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Hope and buddhism
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
Something I realised the other day was that hope is in fact a form of desire, you’re wishing for something imperfect from the past to become more perfect in the future. Now desire is one of the three poisons, and this is held not to be a good thing.
Should one then let go of one’s hopes for the future? It feels somewhat scary to live without projecting some achievable good things to aim for. It feels like letting go of a pattern that created some degree of certainty in life.
But on the other hand, hope is something that drags your attention away from the present. It encourages you to spend your time dreaming, rather than living in the here-and-now. It obscures your clarity of vision.
What are your thoughts on how beneficial hope is?
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Comments
At the risk of repeating....
I once asked my teacher -- Kyudo Nakagawa -- what role hope and belief played in Zen practice. He said, "For the first four or five years [of practice] hope and belief are necessary." "And after that?" I asked. "After that, hope and belief are not so necessary."
Initially, hope and belief light the fuse of practice. But experience trumps daydreaming, so after a bit of practice, the usefulness of daydreaming diminishes.
Hope is faith without conviction. Whether it is helpful or a hindrance may well depend on the focus and the intent.
Not all desire can be bad. What about the desire to get up from the bodhi tree and spread the dharma?
@David -- "Spreading the dharma" has always left me a bit flummoxed: How would anyone go about spreading what they couldn't escape in the first place?
PS. Reminds me a bit of that Zen scoundrel Ummon who was said to have observed, "When you can't say it, it's there. When you don't say it, it's missing."
I think @genkaku has it. I would add that hope is replaced by intention. Intention gives us more freedom and is flexible, whereas hope is more clingy and continues the cycle. I guess at a certain point words are just place holders and you would know if what you're doing (hoping v intending) is having a negative impact.
I think different things could be meant by hope. It could be a passing feeling that is not any kind of problem in and of itself. Or it could be a standard of how you want things to be and later you might say "I didn't get what I had hoped for". And in that direction it could be something to contemplate. Say "what do I hope for?" and "why do I hope for that?" and "is it a wise thing to hope for?"
Where there's physical or mental pain, I think hope is an expression of goodwill and compassion. As @David noted, it can be a skillful desire, depending on its object, worldly or spiritual. Absent desire and hope, there's really no impetus toward spiritual development and persistence in it.
As @genkaku pointed out, hope becomes increasingly superfluous with spiritual development. I think you make a good point that "hope is something that drags your attention away from the present." It's an indicator. When there's hope, there's not contentment or renunciation.
As John Lennon put it, "God Hope is a concept by which we measure our pain."
I don't like or use the word hope ...as it's another word for wish....and as the old saying goes...'If wishes were horses, poor men would ride'.
On the other hand....using the concept/word hope seems to keep a lot of people motivated and getting up in the morning when life sucks....almost a catalyst for positive thinking, which I'm all in favor of, so.... overall, I would agree that it doesn't fit in A Buddhist school of thought, per se.
From many Buddhist Masters' teachings, it is something like this.
You do not attach to the past or the future. You live here and now. However, you do "plan" for the future.
So I guess
Hope for the future = attach to the future.
A Mi Tuo Fo
'Hope' is despair disguised as an optimistic virtue.
Buddha could not escape his own teachings?
Is flummoxidation catchy?
Hope is certainly more beneficial than doom and gloom. For instance, I have faith that each and every one of us has the ability to wake up to the fact of interconnectivity and all it implies. I can only hope that we will though. This hope still allows me to see positivity and seeing positivity, I can help others be more positive just as being negative only projects negativity.
Hopeful people are probably happier than doom and gloomers.
If one wants to live in the present then yes....
Open the present now...don't try to save it for the future ...The future (& the past) are often used to wrap up/disguise/cover the present...
The wrapping is not the present....
Every moment (by moment) @Kerome one is building the future and dismantling the past... and this building work can only happen in the present moment...
Living 'in' Hope from what I gather is just wishful thinking ... But living 'the' Hope is the present
Well something like that....Thus have I heard
Having no hope is not hopeless for the advanced Nowist (which I hope is taken to mean someone in the present) Where does any intention arise? It arises from past experience to instigate future action.
Live or Be The Hope is a useful way to be. Hope that makes sense ...
I understand, but it seems now to me that striving for positivity also leads you to fill your life with things to be positive about, which takes one away from clarity and the present. In a way the journey of Buddhism becomes at a certain stage clearing out all the things that attract (desires) and all the things that repel (fear & avoidance).
To what extent do these hopeful people live in dreams? Is doom and gloom necessarily the opposite of being hopeful? It seems to me it is not. Doom and gloom too are dreams displaced into the future, but then shadows of fear. It seems more rational to just clear the stage for the present, let the dreams dissipate, and see what is left as a middle road. It looks more like emptiness than anything else.
Striving for positivity is a well meaning fool's errand. It's like the pursuit of happiness. When we finally see how we can train the mind thereby changing our thinking pattern, being positive is a choice. There need not be a specific focus or reason.
