Does desire cause suffering?

[Reefs]

I listened to an interesting A-H dialog recently. Someone asked Abraham if desire is the cause of all suffering as the Buddhists teach. Abraham first acknowledges that this is the truth but as the dialog unfolds, the bottom line seems to be that the Buddhists got it all wrong after all. They were onto something but they missed the point. I'll see if I can post a transcript later. The dialog is rather long and a bit jumbled. So I have to cut it down to the key points first (which will take more time than I initially thought).

But I'm curious what others here think about this. Does desire inevitably lead to suffering?

Update: Here's the dialog...

Q: How do you reconcile the teaching of Buddhism that says desire is the cause of all suffering with how you talk about desire?

A: It's the truth.

Q: What's the truth? That the desires are the cause of all suffering?

A: Yes.

Q: All right.

A: Didn't we just say to you that when you know what you don't want, you know what you do want? And didn't we just say to you that any suffering is because you have evolved to a new place and you're not letting yourself go? If there were no desire, then there would be no other end of that; if there were not a desire that you were pinching yourself off from, you wouldn't feel pain. But that doesn't mean don't create desire, that means don't push against the desire that you've created. That's just more of a statement about both ends of the stick: every particle of the universe contains that which is wanted and absence of it.

Q: Well I think what maybe the Buddhist could be getting at are the …

A: We just told you what the Buddhists were getting at. Esther receives letters from long practiced Buddhists, long students of Buddhism all the time, who say to her “I now understand what they've been trying to teach me in ways I've never understood before.” When you get to the basis of things, then you can begin to understand.

Q: What about the ‘sorry substitutes’ (?), you know, somebody shooting heroin. It’s a sorry substitute. Or a sex addict. What they really want is alignment…

A: Well, they are trying to fill the void…

Q: Isn’t it that those kind of desires are what causes suffering, the misguided desires that don't get you what you really want?

A: Well, looking for love in all the wrong places always feels bad. When you're looking for it where it isn’t or are using some substitute that isn't it...

Q: But isn’t that what the Buddhists are talking about?

A: No. We just told you what the Buddhists are talking about.

Q: Alright, alright. I'm having a debate with you, I guess…

A: It's an understanding that in every particle of the universe there is wanted an unwanted or what is wanted and lack of it, and they exist equally. And once knowing what you don't want has caused you to create what you do want then you have a choice to keep looking toward what you don't want which will hold you now in opposition to what you do want, and if the creation of what you do want hadn't happened then you could look at what you don't want and not feel nearly so much discord. But once you've expanded there you have no choice (if you want to feel good) other than to go. So it is an absolute accurate statement that your desire that you've carved out of this life is the reason that you ever feel pain. But it needs to be added, when you look in opposition to your desire, you can feel nothing other than pain. And when you don't look in opposition to your desire you will not feel pain. When you look in the direction of your desire you will feel exaltation, you will fill power, you'll feel clarity, you will feel whole.


Asheville, 2017

[andrew]

There are lots of factors to consider in a good answer, but my simple answer is 'not necessarily'.

[laughter]

Jul 28, 2018 3:05:12 GMT -5 Reefs said:

I listened to an interesting A-H dialog recently. Someone asked Abraham if desire is the cause of all suffering as the Buddhists teach. Abraham first acknowledges that this is the truth but as the dialog unfolds, the bottom line seems to be that the Buddhists got it all wrong after all. They were onto something but they missed the point. I'll see if I can post a transcript later. The dialog is rather long and a bit jumbled. So I have to cut it down to the key points first (which will take more time than I initially thought).

But I'm curious what others here think about this. Does desire inevitably lead to suffering?

From the outside looking in, and rather casually, seems to me that Buddhism is a pretty big tent. Some of the people who write from a Buddhist perspective are very specific about what they mean by how desire relates to suffering. Some of them are explicit as to how desire and suffering are related, in turn, to the false sense of personal identity. Here's an example of what I'm referring to.

So while I take your point about how (in my words) some Buddhists can make a sort of enemy out of the natural flow of human experience, I wouldn't say that all of them do this. If the suffering created by desire is related specifically to the illusion of separation, then I agree, there is the appearance of causation. So with that qualification, I vote "yes".

[explorer]

Desire for Liberation is a good desire! (Discuss) Desire for Fame is a bad desire! - so I'll go for Not Necessarily!

[Reefs]

Okay, just updated the OP and added the transcript of the dialog.

[zin]

What I understand from the OP is that new situations in life arise out of our own desires and once that happens, not clinging to the old is the wise way to avoid suffering. There can be details that can be discussed (ie what about events 'happening to' other people) but in general I find this true about myself. (and I voted "don't care")

[enigma]

At the root of any instance of suffering is an unfulfilled want, but a want that is in the process of being fulfilled does not cause suffering, so suffering is caused by desire but desire doesn't necessarily cause suffering.

This makes it important to know the difference between a desire that can be fulfilled and one that cannot be fulfilled in alignment with creation. This roughly translates into, what desire is in alignment with the truth and what desire is in alignment with illusion?

