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[jmfargo]

I've been thinking of the mysteries of the world lately, the "why are we here" and "what's the whole point" kind of thoughts that most people have every now and then when they're going through a crisis of faith in their life, or when they're emo teenagers. I'm not actually either of these, but my mind has been gently perusing different religious tenents* and allowing them to sift through the filter that is my life's experiences.

I've come to a very important conclusion: Everyone is wrong.

Oh, don't get me wrong, loving your neighbor, trying to be generally nice to everyone, and being good people? These are all good things. It's when you dive deep into religions and look at the world around us now that you can pick out where they're more than slightly skewed and unrealistic.

Let's take Buddhism, for example. (I bet you thought I was going to rant about Christianity, huh?) One of the Buddhist beliefs is that desire leads to suffering (kind of THE big belief, as I understand it) and so the deal is to work to get all desire out of your system, at which point you will reach Nirvana, and they'll play you some cool tunes, or something.

But desire is an inherently human trait, as far as I can tell. All humans want something, though some want less than others. Even those that work to divorce themselves of want are then wanting something - change. There is nothing wrong with this, want in itself is not a bad thing. The important thing is to be able to look at desire and classify it into different areas.

Let me give an example: I want a million dollars (or more). Wanting it isn't a bad thing. The bad thing would be if I then was to take steps to get it that I knew would hurt others, like robbing people, committing fraud, and generally becoming a bad person. It's the action, not the desire, that leads to negativity. If I played the lottery every week, or better yet, got an education, worked hard, and saved up a million dollars (or more), this is a good thing that not only helps me achieve my goal but may also end up helping other people, depending on what I do to get there. There's also the fact that getting to this goal, following my motivation, can help me stay out of trouble in other ways, potentially.

So many religions focus on intent instead of action, desire instead of morality. Desire is what makes us human, there's no stopping it, and there's nothing wrong with it. We are but animals ourselves, with the main difference being that we can weigh our actions against our instincts. This is what makes us who we are and what we should focus on, not completely cutting out what makes us beautiful.

How could I be wrong? How could desire, in and of itself, be a negative thing? Is there more to it than just the action of denying or accepting our desire that is positive or negative? I just don't see it.

*Dictionary.com defines "tenent" as: \Ten"ent\, n. [L. tenent they hold, 3d pers. pl. pres. of tenere.] A tenet. [Obs.] --Bp. Sanderson. Worst. Definition. Ever! (I was looking it up to make sure I was spelling it correctly.)

Comments

[pleepleus.livejournal.com]

I don't think desire is wrong. There are levels of desire. If you desired nothing, there would be no motivation to move you along in life.

For example, if the caveman had not desired warmth, he would not have learned to control and start fire. Without that seemingly simple idea, where would man be today?

If as a baby, you had not desired to grab the brightly colored toy, you would not have learned motor control.

You can't think of desire in only extravagent terms. As you say, it is the actions leading to the fulfillment of desire that can get tricky, not the desire itself.

[jfargo.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much what I'm saying, yeah. Good sum-up. :)

[pleepleus.livejournal.com]

LOL!, Sorry, that's what I get for typing and working at the same time. Thoughts go awry.

[jfargo.livejournal.com]

No, really, no need to apologize - I really was saying good sum-up! :) Sometimes when I write I've been accused of getting wordy for the sake of writing more, and I'm glad to see that what I wrote could get broken down without a problem.

I actually kind of wish I had put in things like the caveman and the baby. :)

[pleepleus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but then ya gotta take the caveman to lunch and apologize for dumbing him down. If modern tv has taught us anything, it is that the caveman wants recognition for his intelligence. ;p

[reynold.livejournal.com]

Ahh, but what if you desire something you can't have, for example: I desire to live forever. Does not desiring the impossible lead to your own suffering? Desiring something that is hard to obtain leads to suffering as well, maybe suffering you can accept but suffering nether the less.

It is not just the action itself that leads to suffering. Physical suffering perhaps, but when you throw in mental or emotional suffering as well then desire can and does lead to suffering.

[jfargo.livejournal.com]

If you were to work towards your goal of living forever, say by following it to the logical choice of bio-medical sciences, you could go on to discover wonderful things and basically make the world itself better. You yourself would probably be frustrated, yes, and I guess you could call that suffering, but I see it more as a yearning. I don't know, am I strange in that I believe that yearning for something is not the same as suffering for it?

