Eudaimonist

This is such a good question, I thought it deserved its own topic.

It leads in to an even deeper question, which is "Is desire the cause of all life?" I'm referring to human life, of course.

raistlinjones

What good has any of that really done for us? So what if we can get to the moon now; we're no closer to Enlightenment.

About the "desire to not desire" thing...it's hard to explain. You're not really supposed to have that, either. Basically, you don't have to have this burning desire to cease desiring. Instead, you just eliminate desires.

If that doesn't make sense (and I'm not sure it does), you can go at it from a different angle, which is this: the ideal form is to be desireless. If you have to "desire to be desireless" to get there, that's ok. In all likelihood, that'll probably be the last desire you get rid of.

I'm no Buddhist, so I can't claim to have a really good understanding of all of this stuff.

Heathen Dawn

Can you imagine the bodily union of man and woman without desire? Even the other animals do it out of desire. Of course desire is the source of all life! Desires should be befriended and cared for, not denied and warred against. All in moderation, that goes without saying.

If there is anything in a religion that tells me to crush worldliness, to crucify the flesh, then I don't want it at all. My religion shall necessarily be compatible with worldly, fleshly desires, as it for me natural is.

Ron Garrett

In one of his talks Krishnamurti pointed out that desire itself is not the problem, but rather the conflicts desires engender. For instance the desire to eliminate desire, if that is the sum and substance of one's intent, is to desire something really achievable only through suicide. It has always seemed to me that religions and philosphies err in focusing on what is to be suppressed instead of focusing on what it is to experience life.

Eudaimonist

Heathen Dawn and Ron Garrett, you both make excellent points.

raistlinjones, in my view, getting to the Moon is precisely a form of enlightenment, albeit not of the Buddhist variety. We realized something of our heroic potentials, and the power of reason, science, and technology. I find this great accomplishment of human beings very enlightening.

Amos

Desire is not the cause of life at all. Desire is created by a vacuum or emptiness, obviously, and in searching to fill this emptiness we can be creators of life and other things.

"Beyond desire" is where Buddhists like to be. They will have exhausted their desires and found tranquility on the other side of desire.

Amos

Good points from "the heath" (I grew up in a heath as well).

Yes I can imagine bodily union without desire but indeed it will be fruitless and boring.

I also agree that desire should be befriended and is why the Greeks encouraged the courageous and Catholics forgive the sinners. But should desire be befriended until we die? Should we be enslaved to our sex drives or search for gold in our pursuit of happiness until we die or is there a greater good to be found?

sweep

on the other side of the coin perhaps we should ask, "Is desire the cause of all death".

heathen is correct in that we need to embrace desire, yet at the same time, we need to moderate it. Some desires are bad for us as the tastes are too strong- for example, drugs are very strong and addictive. I'm not sure if it is possible to moderate activities such as these.

Inevitably, one bound in a world of drugs is weakened in mind (spirit). We need to take control of our lives- sure, sexual desire causes all life but, in many parts of the world it causes unwanted babies, stds, rape, exploitation and suffering. Before we learn to worship sex, we have to worship life; our values as they stand depend upon how much we earn and, for a lot of women, how good they look. In this sense, desire is the cause of much misery.

still, what the hell? lets all fuck like there's no tomorrow

Eudaimonist

Hi, Amos! Thanks for posting.

That is what I meant. Desires are a source of motivation for life-sustaining and life-enriching actions. (Desires can encourage the opposite, of course, but if we have a choice in the matter we can choose to act in favor of life.)

(Yay, Greeks!)

Catholics don't befriend desires, they feel dirtied by them and apologize for them. With friends like that, who needs enemas?

A few points:

- I don't think there is a greater good than happiness, properly understood. BTW, I don't think happiness is merely having an abundance of sex or wealth, but nevertheless happiness may involve such values. It's easy to criticize happiness if one sets up a strawman version. But perhaps no other version is possible if one believes in a sharp division in human nature between soul and body, and therefore between spiritual and material values? I don't believe in such a sharp split, and therefore the happy life involved both, intertwined.

- Befriending does not equal enslavement. I think this is the crux of the matter. We can have desires without giving up rational will and wise action. The Greeks understood this. Aristotle saw the pursuit of eudaimonia (often translated as "happiness") as the pursuit of right desire. In other words, we need to judge which desires are beneficial, and which are harmful, and then pursue the first and avoid the second.

But some seem to think that if desires can enslave, we should get rid of them altogether. This may be throwing the proverbial baby out with the proverbial bathwater. To extend the analogy, babies can grow up to be mature men and women, and so too can people learn how to develop character in order to pursue right desire.

Amos

Hello sweep, what if I suggested that drugs are addictive only because we can't seem to quench our thirst for spiritual fulfillment? Addictions are reactions to fill a void and not primary causes of a problem. This also does not mean that drugs are wrong and that is where your moderation comes in to effect because they can indeed be very harmful and destructive.

Of course it is possible to moderate drug use because as we get closer to spiritual tranquility the craving for artificial stimulants will not be there. The problem is that we must be sober and keen to get there.

If that was not true we could go to heaven on drugs and drug lords would be gods.

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>