However, finding reasons to be positive can only be beneficial. Not only to all involved but it can only happen in the present so I'm not sure what you mean by it taking us away from the present. Perhaps by using positivity like a means to an end when in fact it is the end and the means.
I think there is a positive beyond he duality of positive and negative.
Lol. Not to piss you off but it seems you found the positive approach after all.
At any rate, I'm sort of playing the devils advocate here as I've never been a big fan of hope. I do know that some people count on it to help them through their day though. And when we help somebody out, we condone it.
Indeed.
This beyond positive is 'right action', right being, effective being, Buddha Nurturing etc. However we like to label or understand the rightly guided ones, Boddhisatvas and above ...
@Vastmind describes it as 'a catalyst'. Do we wish to improve the situation? Hopefully yes. Can practice improve the situation for ourselves and others? Of course.
My hope is for more enlightened ones, then they can tell me where to park my fish ... ?
It depends entirely on the intentions for the hope. For example, "I hope I become wealthy."
Yes, let go of that.
"I hope all beings will be free from suffering"
No, don't let go of that.
I find this interesting. I don’t think there can be any exclusions. One may say, “I wish all beings will be free from suffering”, which is almost the same thing, but it is momentary, it is something you express in the here-and-now. However if you carry within you the hope for all beings to be free from suffering, you still open the door to a form of desire. In a way this bothers me about bodhicitta as well, in the Mahayana tradition.
Either greed/desire is one of the unwholesome roots, or it is not. Is it possible to desire something, to want something to happen, without falling into the trap of greed or craving? Where does one draw the line?
There are unwholesome and wholesome roots. The unwholesome roots here are translated as passion, aversion and delusion, with the wholesome as non-passion, non-aversion and non-delusion. Action rooted in the former is dark kamma with dark result; in the latter, bright kamma with bright result. 2
In @seeker242’s examples, hope can be unskillfully rooted in passion, as in desire for wealth, or skillfully rooted in non-aversion, as in desire for the welfare of all living beings. These can be dark or bright or both and each, as you've pointed out, are rooted in some form of desire, wholesome or unwholesome.
It sounds to me what you’re driving at is the fourth of type of kamma that is neither dark nor bright with neither dark nor bright result and leads to the ending of kamma. 1 It is rooted, I think, in the ostensibly paradoxical desire for renunciation. It isn't really a paradox because renunciation is it's neither dark nor bright result. I think that type of kamma in relation to the examples is this: one discerns a mind affected by passion, including unskillful hope, or one discerns a mind affected by non-aversion, including skillful hope.
MN 10 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
AN 4.235 ↩︎
Hope is arising. How is it shaping your practice here and now? Is it a cause for an extrapolating mind, are you lost in a daydream in a future world wherein all beings are free? Has hope now turned to despair? Can't a hopeful thought turn to a disparaged one?
Why say hope is positive? Why is it better, don't we find enlightenment everywhere, even from the negative?
Is this a dilemma in your practice? Cause if it is I'd say hope has become a negative idea for you in some ways. Otherwise its just a mindfuck for some readers in which case...
Hope is arising. So what?
I would say yes.
That's why some teachers make a distinction between "Taṇhā" and "Chanda".
Both can be translated as "desire" but they're different mental states.
For example, "I'm hungry, I desire food. But if I don't get any then no problem" is quite different from "I'm hungry, I desire food and if I don't get any I'm going to be upset!"
The first still is "desiring food" but not falling into any traps.
I find this to be a good description.
According to the second chapter of the Jewel Ornament of Liberation three mental qualities and two physical are needed to practice dharma to completion.
The mental are trust, longing, and clarity. The physical are leisure and endowment. The text further explains these five through the chapter.
But basically where chapter 1 says that we all have the Buddha nature and can become Buddhas chapter 2 says what additional qualities we need in our life to study Buddhism.
So if by hope what is meant is trust, longing, and clarity then indeed hope is a good quality. But hope could mean something else. Thus it depends what is meant by hope.
To me it comes down to the attachment. I don't think hope or desire are all bad. But our attachment to them and their outcomes is generally not good. I think it can be hard to find the line, but you can feel it if you pay attention. For us to truly move forward in life, we need to envision what it looks like to be in the future somewhere. But envisioning should be expansive and open, always changing and adjusting. I think hope is pretty much the same. A lot of people use hope and faith as excuses not to participate in action. The same people will often say that hope is the opposite of fear and that that are staving off fear by being hopeful. But most often, they are living in their fear and just turning it around, which I don't think is particularly helpful. Not that there are no benefits to positive thinking, but avoiding the negative tends to be the theme there.
