origination, craving is on three levels - craving for sensuality, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming. craving leads to clinging, which leads to becoming, which leads to birth, which leads to suffering.

now if you will get rid of all craving completely, then you will become awakened - but for it craving for everything needs to be rid of, so craving for your job needs to go away, craving to be better in status than your friend needs to go away - so then it will not matter to you whether your friend has a better job than you - so then this will not arise negative emotions like jealousy in you, so no suffering. in a way, you will not want anything - so how could you suffer - instead, you will be fully accepting whatever is happening to you in the present moment.

but desire is neither something good, nor bad - desire is just desire - it is what we desire of determines the skillfulness or unskillfulness of that desire for us.

DairyLama

betaboy said:

He has a great job and I don't. Wouldn't these facts create negative emotions like envy, resentment etc. So even if craving for a good job or money/car is absent, wouldn't the mere facts of life create the stress that craving creates?

If you were really content not having a job and car, then you'd be happy, wouldn't you? So it's the discontent which is the problem, not what you don't have.

seeker242

let's say I have no craving reg. my job or money etc. Let's say my friend has a fancy car, and I don't. He has a great job and I don't. Wouldn't these facts create negative emotions like envy, resentment etc.

How could you have envy of your friend and his money and fancy car if you didn't have craving for money and fancy cars? It's impossible! Craving is the source of envy. For example, take something that you have no craving for, like a pile of dog poo. Would it ever make sense to say "I'm envious of my friend and his pile of dog poo!" Of course not, because no one craves to have a pile of dog poo for themselves. Replace it with a thing that people do crave, a pile of money, only then can envy arise. All you have to do is add craving and envy can arise. Remove the craving and envy can't arise. If you think you don't crave money but are still envious of other people who have a lot of it, I would say you aren't being honest with yourself.

Although, it's possible to have craving and not have envy if you cultivate the antidotes to or opposite mind states of envy and jealousy, like Mudita (sympathetic) joy, loving kindness and compassion.

Mudita
The Buddha's Teaching on Unselfish Joy
four essays by
Nyanaponika Thera, Natasha Jackson, C.F. Knight, and L.R. Oates

Jainarayan

betaboy said:

Let's say my friend has a fancy car, and I don't. He has a great job and I don't. Wouldn't these facts create negative emotions like envy, resentment etc. So even if craving for a good job or money/car is absent, wouldn't the mere facts of life create the stress that craving creates?

So my question is, even without craving, are we not gonna experience the same misery that craving causes? So what's the use of ridding oneself of craving?

Thanks for reading.

I don't think so, not if you don't let it get to you; not if you're not envious. I don't know why not craving would be a problem.There are people that have plenty more than I have. I don't begrudge them or an envious of them. They have what they have for a reason; I have what I have for a reason. Would I like to be more comfortable? Sure, because things are tight and I would like them to not be so, but "it is what it is".

MaryAnne

"...very, very important! "

Seriously?

matthewmartin

betaboy said:

So my question is, even without craving, are we not gonna experience the same misery that craving causes? So what's the use of ridding oneself of craving?

Samsara (the misery of ordinary life) is always there until we die. While alive Buddhist style happiness just being at peace with with it. Car envy arises, it falls away, you don't grasp or try to repel the experience.

Now in modern terms, ahedonia and the lack of desire to do anything would be associated with catatonic schizophrenia and major depression. I don't think that is what the Buddha had in mind.

This conundrum you've noticed is why the lotus flower is such a common symbol-- the flower is in the swampy muck (in samsara), but hovers just above it (has found a way to not be so bothered by it).

betaboy

seeker242 said:

let's say I have no craving reg. my job or money etc. Let's say my friend has a fancy car, and I don't. He has a great job and I don't. Wouldn't these facts create negative emotions like envy, resentment etc.

