Coping with craving

Paradox

I understand that desire leads to suffering, I can see it, I can feel it, but I just can’t seem to let go of the desire. Nothing is ever good enough. Some days I feel so needy and greedy and I try and by mindful of it, but it just makes me feel miserable not having what I want. I want to be able to move beyond the delusion that what I desire will make me happy, but I don’t know how.

Any tips for dealing with this?

Jeffrey

Experience what you desire and see if it makes you happy. Or experience that
mind. I'll let you know if it works for me. :hrm:

federica

Visit a hospice with terminally ill patients and ask them what they're most attached to that they'd like to let go of.....

lightlotus

depends on what the desire/craving is? Elaborate a bit more.

Paradox

I tend to crave vague and intangible things, like success or admiration. I guess there is a pervasive feeling of not being enough the way I am – I need to be or achieve something more. I’m aware that going after things outside myself will never be fulfilling, but I am at a loss as to what the alternative is.

I seem incapable of accepting life as it is.

Jeffrey

Maybe do something creative like a craft. And try to let go and just enjoy the form. Or the media of creation. Notice what makes it fun and not fun.

Jeffrey

Pema Chodron's new teacher introduced to her a teaching about shenpa. She is giving teachings about shenpa which are these things that hook us. Its not the things that hook us she says but rather something we experience perhaps in body and mind? Sitting through this hook or stretching the sitting. Noting and observing it even if indulging.

SherabDorje

I understand that desire leads to suffering, I can see it, I can feel it, but I just can’t seem to let go of the desire. Nothing is ever good enough. Some days I feel so needy and greedy and I try and by mindful of it, but it just makes me feel miserable not having what I want. I want to be able to move beyond the delusion that what I desire will make me happy, but I don’t know how.

Any tips for dealing with this?

The Noble Eightfold Path?

Paradox

Thanks guys, some food for thought.

The Noble Eightfold Path?

Aren't there any short cuts?

footiam

It would be great to just desire something, work for it and take what comes may.

Jeffrey

But you can go wrong too. Thats the samsaric perspective.

pegembara

Reminds me of this story.

LOOKING FOR A SWEET CHILLI

On his way from Persia to India, Mulla Nasrudin saw a man selling a small long green fruit which he had never seen before. Curious, he asked the vendor: “What is this lovely fruit?”

“Chillies. Fresh Green Chillies,” said the Vendor.

Mulla Nasrudin gave the vendor a gold coin and the Vendor was so overjoyed that he gave Nasrudin the full basket of green Chillies.

Mulla Nasrudin sat down under a tree and started to munch the Chillies and within a few seconds, his mouth was burning. Tears streamed down his cheeks, his nose watered copiously and there was fire his throat. But, utterly nonchalant, Nasrudin went on eating the chillies and his condition began to get worse and worse.

Seeing his pitiable condition, a passerby asked, “What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you stop eating those hot Chillies?

“May be there is one that is sweet, “Nasrudin answered. “I keep waiting for the sweet one!” Nasrudin said and he kept on eating the fiery Chillies.

On his way back, the passerby saw that Mulla Nasrudin’s condition had become even more terrible, but he kept on eating, and the basket of Chillies was almost empty.

“Stop at once or you will die. There are no sweet Chillies!” the passerby shouted at Nasrudin.

“I cannot stop until I have finished the whole basketful,” Nasrudin said, croaking in agony,

“I have paid for the full basket I am not eating Chillies anymore. I am eating my money”.


Shortcuts? No easy way I'm afraid. Some times extreme suffering can lead to deep insights.

Vipassana — literally "clear-seeing," but more often translated as insight meditation — is said to be a method using a modicum of tranquillity to foster moment-to-moment mindfulness of the inconstancy of events as they are directly experienced in the present. This mindfulness creates a sense of dispassion toward all events, thus leading the mind to release from suffering.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/onetool.html

yiming

I understand that desire leads to suffering, I can see it, I can feel it, but I just can’t seem to let go of the desire. Nothing is ever good enough. Some days I feel so needy and greedy and I try and by mindful of it, but it just makes me feel miserable not having what I want. I want to be able to move beyond the delusion that what I desire will make me happy, but I don’t know how.

Any tips for dealing with this?

You are being vague. Why does desire lead to suffering?

Jeffrey

For whom?

Jeffrey

Its like a radio station.. You fiddle with the dial and see what the stations are playing.

That is kind of how connection to the teachings of buddhism can hook you up with 'something'...

We tune or hone in on something and then we get a message back. So the buddhism radio station, what does it give? Well this is a fail analogy from the beginning at least its a little entertaining. Thats how the dharma as can be explained isn't the whole truth.

Mandalas and messengers

Paradox

I understand that desire leads to suffering, I can see it, I can feel it, but I just can’t seem to let go of the desire. Nothing is ever good enough. Some days I feel so needy and greedy and I try and by mindful of it, but it just makes me feel miserable not having what I want. I want to be able to move beyond the delusion that what I desire will make me happy, but I don’t know how.

Any tips for dealing with this?

You are being vague. Why does desire lead to suffering?

Good question.

I can see intellectually that something is not going to make me permanently happy, but I guess I haven’t figured it out on a deeper level. Some days I’m a bit like a drug addict who keeps doing drugs despite the fact that they know drugs are unhealthy.

Therefore I suffer in terms of frustration, disappointment and dissatisfaction whether I get what I want or not.

Sorry if I’m still being vague.

I think Jeffry and pegembara have hit the nail on the head in terms of needing to experience the things I desire and see directly if they bring me happiness or not. It’s interesting because I am able to do this when it comes to material things or sensory desires, but when it comes to more social things like approval, love, success etc I have a real aversion to looking too closely.

vinlyn

Having what you want when it is easily attained is, in my view, no problem. It's having what you want when it is not easily attainable that is a problem. One year, the day before heading home from 7 weeks in Thailand, I went to a sort of official Thai crafts fair on the grounds of one of the old royal palaces. There I saw a remarkably beautiful stone Buddha figure. I wanted it so bad, but I knew that without an exit permit for it, it would be confiscated at the airport, and getting such a permit would take several days. I was in turmoil. Suddenly it occurred to me that this was a wonderful example of just what Sihhartha had preached against -- desiring things to the point that it caused you suffering. Once I really thought about that, I put it out of my mind and regained my composure.