I am more like @Vastmind where to me, hope is like a wish. A desire for things to be other than they are. Some vague idea that there is something we wish were different but we don't really delve into it or know what to do about it. So we have hope that it'll change. I use the word a lot, but it's more a careless use of a word rather than a feeling or a true connection to it. I don't "hope" for much, truly. If something is worth hoping for, then it's worth working on.
The Buddha taught that there's constructive, "virtuous" hope/desire/goal-setting, that helps lead us toward Liberation, and non-constructive desire, that contributes to the cycle of samsara. Seeking to improve oneself, to adhere to the precepts, practice compassion, and develop insight and wisdom, are all worthy goals, that not only help us leave samsara ourselves, they foster a sort of ripple effect, in which our own more Enlightened understanding and behavior help improve the world around us, to some degree alleviating the suffering of other sentient beings.
What's not to like?
... some very helpful explanations. Many thanks.
... in particular it is worth remembering how in Tantra, emotional states, desires and inclinations are used as transforming principles. In future with sufficient insight, transformed egoic states can be redeployed.
So for example desire for further suffering/dukkha is replaced with wholesome desires ... polishing routine/practices enable a more profound opening or relaxing into Buddha Nature ...
Ideally the innate Mind, exhibits a more enlightened quality of being ...
Desire to be a Bodhisattva? ... now that's a hopeful plan ... ??♀️
I will add to my post above because it could easily be mistaken. "Leisure" (see my post) is not free time from work and family etc. rather in the text it means freedom from eight specific negative conditions: hell being, hungry ghost, animal realm, long life god, barbarian, wrong views, no Buddha appeared in world, mute.
It is an old text though so I think it would require reflection. But the point that lead me to post is that "leisure" conventionally would be mistaken to mean "Oh gosh I never have any free time". That's a separate issue. The first three (animal, hell, hungry ghost) refer to being so overpowered by anger, mental anguish, or ignorance that the dharma cannot be practiced. An animal might not care about creating virtue that could connect to the dharma. House pets might be an exception! Long life Gods first off might not have any conceptual thought so thus are not reflecting on the teachings. Also our suffering pacifies egotism and makes us sympathetic to other beings who are also suffering and it makes us long to be free from samsara. So that's the deal with the God realms. Barbarians have trouble meeting spiritual beings. The specific problematic wrong views are views that you don't care about other beings and you don't care about amassing virtue or being free from negative things. Mute refers to more than cannot talk. In the text I think it means you don't have senses and all around mental qualities to hear and reflect on the dharma. That speech is mentioned is especially of concern to me because I don't know many people offline that I could talk to about spirituality so of any of those eight afflictions that I have I wonder if it would benefit me to be more connected and have experiences talking about the dharma.
But I posted this because I didn't want it mistaken that 'leisure' means you have no responsibilities that take some time rather it means freedom from affliction of eight things that can make it hard (impossible?) to study the dharma and meet spiritual beings. And if ones work and family responsibilities resemble being an animal or hell being or a barbarian then I am a bit worried!
Hello Everyone
My name is Tsultrim which means discipline
in Tibetan. I hope I can be of benefit on this forum. As one can see I will first have to tame the technology.
As for hope in the dharma, at the stage of enlightenment one transcends hope and fear. Up to that point it can be a distraction as well as a benefit. I have found it useful even lifesaving with some problems , but also a strong source of mental cycling that has kept me from here and now.
My best to all of you on the path. I hope we can progress (or see through the wish to do so) together. Tsultrim
Hi Tsultrim and welcome. By mental cycling do you mean thoughts that are distracting and just take up your time? I have that in meditation of course where I realize I am thinking about something and I note that and then it happens again and again and each time I might glance how much time left in the meditation. For me that cycling through thoughts takes up quite a bit of time each meditation. I would think that being concerned or hopeful or fearful with something would lead one to get caught up and lead to the cycling.
Hi Jeffrey
Yes to all you said. Samsara means cycle actually, so we may think of our discursive thinking as samsara although it usually applies to suffering cycling through lifetimes. Yes, we spend a lot of time doing it, and it takes us away from realizing who we are or aren't. When we are stressed the cycling worsens and we can spin down the rabbit hole if not careful
Everybody has their own kind of meditation, but if I may suggest, label your string of thoughts as thinking as you come back to the present. It's helpful. It will provide leverage for you to recognize you've been rambling and help you not start over again. Say thinking gently just as a little reminder (not out loud). Don't get In a war with your mind over the thinking btw. Mind has boundless energy when riled as we all know from being fried by it.
It's great you practice. Nice to hear from you.
@Kerome
My understanding of hope's involvement in Buddhism AKA Dharma Practice....
Originally I had hoped (with all my heart) that Dharma practice would lead to a better understanding of life , but as time went by, (and as understanding developed), I found this hopefulness was becoming increasingly hope less ...
Thus have I found Dharma practice to be.... hope less
I hope this makes sense
Or in a nutshell...
"Hope is (so it would seem) the opium of emotions"
The Stoics were/are really on to something