Do Desires cause Suffering?

Originally posted by Seventhdoor

Originally posted by Radekus
reply to post by Seventhdoor

 

Humans are too short lived a species to harness enough experience
so as to eliminate all personal suffering.
Keep in mind, with no needs, there are no goals, without goals,
stagnation, and guess what follows, anomie.
Needs are both our destroyer and our creator.
It is what propels deviant behavior as well as ingenuity.
A thing to think about.

Not true. Many people have eliminated personal suffering within their lives, many have done it by middle age. Buddha did this, and he was 35.

You are confusing needs, goals, and having desires with attachment to them. You can have all these things without attachment.

Needs are what you can't go without unless you want your body to die. But you can feed your body food without attachment to food. You can give your body shelter without attachment to having a home. You can give your body water without attachment to drinking.

Attachment is clinging, if you cling then you have no home, suddenly your life is miserable. If you are unattached you won't care, you'll just do whatever you need to do to find shelter or rebuild your life, and you'll do it joyously even.

Goals and desires can also exist without clinging. One can have sex for example without attachment. One simply does it then lets it be. One does not suffer without sex, or feel unfulfilled if they don't orgasm every day. It doesn't bother them, they have achieved non attachment to the idea of having sex.

If you don't have that non attachment, then sex becomes important. Suddenly you feel you have to have it. You seek it from anyone. You sleep with people you don't care about. You masturbate daily seeking to fulfill this desire. But it can't be fulfilled, because the moment its complete its gone, then its only a matter of time before it arises again. So one learns to live non attached, and then one is free from the suffering of not having sex.

This is just one example. Such a person will still be fully capable of having the desire to have sex, of feeling attraction, and of having sex, yet if they go a year without it, its no big deal.

Simply put, suffering results from holding onto something that will die. Its the idea that we own an object which is perishable, when ownership would really mean we have complete control over it. We don't your computer will die someday. Its the idea that a loved one will ALWAYS be here, thats a delusion and leads to suffering. Recognizing this as the case, we cherish the time we have with them and let them go when its time for them to go. Otherwise we end up a mess.

edit on 2011/11/6 by Seventhdoor because: words

From my limited understanding of the teachings of The Buddha, to cling to the physical in sensation, let alone pleasure prevents you from moving beyond needs we feel compelled to satisfy as incarnate beings. That in achieving enlightenment there is the component of "loss of ego" or self identity, sense of self as "this is me and then theres the rest of the universe". Both our self identity, ego if you will are just manifestations of the physical. We do need some kind of separate identity from all the "other" or we can become frankly psychotic. Thats because self identity is required by us in this physical world to separate ourselves from all the other "motes of potential", or identifiable-unique ego states of other individuals and the environment in general.

If suffering is a momentary state, we all have moments when were physically sick or in angst. It should not be the "life long norm" that the physical defines us. It need not be. Even those with certain physical "issues" can and must find solace and insight apart from what "ails us" at any one time. Or even if our problem is chronic, the physical I think can be dealt with much easier then a sense of no direction, value, or purpose in life. Thats true suffering in that we don't usually see the cause, or are willing to look to close. Suffering is I believe in the mind of the beholder.

Originally posted by Seventhdoor
Desires themselves do not cause suffering.

The cause of suffering is attachment. The cause of attachment is desire or clinging. The cause of desire or clinging is ignorance.

Therefore suffering results from ignorance. Ignorance produces attachment or clinging to various impermanent things (such as desires) and when these things come to an end, we experience loss and therefore suffer. To eliminate ignorance one must contemplate the true nature of things without clinging to any view about them.

Thats so true. Ignorance is the root of all suffering because if people knew how suffering is created (attachment) and if they knew how it can be avoided (to not be dependent of things we cant control) they would start doing the right thing and stop suffering.

So yeah, the ignorance of how the mind and the emotions work is the cause of suffering.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


Animals kill each other all the time, you have all kinds of behavior in the animal kingdoom but you are only seeing what you want.
Animals suffer too, they have feelings!
A lion hunting a deer is not what i would wnat to do in my everyday life!

Originally posted by Seventhdoor

Originally posted by Radekus
reply to post by Seventhdoor

 

Humans are too short lived a species to harness enough experience
so as to eliminate all personal suffering.
Keep in mind, with no needs, there are no goals, without goals,
stagnation, and guess what follows, anomie.
Needs are both our destroyer and our creator.
It is what propels deviant behavior as well as ingenuity.
A thing to think about.

Not true. Many people have eliminated personal suffering within their lives, many have done it by middle age. Buddha did this, and he was 35.

You are confusing needs, goals, and having desires with attachment to them. You can have all these things without attachment.

Needs are what you can't go without unless you want your body to die. But you can feed your body food without attachment to food. You can give your body shelter without attachment to having a home. You can give your body water without attachment to drinking.

Attachment is clinging, if you cling then you have no home, suddenly your life is miserable. If you are unattached you won't care, you'll just do whatever you need to do to find shelter or rebuild your life, and you'll do it joyously even.

Goals and desires can also exist without clinging. One can have sex for example without attachment. One simply does it then lets it be. One does not suffer without sex, or feel unfulfilled if they don't orgasm every day. It doesn't bother them, they have achieved non attachment to the idea of having sex.

If you don't have that non attachment, then sex becomes important. Suddenly you feel you have to have it. You seek it from anyone. You sleep with people you don't care about. You masturbate daily seeking to fulfill this desire. But it can't be fulfilled, because the moment its complete its gone, then its only a matter of time before it arises again. So one learns to live non attached, and then one is free from the suffering of not having sex.

This is just one example. Such a person will still be fully capable of having the desire to have sex, of feeling attraction, and of having sex, yet if they go a year without it, its no big deal.

Simply put, suffering results from holding onto something that will die. Its the idea that we own an object which is perishable, when ownership would really mean we have complete control over it. We don't your computer will die someday. Its the idea that a loved one will ALWAYS be here, thats a delusion and leads to suffering. Recognizing this as the case, we cherish the time we have with them and let them go when its time for them to go. Otherwise we end up a mess.

edit on 2011/11/6 by Seventhdoor because: words

So true, we can do everything we want, all life, all goals, all desires, all are good as long as you can be joyful, peaceful and happy without them.

The secret is to not be dependent. We can do what we want as long as we don't get addicted.

When we cant be happy without something temporary, we are letting our emotions be controlled by forces we cant control, we are not free.

So what is the cause of happiness? Everything that exists in the here and now. We must let go things, when its their time to go.