Expert: Joe McSorley - 4/17/2009

Question
QUESTION: I am confused about the whole concept regarding desires in Buddhism. I understand that I am always going to have desires, and Buddhism mentions this I believe. How does an enlightened person approach desires? Does he ignore them or repress them?

Also, If I am in a cold atmosphere, I have a desire to put on more clothes, such as a jacket. How would an enlightened person react to this situation? Would he fulfill his desire of warmth?
If this is an issue of unnecessary desires vs. Physiological needs, to what extent does a need become a desire?
Thank you,
Joey


ANSWER: Dear Joey,
  It is good that you think about these things and take them to task.  It is through looking into these things deeply that they might take hold of you and drive you to a greater awareness.
  The Four Noble Truths teach that life is suffering and the cause is ignorance (avidya).  It does not say the cause is desire or attachment but this is what is commonly taught as the root of ignorance.  Ignorance begins with the dualistic conscious, that we are broken from nature, outside of nature, that we are an “I” that is alienated from everything else.  From there we try to figure out who we are.  We know that we are and that we are going to die but we don’t know who it is that judges this.  We develop self-identity by judging what we like and don’t like, by our desires and dislikes.  You know yourself as Joey because of your tastes and desires.  You think who you are is the thing that desires these things.  We become attached to our self-identity, that self that we think will be fulfilled through our desires.
   The natural question that arises is: if desire is bad then what about the desire to get rid of desire?   Satori is about awakening to our true nature, the true self that exists before desire and alienation before this self-identity arose.  You can master many desires but what about the desire to eat, breathe and sleep?  You can only go so far with this.  If you get rid of all desires are you then a robot or a rock?  Ultimately, what is desire?  Desire is the attempt to fulfill a craving through any means of gratification yet fulfilling the craving never truly satisfies that desire or more accurately, it does not fulfill yourself.  Once you get what you thought would fulfill your desire you realize that it has not fulfilled it ultimately but only temporarily and the desire will rise again.  Desire is a contrivance of our consciousness that thinks that when we gain the object of our consciousness we will be satiated, but we never are.  This creates a never-ending cycle of want/desire/craving that never realizes the object of its desire.  So when we pursue a desire it never really gets fulfilled.  We always want to be a better athlete or scholar or whatever and never get there.  It’s because we think that we will know ourselves when we get the desire.  Who is it that has the desire?  Desires block us from seeing the root of our self.  So to overcome desire is to pursue our goals without being defined by those goals.  You can’t just pick out some desires and make some bad and some good.  Sexual desire is an important part of nature and is instinctual in most creatures. It can also be way out of perspective and ruin our lives.  Animals don’t have this confusion; they are not defined by the desire.  They do what they do in harmony with their nature.  To be free of desire is to be yourself fully in the moment without craving for something else.
  So we become attached to this idea of who we think we are, what we think will fulfill us and hope it will eventually make us happy.  It will not.  This self-identity we have is false but it is what we try to fulfill.  Because our minds can only know by contradistinction, to stand apart and judge, we cannot know who we are.  We cannot be that which we perceive.  If we perceive it then it stands outside from us, or contra-distinct, that we might be able to perceive it.  This is the only way our mind works and at the same time it is the problem with our mind.
   Zen practice aims to block this process of the mind, to stop the desire/attachment process and to just see/be in the moment. This does not mean ocular vision as you suggest, it more means to be completely aware in the moment without judging it through the eyes and history of this person you know as Joey.  This does not mean you are free of the consequences of cause and effect.  You still need to eat, sleep and have shelter.  You no longer seek outside to fulfill yourself, you are as complete as any flower is, a complete expression of nature. This frees you to pursue your goals as a complete being and not as one seeking fulfillment from it.  You are fulfilled already so it is no longer the goal that fulfills you.
 You exist because everything else exists and vice versa.  Emptiness isn’t empty but a fullness.  You are empty of your self-nature, meaning that you can’t exist without the rest of the whole so you don’t have a unique substance that exists without the rest of the universe, and at the same time the rest of the universe defines who you are.  It is ever changing and coming into and out of being.  We see it as one opposed to the other; being vs. non-being and life vs. death but they define each other and are inseparable.  
  The historical Buddha after awakening did not remove himself from the world but continued as a vital part of the world.  Knowing now that he was an expression of the universe he wanted to pass that on to others who were not aware of this as themselves.  He wasn’t dispassionate and removed but compassionate and involved.  To realize others as yourself compels you to help them out of their suffering.
  I hope this has helped you.
Take care,
         Joe
  


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you, you really helped me gain a better understanding on this subject, however I still have another question. You state that "To be free of desire is to be yourself fully in the moment without craving for something else." Now, you may have answered this following question already, but I still do not quite understand. So according to this quote, how would an enlightened person react to being hungry? Wouldn't he crave to eat?
Thank you again,
Joey

Answer
Dear Joey,
By ‘without craving for something else’ or desiring for something else I mean that you are satisfied and full as a human being.  This does not mean the need for food and shelter.  We are always looking for something to fulfill us, which is probably why you wrote me, but we never fulfill that desire or craving without knowing who we are. We project what we think will satisfy us and then pursue that desire.  We become attached to our view of reality without seeing reality as it is. You are looking at this as though somehow nature and natural needs do not exist for an awakened person.  We all must live according to our nature and we must eat and sleep to survive.  This is a need that does not arise from the mind but from the body.  So the body craves food and the mind knows it and articulates it.  The body does not crave fame and success or the meaning of life, the mind does.  So this drives the mind to look outside, and inside, to fulfill this craving/desire that will never be met. The idea of being detached is not to be detached by what life needs but by what the ego pursues and thinks is real.  Detachment is not paying attention to our ego cravings and is not to be confused, as it often is, with being detached from being alive and having natural emotions.  When it is appropriate to laugh, laugh and to cry, cry, it is natural.  What is unnatural is to keep yourself in an artificial state of emotion when what caused that emotion is long gone.  We become attached to our history, suffering, past joys and thoughts of reality and live our lives either desiring for a better future or a change in the past.  We do not live in the moment with what is right now free from the desire for it to be otherwise.
  If you are awakened you are fulfilled while pursuing your goals and perhaps failing at your goals, either way you are fully whole.  Being fulfilled is not contingent upon what you do or achieve but on whom you are in the present. There is the desire to fulfill goals like being a doctor or whatever, but not achieving this does not constitute a plight for the individual.  From the normal human consciousness we base our happiness on whether or not we achieve the goals.  From the enlightened persons perspective they are not defined by achieving those goals but from the normal person’s view they are.  How many people consider themselves a failure?  Can a flower ever be a failure?  It is always whole in and of itself.
 I hope this has helped you.
         Take care,
         Joe