How could you have envy of your friend and his money and fancy car if you didn't have craving for money and fancy cars? It's impossible! Craving is the source of envy. For example, take something that you have no craving for, like a pile of dog poo. Would it ever make sense to say "I'm envious of my friend and his pile of dog poo!" Of course not, because no one craves to have a pile of dog poo for themselves. Replace it with a thing that people do crave, a pile of money, only then can envy arise. All you have to do is add craving and envy can arise. Remove the craving and envy can't arise. If you think you don't crave money but are still envious of other people who have a lot of it, I would say you aren't being honest with yourself.

Although, it's possible to have craving and not have envy if you cultivate the antidotes to or opposite mind states of envy and jealousy, like Mudita (sympathetic) joy, loving kindness and compassion.

Mudita
The Buddha's Teaching on Unselfish Joy
four essays by
Nyanaponika Thera, Natasha Jackson, C.F. Knight, and L.R. Oates

I think this nails it - maybe subconsciously I do crave, which is why I am feeling the effects like envy etc. It is so easy to say superficially that one doesn't crave but ... oh well, I only hope things change with time. Metta to you, my friend.

seeker242

betaboy said:

I think this nails it - maybe subconsciously I do crave, which is why I am feeling the effects like envy etc. It is so easy to say superficially that one doesn't crave but ... oh well, I only hope things change with time. Metta to you, my friend.

:bowdown:

Hamsaka

Your friend having a fancy car and a fat wallet do not, in and of themselves CAUSE craving. Lamborghini car, a wad of hundred dollar bills -- if they cause craving in and of themselves, you could plop them down in a collection of aboriginals in Tierra del Fuego and they would fall all over themselves craving them, but you know that is ridiculous, right?

It's what happens in your OWN THOUGHT PROCESSES that cause the craving, not the objects themselves. Craving arises from within your thoughts, your 'self'.

When you see a fancy car, your thoughts connect up some dots. Fancy car = admiration, envy, 'the person driving that car is something special' = I want that admiration and envy or to feel that bitch beneath me as I hit 120km on the Audubon = but here I sit, with a 1998 Hyundai (pathetic, embarrassing, sniggering from others) / (=loser!!!)

If you put a fancy car in front of me, I'd cringe because of the insurance, and sit in MY 2005 Hyundai grateful all the scratches and dings are already there and the insurance is reasonable. In your logic, @betaboy, putting a Lamborghini in front of me would cause me to have YOUR reaction of craving, too. It might be an interesting experience to have a throng of young nubile girls swooning over me and other dudes envying me but I definitely would not know what to do with that I'd send them all home with a duck because I have too many ducks, yeah.

riverflow

Hamsaka said:

Your friend having a fancy car and a fat wallet do not, in and of themselves CAUSE craving. Lamborghini car, a wad of hundred dollar bills -- if they cause craving in and of themselves, you could plop them down in a collection of aboriginals in Tierra del Fuego and they would fall all over themselves craving them, but you know that is ridiculous, right?

It's what happens in your OWN THOUGHT PROCESSES that cause the craving, not the objects themselves. Craving arises from within your thoughts, your 'self'.

On a similar note: There's that passage from the Bible (in the book of I Timothy) which is often misquoted as "MONEY is the root of evil." But the actual verse reads "the LOVE OF MONEY is the root of all evil." (the Greek word literally means avarice). The principle behind the expression is the same.

Dakini

betaboy said:

Shalom,

I understand that craving is a problem - no craving, no stress associated with it. But it doesn't end there. I will give an example to make this clear - let's say I have no craving reg. my job or money etc. Let's say my friend has a fancy car, and I don't. He has a great job and I don't. Wouldn't these facts create negative emotions like envy, resentment etc. So even if craving for a good job or money/car is absent, wouldn't the mere facts of life create the stress that craving creates?

No. Why would they, if you're happy with the car and job you have? What does it matter what someone else has? It's irrelevant, isn't it? If not, why not? "Facts" don't create negative emotions. Your mind does. Deal with your mind.