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What do you do about desire?
banned_crab
Veteran
I have noticed that the only thing that holds me down is my desire. Desire is like a cancer and it spreads to become your only motivation in life. I constantly desire to 'satisfy' the image of my 'self'. I also desire approval from women, not lust but approval. I know that It can never be achieved but I still chase it. I cannot live in the present moment while I always desire. If you break down your suffering to its smallest point you see that their is only desire left.
What are we supposed to do about desire?
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Desire is a transitory and ephemeral emotion, just like sadness, happiness or irritation.
What do you do about those emotions?
Yes. Desire is suffering. So be mindful of sense pleasures. Good feelings don't mean it is always good. Bad feelings don't mean it is always bad.
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From the "6 Desires and antidotes" thread.
Do you reccomend reading the book
The question enters my mind, are desires good. I think without any desire you have nothing of value in the world. Do you become nihilistic, depressed, and unsatisfied with life? Without desire you have no sufferingg but without do you also lose out on happiness? I think some desires are natural but need to be refined so that the do not disrupt and misdirect your life.
Feed it would be a good idea. When it is well fed, it just dissapates.
Ask @dharmamom, it was her comment.
The desire is not the problem. The attachment to the outcome of the desire - is the problem.
Feeding desires is only a temporary fix and in the long run only causes them to grow.
Reflecting on the downside of your desire will, over time, help you to reduce your attraction to it. I've also found taking regular one day vows to abstain will help give some perspective on the desire as well.
Investigate the desire. Why do you desire it? Where does the desire to come from? Will the desire truly be satiated if you achieve/attain what you desire? Are you really attached to the desire itself, or the outcome from the desire? If you don't get what you want, what happens? Why do you care what others think of you, women specifically?
Contemplate all those sorts of questions to work on finding the answers.
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Actually, not always so...
I know a lady who was seriously addicted to chocolate who got the job of her dreams working in a Cadbury factory.
Within 2 weeks she was sick at the sight of the stuff....
In time, and with experience, desire can turn into preference. Then you choose based on previous experience with some knowledge of what to expect. Trying to eliminate the desire for joyful or exciting experiences without understanding what place those experiences will have in your life, is short sighted and could be a cause for regret.
Don't panic. Things will turn out well for you.
Desire can be a type of energy source. Just spend it on something useful, and not hurtful in the long run.
If I remember rightly, the Pali word we translate into 'desire' has some significantly different meanings from our own english word. That's a whole 'nother subject, but I've contemplated it to a degree, and understanding more fully what the Buddha meant is better accomplished by studying the Pali. It's not complicated at all, a google search is more than enough information on this.
Federica's post about being attached to the OUTCOME of desire is so right on, that's where the problems come from.
I desire the fruits of meditation, knowledge and wisdom. If I didn't desire them, why would I bother? Desire itself is an energy, it is neutral, as another poster wisely said.
If you desire the approval of women (very insightful of you I might add) that's a great place to start. It's your expectations, your expected outcome of that desire, that is the problem. If you dig into those, apply some study and contemplation, the desire for something so irrelevant as approval from women will lose it's reason for being in your mind in the first place.
@ heyiamacrab
What are we supposed to do about desire?
The theory on what to do about it can't hold a candle against the actual practice of doing it.
Treat desire as you would any arising, living and fading phenomena. Your meditation is your practice ground to learn how to do this.
Yes, It's often tough to do for it threatens the very basis for the human condition but that's the path towards sufferings cessation for ya.
Its hard to brush it off as irrelevant because of how much I desire it. No matter how much approval I get I still desire more of it. When I lose the approval I become obsessed with getting it back. So what your saying is that I should look at the desire until it goes away?
This is my usual approach to desires. I don't wrestle with desires, nor try to repress them, control them or look down on them as something negative. I handle them with curiosity and compassion and use them as tools of self-knowledge. Desires are not bad in themselves, it is how we relate to them that adds the positive or negative component.
When you're young and especially if you have no girlfriend, it is normal to search for approval from the opposite sex. The important thing with this need as with any other is not to get obsessively attached to it, to let it take over your mind to the point where you can't function properly nor be happy if you don't get a particular woman's attention.
As to the book, it is certainly recommended reading but very personal. It's one particular technique to handle negative emotions and help resolve inner conflicts.
Trungpa Rinpoche talked about feedomg 'dons' in his book Training the Mind. He did recommend even putting a small cake out for the dons. So I agree with the harboring the negativity. It seems that you adopt a certain amount of strength and determination. Trungpas book is about tonglen.
