Buddhism: The Paradox of Desires | The Truth of Desires in Buddha's Teaching

Buddhism: The Paradox of Desires - The Truth of Desires (Buddha's Teachings)
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The Paradox of Desires in Buddhism: Unveiling the Truth
There’s a passage in the Canon where a young monk is being asked by a king why he ordained. After all, the young monk came from a wealthy family, his health was good, his relatives were all alive. Why would he ordain? The monk replied that one of the reasons was that he saw all the world as a slave to craving, and he wanted to get out of that slavery.

He gave an example to the king. “Suppose someone were to come and say, ‘There’s a kingdom to the east with lots of wealth, lots of people, but a very weak army. Your army is strong enough to beat their army and seize that kingdom.’ Would you take it?” And here the king is eighty years old, and yet he says, “Yes.”

Suppose another person would come from the south, the same message. Another person from the west, another from the north. Another person from across the ocean, saying there was a kingdom across the ocean that you could conquer. Lots of wealth, lots of people, would you go for it?” The king says, “Yes.” The young monk says, “That’s what I mean when I say the world is a slave to craving.
Chapter 1. The Desire to Be Free from Desire.
Chapter 2. Three Qualities: Right Mindfulness - Alertness - Right Effort
Chapter 3. Craving & Desire on the Path
Chapter 4. "I want to be awakened.”
Chapter 5. The Truth of Desires.
Conlusions
Notice that those truths are truths about cause and effect, what’s possible and what’s not possible: truths about things that are very close to your mind, truths about suffering, what the cause is, and what’s the desire behind this suffering. The Buddha lists the possible desires. What are the desires that get you out? There are lists of skillful desires as well: the desire to get rid of unskillful qualities that are there, and not to let them arise if they’re not there; the desire to give rise to skillful qualities, and then once they’re there, the desire to maintain them. These are truths about desire and the effects of desires.

That’s something we can observe. Sometimes our perceptions about the world outside are hard to judge as to whether they’re really accurate or not, and how much reliable information we have. But we can know our desires. We can get a sense of which ones are skillful and which ones are not. When you find yourself adopting a perception or an idea of reality that’s based on an unskillful desire, that’s enough reason to say No to it. Even though it insists that it’s true, you have to be able to say No to it because it’s serving the purposes of something unskillful inside. Whereas the perceptions that serve the purpose of what is skillful inside: You can accept those as provisional truths for the time being. As you get to know your desires better, you can begin to ferret out the desires that seem to be skillful but ultimately are not.

This is the process we all have to go through as we practice. We can’t be impatient and say, “I want nothing but true desires and true perceptions right from the beginning.” We’re feeling our way. But we’re feeling our way not blindly and not in total darkness. The more light we can shine into the issue of what in the mind is skillful and what’s not, the more we’ll be able to choose our perceptions of reality and deal not only with issues in the mind but also issues outside in a way that’s more and more trustworthy. We’re moving toward something that’s ultimately trustworthy. On the path, we’re not quite there yet, but we’re moving in the right direction.

So an important aspect of the practice is to get to know your desires. Put yourself in a position where you can judge them. Wisely. Fairly. But firmly. And that’ll straighten out a lot of other issues in the mind right there.