In honor of the holiday shopping season, this week's feature story is about desire. That's the thing that, we're told, leads us into suffering.
The second of the four Bodhisattva Vows is, "desires are inexhaustible; I vow to end them." But if desires are inexhaustible, how do you end them? Is it even possible?
Theravada monk and scholar Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote,
"All phenomena, the Buddha once said, are rooted in desire. Everything we think, say, or do -- every experience -- comes from desire. Even we come from desire. We were reborn into this life because of our desire to be. Consciously or not, our desires keep redefining our sense of who we are. Desire is how we take our place in the causal matrix of space and time."
If desire is the root of our existence, how can "we" rid ourselves of desire? Only in Nirvana, the Bukkhu said, is there neither phenomena nor desire.
That being the case, it seems to me that approaching the problem of desire as something "I" must purge from my "self" is going about practice the wrong way. Anything you do that reinforces the illusion of a permanent self is going about practice the wrong way.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu says the path to Nirvana is rooted in skillful desire. Skillful desire fuels Right Effort. Unskillful desire comes from a sense of lack of limitation, causing us to grasp for things we think will make is more complete.
Zen teacher Sojun Mel Weitsman has said something very similar. Desire is neither good or bad, but it must be directed. "If we want to deal with desire, direct it toward practice. That way you don't hurt anyone, and you don't hurt yourself, and you motivate yourself in the right direction, and desire, fulfilling its proper function, becomes a blessing," he said.
On the other hand, when desire is misdirected, it becomes destructive. Misdirected desire becomes grasping, and then we let desire jerk us around, pursuing this thing and that thing in the mistaken notion that we need something outside ourselves to make us happy.
Even the Bodhisattva Vows are an expression of desire, if you think about it. I desire to end desire. I think there's a koan in there somewhere.
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