I believe that human beings are in a constant search for freedom, peace and inner happiness, whether we are aware of it or not. However, it is not a secret that we usually look outside for the fulfillment of these desires.
So, We embark on the incessant pursuit of pleasure and away from pain, but all this does is cause us more suffering. We become obsessed with success, beauty, money, power, consumption, pleasant experiences, approval and prestige, among many others, that we blind ourselves to the reality that they are not lasting things, nor can they make us truly happy.
Clinging to these things leaves us, as Buddhist meditation teacher Sogyal Rinpoche says, “like people crawling through an endless desert, dying of thirst” because what our modern society offers us to drink, through what it teaches us is What is important to pursue, and what we also choose to drink, is a glass of salt water that makes our thirst even more intense. We want more and more of those objects, situations, experiences or people to whom we attribute the power to make us happy and along the way we not only become more thirsty and lost, but we can also seriously harm those around us.
Just think about excessive ambition of some public figures and political leaders and how this ambition takes away the resources that are intended to generate well-being in the people who have the mission to serve, leaving, in their place, great poverty, hunger, violence and pain. Attachment to desires makes us selfish, it only makes us think about our well-being. However, it is not a wise way to achieve it, because clinging to desire never leaves one satisfied nor is it the way to feel fulfillment.
Another example is unhealthy attachment to a partner. The desire for connection, to love and feel loved, becomes with clinging, a desire to possess and control the other, as if it were possible to ensure that they never leave or that their feelings never change. Since this does not happen like this, depositing happiness again in a person leaves those who do it constantly unsatisfied because the expectations you place on the other are not realistic.
It is likely that on several occasions we have said or thought that we will be happy when we finally travel, have the house, the car, the achievement or the person we longed for, only to discover that, although these things do bring us joy for a time, they do not give us joy. They give the lasting peace and happiness that we seek and, as expected, new desires emerge again.
Does this mean we would be better off if we eliminated desire from our lives?
The two types of desires
Jack Kornfield, clinical psychologist and meditation teacher, explains from the perspective of Buddhist philosophy that there are healthy and unhealthy desires. These arise from a neutral state of mind called the will to do. When the will to do is directed in a healthy way, it provokes healthy desires. When directed in an unhealthy way, it causes unhealthy desires.
We can desire something for different reasons. People may desire to help others out of compassion and genuine generosity or out of seeking admiration. They may wish to create some technology to destroy or to contribute to development and health. Attachment operates in subtle ways, even in things that seem harmless or good and often in desires there are intermingled motivations. We may want to travel out of the desire to know and expand our vision of the world and diversity, or to not be left behind, to show every detail on social networks, or to escape from problems.
Kornfield explains that healthy desire creates happiness, is based on wisdom, kindness, and compassion, and results in caring, responsible management, generosity, flexibility, integrity, and spiritual growth. Unhealthy desire creates suffering, is based on greed and ignorance, and leads to possession, self-centeredness, fear, greed, compulsion, and dissatisfaction. Inner freedom arises from the ability not to cling to desire. This is different from getting rid of it.
It is about learning to relate wisely with desire. Not obsessing about fulfilling what we want or stopping enjoying life without these things being present. This implies an open and relaxed attitude towards desires. We can let go and calmly reflect on them and see what drives them or if we really need to carry them out. If we decide to do them, we do it consciously.
Towards a form of addiction
Buddhist philosophy describes this state as a hungry spirit whose desire is insatiable and therefore suffers greatly, because nothing can satisfy him.
As Mason-John & Groves put it, “in a sense, we can all identify with hungry ghosts, because we live in a culture in which nothing is enough… We want to live in a bigger place, we want to have a better job, more vacations, the latest technological innovation, the most recent of everything. Even when we do not define ourselves as addicts, there are many of us who use acceptable drugs, such as food, social gatherings, medications, sex, shopping, friendships, etc., to cope with the emptiness of our lives.
Work with desire and pain
Therefore, it is necessary to transform the relationship we have with desire and also with pain, since the inability to be with the inevitable pain of life leads us to take refuge in unhealthy desires that paradoxically end up producing greater suffering. It is important to encourage healthy desires and free ourselves from those that enslave us. To do this, we can use mindfulness of our mental states when the desire arises and gently observe how we feel when it is present and how we feel when we hold on to it. In this way we begin to discern healthy desires from those that are not. Likewise, we can recognize how we use desires to escape from the uncomfortable and if it is our usual way of reacting.
Kornfield expresses that we must investigate desire and be willing to work with it to regain our innate freedom and balance. Working with desires will depend on whether we tend to suppress it or desire excessively. It is about not resisting or clinging to desires when they arise, but accepting them graciously and observing their natural course without necessarily acting on them.
This practice helps us relate in a more compassionate and kind way with our internal experience, which in turn helps us better regulate our emotions and act with greater awareness. We are realizing that thoughts, as well as desire and painful emotions come and go, they are not permanent as we believe in those moments in which they arise. We take away the power of unhealthy desires when we don’t act on them, despite their intensity. Then they stop governing us.
Instead of running away from pain, we face it with compassion and without judgment, allowing it to be and dissolve by itself. We stop identifying with what happens to us and with our internal experiences. We recognize that crucial moment, in which, by pausing, we can realize that we have a choice and we can respond more consciously to the situations that life presents to us, without causing us secondary suffering.
Finally, Tara Brach, clinical psychologist and meditation teacher, mentions that we long to discover our true nature, and that behind our countless desires is a spiritual longing, but because our desires tend to be limited and fixated on things that are transitory, we feel separated. of who we are. By feeling distanced from our own reality, We identify with our desires and the ways to satisfy them, which separates us even more. It is when we cultivate a calm mind that we can be aware of, listen to, and respond to our deepest longings. As they say, “Invest in what a shipwreck cannot take away from you.”