I want to be the ruler of the world, but that's not going to happen, and it just doesn't bug me all that much. ;)

[jfs.livejournal.com]

"I had to look in the dictionary,
to find the meaning of unrequited,
when she was giving it away for free
at a party to which I was never invited."

So said Billy Bragg.

Desire can be a fantastic motivator, and also a horrible destroyer. There's a reason that the Bible says "the love of money is the root of all evil" - desire can get between you and other people; especially when that desire is for things.

Take your post above and chance each instance of the word 'desire' for 'obsess' and see if you're as happy with the message. Because the difference between desire and obsession is one of degree only.

[jfargo.livejournal.com]

Because the difference between desire and obsession is one of degree only.

Again though, we're talking about the actions of the person obsessed. I guess I may not have known someone to be obsessed in the "I'm willing to kill to get the person I'm after" movie kind of obsessed definition, but I have known people to be obsessed with, say, LARP to the point where they divorced their husband and changed their life so that they would have more time.

Is that bad? Maybe, and yes, it did definitely lead to suffering in many people, but again it was the action, not the desire/obsession itself that caused it.

I'm just for people understanding themselves better. KNOW what you want, why you want it, and if what you're willing to do for it is a "bad thing" and that may lead to enlightenment.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

I think you're slicing your argument awfully thin, and I'm not sure to what purpose. I also think that there's a couple of points to answer (which are kind of contradictory) so I'll attempt to address both:

Firstly, ff desire without action doesn't count, then it doesn't matter in the slightest whether it's good, evil or peanut-butter-with-jelly. It's irrelevant.

But I'd argue that desire can't even exist without action. If I do nothing but sit at home and daydream about having a million dollars, that desire is causing me not to act. And inaction is a form of action; after all, the whole time I'm sitting at home desiring my million without acting is time I'm not acting on anything else.

Secondly, I can't speak from a Buddhist perspective, but I can from a Catholic one. The 10 Commandments don't argue against desire; they argue against coveting. It's pretty much a synonym of desire, but it has a slightly different overtone; covetness implies an unhealthy desire for something, especially something that someone else has got that you wish you had.

So in that case, coveting, even if I do nothing about it, is bad - if I covet your LARP sword, or your girlfriend, or your house, it's going to effect how I relate to you. Because you have all these cool things, and I want them.

Without overt action on my part, change still happens.

[jfargo.livejournal.com]

I think you're slicing your argument awfully thin, and I'm not sure to what purpose.

I've always been poor with logical arguments, so let me get to what I'm really trying to say. Desire in and of itself is not bad. The changes it leads to, as you mention, can be bad or good, but the desire is not bad itself, desire can lead to good things and bad, so I would say the "suffering" comes from the way it's handled more than anything else.

Buddhism says that desire automatically leads to suffering, and that's the problem I have with it.

Also, using the Catholic way of things, I "covet" Jessica Alba. Is that a bad thing, in and of itself? I'm never going to do anything about it, and it doesn't really pain me that I can't "have" her, but it's there, and it is.

I suppose that in the end it comes down to your definition of both desire and suffering?

oh I'll bite

[khiron1416.livejournal.com]

from one angle..
so do you want a million dollars, or do you want what a million dollars could get you. IE if you had a million dollars would you keep it in a briefcase on shelf? no, you'd spend it, and then you might want another million dollars.
desire is universal
which is why suffering is also universal.

Re: oh I'll bite

[jfargo.livejournal.com]

I've heard this argument before, and you're right, it's an infinite loop based upon the desire of things rather than being happy with what you have. The fact is that I want money, but if I could never have anything else than what I have right now (okay, except maybe more food...) I would be relatively okay with this.

I would still want, but I think I'd be pretty okay with where I am.

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

But desire is an inherently human trait, as far as I can tell. All humans want something, though some want less than others.

Couldn't one say that Buddhists desire to achieve nirvana?

[jfargo.livejournal.com]

*nods* See squid314's reply below. He mentions the Mahayan Buddhists and this recursive logic.

[squid314.livejournal.com]

Well, as the Buddhists say, desire is the root of all suffering. When you desire something, you're unhappy until you can have it. Whether you desire something great like world peace, something bad like killing your enemies, or something neutral like a million bucks, desiring it still means you can't just stay where you are and be happy. You're always just hoping once you do this or do that, you'll be happy at some point in the future - and of course it never happens because you just start desiring something else.

It's true that wanting to get rid of desire is itself a desire - that's one of the basic insight of Mahayana Buddhism right there, and one of the reasons systems like Zen get so weird. You have to not only not desire anything but not desire to not desire anything (and so on through various metalayers), something which can only be achieved through a mystical disconnect. I don't pretend to understand more of it.

