Buddhist teaching asserts that desire is the cause of all suffering. This principle is so fundamental that Siddhartha Gautama made it part of the very first sermon he preached after his long vigil under the Bodhi tree where he is said to have attained enlightenment. He made it one of the Four Noble Truths that describe reality. The more time I spend with this idea, the truer it becomes to me.
What does it mean to desire? To me, it means to want what you haven't got. Food, drink, sex, excitement, power, wealth: sure, but those are the easy ones. We can be just as consumed by our desire for health, a happy family, long lives for loved ones, peace. Desire is natural and can be motivating. We may desire success in business or athletics. Maybe we want to write that novel or make that pilgrimage or lead a revolution. The question is, once the book has been published, the marathon run, or the government transformed, are we any better off? We may be smarter, richer, more confident, more respected, and those are all good things. But will accomplishing our goals make us more free? Or will we weep with frustration like Alexander the Great when he realized, "There are no worlds left to conquer?"
So what's the solution? Can we be free from suffering? Maybe, but there is a trap waiting. Our thirst for freedom from desire, is itself a kind desire. Far from freeing ourselves from slavery, we have simply found another master. Wanting to let go just isn't enough, because that very wanting causes us to suffer disappointment when we fail. I am reminded of Paul's brilliand ad maddening letter to the Church in Rome.
Paul's dilemma was a brutal one:
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. (Rom 7:14,15)
The problem tortured him;
Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24 NRSV)
Paul's answer was to exhort us to find salvation in the Spirit, turning our backs on the things of the flesh. I am new to all this Eastern stuff, and won't presume to say how the Buddha might have responded to the old preacher's cry for help, but Paul and I are old friends, and I can imagine mustering the nerve to follow the Apostle's answer with a question of my own. "Dear Paul, having loosed the bondage of fleshly desires, how will you free yourself from slavery to spiritual ones" Won't they bring you as much frustration as you suffer now, my poor, wretched brother?"
My impression is that Paul did not suffer fools gladly, and might have been a little put out by a heretical time-traveler interrupting his train of thought in such a familiar manner, just as he was revving up to that grand climax at the end of Chapter 8. I'll have to be satisfied without his answer, but I can reflect a little on my own.
A dilemma is often a choice between two difficult things: a lesser of two evils kind of thing. It is a charging bull whose horns offer no really satisfying solution. It seems to me that a toreador's best choice when faced with a charging bull is to elude the horns entirely. What if a pilgrim chose not to a) do battle with fleshly desire, or to b) surrender to some other, more spiritual one, but rather chose c): to accept desire as part of the ever flowing, ever changing stream of things as they are? Rather than trying to defeat the bull by letting it gore me with either horn, what if I stand aside and watch it run past?
Sooner or later, the damned thing is bound to get tired, or at least bored.
My question - and lord knows I've taken long enough to get around to it - is this: what if suffering doesn't come from my desire, but from the things I do to try to satisfy it? Am I fat because I want ice cream, or because I eat ice cream? The simple and obvious answer is that my actions lead to my suffering. It's the beautifully Newtonian principle of karma - cause leads to equal and opposite effect. I know that my uncomfortable craving will pass in time. I can sit with that temporary discomfort while it lasts, or I can ignore the laws of thermodynamics and karma and bury my craving under a few scoops full of mint chocolate chip. And tomorrow, I will be a little bit fatter and hungry again.
Look, I'm fully aware that there is nothing profound here. I'm not trying to be profound. Frankly, I'm feeling old and tired and haven't the energy to be deep. But I am contemplating a kernel of truth I find simple and beautiful. I have is a fascinated curiosity about life as it is. It pleases me to be alive, and to draw the world in like breath. And I wonder at all the things I can do with that breath as I hold it and return it to the universe.
Maybe that's all any of us can really do. Breathe in life, and breathe out... What?... Kindness?... Cruelty?... Mercy?... Vengeance?...Fear?... Love? Or, maybe just Compassion. Maybe just a breath that says, "I see you. I accept you. I think you are valuable and beautiful and am sorry when things go hard for you and I am so very happy when they are light and easy." Maybe that's the key that unlocks the chains of desire: to see, accept, and love the deeply flawed, perfect creature who shares our breath for a time.
I see you. I love you. I am grateful for you. And we are free.
And if once in a while we share a whiff of mint chocolate chip - I don't see much harm in that, either.