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Passion in Buddhism
From passion arises sorrow and from passion arises fear. If a man is free from passion, he is free from fear and sorrow. - The Buddha
So I've been studying Buddhism and the Tao for about a month or two, and I'm having a hard time w/ grasping why passion either in small or large quantities is not good, I understand that the 'middle path' is the way to enlightenment, but the only thing that seems to reside in the middle is nothingness?
Why would I want my life to be about nothingness?
Most my life it's always seemed to be 'you take the good with the bad', and part of life is the struggle to reach the 'good' high points, and even through the struggle (which I assume you might be ready to label as 'suffering') you have ups and downs, but the passion of the struggle is what is good.
Ultimately, it seems that if you have a positive outlook on life and have a passion to do good things, why is the 'middle path' any better?
Sorry if this post sounds condescending, but I am genuinely interested!
Am I missing or not understanding something?
So I've been studying Buddhism and the Tao for about a month or two, and I'm having a hard time w/ grasping why passion either in small or large quantities is not good, I understand that the 'middle path' is the way to enlightenment, but the only thing that seems to reside in the middle is nothingness?
Why would I want my life to be about nothingness?
Most my life it's always seemed to be 'you take the good with the bad', and part of life is the struggle to reach the 'good' high points, and even through the struggle (which I assume you might be ready to label as 'suffering') you have ups and downs, but the passion of the struggle is what is good.
Ultimately, it seems that if you have a positive outlook on life and have a passion to do good things, why is the 'middle path' any better?
Sorry if this post sounds condescending, but I am genuinely interested!
Am I missing or not understanding something?
0
Comments
http://newbuddhist.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3768&highlight=passion
In hindsight... Why in the heck do they translate it to 'passion' when everyone says it should be more akin to 'addiction' or 'craving'. This small translation issue seems like a huge misunderstanding for any English reader who glances or reads a bit about Buddhism, as the general US populace attributes Buddhism with nihilism.
Say you get a new car. That can be very enjoyable. But it can be a chance to become obsessed that everything in your cart is perfect. You have the paint just perfect. You clean it every day. You have all the latest accessories. All fine.
Then one day you get in a little accident and put a huge dent in it! At that point you could become very enraged in proportion to how obsessed you were.
In dispassion you would enjoy the car without any illusions that it were permanent.