Trungpa's student Pema Chodrons basic teaching these days is to notice 'shenpa'. Shenpa is the pull of the person to 'gain' things that are outside of them. So it is the stickiness of even the smallest addiction. She also writes about tonglen.
The book where Pema Chödrön mentions 'shenpa' is called "Taking the leap."
The Tibetan translation for shenpa is "attachment" but she finds it easier to translate it as "what it feels like to get hooked." She says that it is "the urge to smoke that cigarette, the urge to overeat, to have one more drink, to say something cruel."
Problem with shenpa is that we are unable to catch it when it first arises."It's more common to be well into acting out or repressing by the time we realize that we're caught."
Chödrön finds that learning to pause, what Chögyam Trungpa called "the gap," is the solution to shenpa. "It creates a momentary contrast between being completely self-absorbed and being awake and present. You just stop for a few seconds, breathe deeply, and move on." Pausing helps you over time to get acquainted with (and hopefully stop feeding) what she calls "the hostile wolf."
Once you acknowledge you are hooked, you pause to do some conscious breathing. During this pause "Lean in to the energy. Abide with it. Experience it fully. Get curious about it."
In step three, the most difficult, "relax and move on. Just go on with your life so that the practice doesn't become a big deal, an endurance test, a contest that you win or loose."
(poor wolves. Like snakes, they get so much bad press...)
@heyimacrab, it might help if we knew exactly what the nature of your desire was... Is it a solid separate thing or a mental construct?
don't be so sure that it is not lust - question yourself why do you desire approval from women? deep down you may find lust there. think about this scenario - there is a woman, from whom you think that you just want her approval - so ok, lets imagine she is good looking and she likes you and so agrees or approves of everything whatever you say - then one night she takes you to her bedroom and says that you can do whatever you want with her and she approves that too - then at that stage will you just say to her that you just wanted approval from her side, turn your back at her and walk outside the room - or will you do a one-night stand with her taking precautionary measures, so later no pregnancy situation arises - what will you do? - the answer to this question may tell you if there is lust or not.
let desires arise - then - if desire is for doing skillful action, then act on them - and if desire is involving unskillful action, then abandon that desire.
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You don't chase it. You earn it. And you do that by showing respect and treating them courteously instead of objectifying them.
Be completely honest your desire - along with that of most young men your age - is to get laid.
Your problem is that to most young ladies, it's transparently obvious.
And because they can read you a mile off, your desire is thwarted.
Your mission is to view and treat them in precisely the way you desire them to treat you.
Irrelevant is a strong word . . . but no of course not, it's not irrelevant NOW, and a person can't just change their mind about something so drastically.
The reason it may become irrelevant is you've understood what in you drives this desire, and once you do, much of the compulsion is eliminated by the insight.
There is no special meditation or Buddhist ritual to stop desire. Instead there is much meditation over a period of time, study and reflection even when you aren't in the middle of the desire, and hard core self honesty. Especially the self honesty, willingness to acknowledge where you fall short of the mark, where you feel weak or vulnerable, or where your thinking is illogical or just plain delusional. Nope, no quick fix here. This desire of yours is one fish hook in a mason jar full of fish hooks, you pull out the one hook and all the rest come out, too.
Just sitting and watching it while it is happening will eventually reveal what is driving you to experience this need you plainly state is bothering you. That's why you sit and watch things, while attaining a very calm state of mind and concentration. "Wisdom" bubbles up through the layers when you are quiet enough to hear it.
Federica asked you to be more specific about this desire. I agree, the feedback you'd get would be more spot on if you did. A lot of the issues you ask for help on would get more help if you could add in specifics, such as what do you do to gain approval? What thoughts go through your head when you are around a woman you want approval from? What does approval from a woman LOOK like, and what does rejection or being ignored look like?
I think the first step is to look at it very closely and understand how it arises and where it leads us.
And when you really understand how desire arises and where it leads us, and what we are supposed to do about it... please pm me as I'm dieting to know...
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I think when you really "see through" desire, it sort of naturally diminishes. I'm eating less ice cream than I used to...
Investigate it, understand it, see it clearly, via "insight".
@Jeffrey CTR's "Training the Mind" book is about Lojong, not Tonglen
Though there is Tonglen in it as part of the slogans of course.
Feed the right desire! Then that desire will replace the unwanted.
Pretty basic.
@karasti, it's also about tonglen. In Pemas and CTR when they say 'sending and taking' that is tonglen.
Closed until OP returns with comment.