[jfargo.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think there's something lacking in the translation though. See, I desire LOTS of things, I love ~stuff~, which apparently makes me a good red-blooded American. But through this love of having ~stuff~ I'm said to had suffering in that I'm unhappy until I have it.

I just don't see that.

I'm good with what I have, and while I want a BMW Z3, silver with all leather cow interior, I'm good with not having it too. So where's my suffering? I guess that's part of what I don't understand.

Though I will give that some desire does lead to suffering, it's silly to say it doesn't. My argument though is that not all desire leads to suffering.

[khamura.livejournal.com]

Just randomly drifting by on my way across my friendsfriends list.

The "Suffering" referred to in Buddhism is actually the approximation (as in, an insufficiently accurate translation) of "dukkha", the central concept of Buddhism. It's the focus of the Four Noble Truths (such as the first, stating simply "There is dukkha."), and although it's often translated as "suffering", goes beyond that. Dukkha is also "imperfection", "impermanence", "emptiness" and "insubstantiality". Most people who are aware of the issue agree that "suffering" is too narrow a translation and it is best to leave the term untranslated. (But Buddhism has never been above adopting inaccurate terms where it furthered understanding among the uninitiated -- the classic "lies-to-children" scenario.)

So desire doesn't necessarily lead to suffering, ie, dukkha -- it's an immanent part of life, and it is life that is dukkha. It is by that relation that desire is understood as a negative concept: for as long as you desire, you are entrenched in dukkha, and thus in the cycle of death and rebirth. To free oneself of that is but the first step in the path that leads to nirvana -- which, incidentally, is not a place, but a state of liberation of the mind.

[jfargo.livejournal.com]

Thank you for further explaining what is meant by "suffering" in terms of Buddhism, I really appreciate it as it's something that no-one has ever taken the time to fully educate me on. Knowing its full import makes it clearer to me, and helps me "see" a little better.

As far as nirvana goes, I do understand that it is a state of liberation rather than a place, but that was my small attempt at humor and not meant to be taken literally.

Thank you again, I love expanding my knowledge.

[khamura.livejournal.com]

Sure thing. I have to put my subject of academic study to some use, you know. ;)

[squid314.livejournal.com]

Your desire for a BMW isn't actively causing you to suffer in the same way that, say, hitting you with a stick would, but couldn't it still be tying you down into the things of this world, which is generally full of suffering and could very well cause you to suffer later.

[or is that just a restatement of what you were saying about desire being a part of being human, with the added corollary that being human involves suffering? If so, maybe we don't disagree]

Even if you can't directly trace every one of your desires to something bad happening, would it be fair to say that whatever problems and suffering you have right now are a direct result of your desires?

[sundustrise.livejournal.com]

Desire is a double-edged sword. Without desire, we'd be sitting in caves, shivering or sweating depending on the season. But desire also has caused most of our problems throughout human history. Basically, I think the human species is not very good at balancing, and learning balance is the ultimate goal.

Hm.

[turbotroll.livejournal.com]

Well, as you so eloquently stated, "we are but animals ourselves." Is desire in or itself "wrong?" No. How can it be? It is ingrained within us. I desire to keep on living. I could end my life; free will gives me that power. I choose not to because I do not desire to die. Desire is, therefore, at the very core of my being, and, I suspect, at the core of the most enlightened among the human race. I think the point they are trying to get across is simply recognizing that desire is the root of all suffering. I am not a Buddhist, but I hear no mention of "negativity" or "evil" in there. That's why Buddhism is often referred to as a philosophy instead of a religion.

Feel free to correct me on that last bit, however I'm fairly
sure that is accurate.

"But desire is an inherently human trait, as far as I can tell"

Many religions have a place, system, or state resembling Nirvana,
and it would seem that it's generally impossible to achieve it as
a human. As Khamura explains:

"For as long as you desire, you are entrenched in dukkha, and thus in the cycle of death and rebirth. To free oneself of that is but the first step in the path that leads to nirvana -- which, incidentally, is not a place, but a state of liberation of the mind."

So I suppose my response is thus: Is Desire inherently human? Yes. Is Desire inherently negative? No.

Is it possible to overcome desire?

Yes. At which point you are no longer truly human. However, such a belief has to incorporate an "afterlife" (<= heavy on the quotation marks) or some such system, since it implies that there is indeed a beyond.

[karinablack.livejournal.com]

everyone's as wrong as they are right.