As such, the goal is not a desireless state, which is my relatively uninformed impression of Buddhist teaching, but rather a 'purified' state in which desire is not driven by illusion.

[stardustpilgrim]

Jul 28, 2018 18:04:20 GMT -5 enigma said:

At the root of any instance of suffering is an unfulfilled want, but a want that is in the process of being fulfilled does not cause suffering, so suffering is caused by desire but desire doesn't necessarily cause suffering.

This makes it important to know the difference between a desire that can be fulfilled and one that cannot be fulfilled in alignment with creation. This roughly translates into, what desire is in alignment with the truth and what desire is in alignment with illusion?

As such, the goal is not a desireless state, which is my relatively uninformed impression of Buddhist teaching, but rather a 'purified' state in which desire is not driven by illusion.

That's quite profound.

[stardustpilgrim]

There are two tragedies in life, not getting what you want, and getting what you want. Oscar Wilde

[preciocho]

Jul 28, 2018 18:04:20 GMT -5 enigma said:

At the root of any instance of suffering is an unfulfilled want, but a want that is in the process of being fulfilled does not cause suffering, so suffering is caused by desire but desire doesn't necessarily cause suffering.

This makes it important to know the difference between a desire that can be fulfilled and one that cannot be fulfilled in alignment with creation. This roughly translates into, what desire is in alignment with the truth and what desire is in alignment with illusion?

As such, the goal is not a desireless state, which is my relatively uninformed impression of Buddhist teaching, but rather a 'purified' state in which desire is not driven by illusion.

Are you leaving open the possibility that desire can be fulfilled out of alignment with creation?

I spose you are, but then we wouldn't be looking at fulfillment but rather temporary absence of self seeking due to an egoic restructuring or a fleeting mind state.  Which roughly translates into what desire is a compensation for pain and which desire is present in the absence of such pain?  

[andrew]

I think another interesting aspect of this is...where does 'desire' begin/end?

Does a plant desire water? Does a sperm cell desire to meet the egg? Does a virus desire to deliver its dna into a host cell? (those might not be the correct technical terms).

If yes, in one way, it could perhaps be said something along the lines that the unfoldment of life is the unfoldment of desire itself. There is no aspect of life that 'desire' is not part of, or touching.

[enigma]

Jul 30, 2018 5:39:15 GMT -5 preciocho said:

Jul 28, 2018 18:04:20 GMT -5 enigma said:

At the root of any instance of suffering is an unfulfilled want, but a want that is in the process of being fulfilled does not cause suffering, so suffering is caused by desire but desire doesn't necessarily cause suffering.

This makes it important to know the difference between a desire that can be fulfilled and one that cannot be fulfilled in alignment with creation. This roughly translates into, what desire is in alignment with the truth and what desire is in alignment with illusion?

As such, the goal is not a desireless state, which is my relatively uninformed impression of Buddhist teaching, but rather a 'purified' state in which desire is not driven by illusion.

Are you leaving open the possibility that desire can be fulfilled out of alignment with creation?

I spose you are, but then we wouldn't be looking at fulfillment but rather temporary absence of self seeking due to an egoic restructuring or a fleeting mind state.  Which roughly translates into what desire is a compensation for pain and which desire is present in the absence of such pain?  

Yeah. Of course, all manner of egoic and delusion based desire can be momentarily fulfilled, but when such is the basis of a desire, it runs counter to the natural flow of creation. Ultimately, instead of creation providing what one desires, one begins to desire what creation is providing. One aligns, not with what is created, but with the force of creation itself, because the individual IS creation.

[enigma]

Jul 30, 2018 7:27:42 GMT -5 andrew said:

I think another interesting aspect of this is...where does 'desire' begin/end?

Does a plant desire water? Does a sperm cell desire to meet the egg? Does a virus desire to deliver its dna into a host cell? (those might not be the correct technical terms).

If yes, in one way, it could perhaps be said something along the lines that the unfoldment of life is the unfoldment of desire itself. There is no aspect of life that 'desire' is not part of, or touching.

I'll buy that.

[laughter]

Jul 30, 2018 7:27:42 GMT -5 andrew said:

I think another interesting aspect of this is...where does 'desire' begin/end?

Does a plant desire water? Does a sperm cell desire to meet the egg? Does a virus desire to deliver its dna into a host cell? (those might not be the correct technical terms).

If yes, in one way, it could perhaps be said something along the lines that the unfoldment of life is the unfoldment of desire itself. There is no aspect of life that 'desire' is not part of, or touching.

So I'm reading this book by a famous "beat-poet" who took up Buddhism and in it there's a scene where he's describing these wild orgy's that are going on around him and he thinks about joining in. But then he's on a walk outside and he sees a dead crow and thinks "and that's all sex leads to, after all".

So there's like one extreme for defining desire: any want, of any sort. I think that E&R's points are more subtle than this, because it's sort of easy to see when someone goes to the extreme of trying to extinguish all desire that there's probably a futility to that. While I can't say so for sure because I've never tried to do that, it's just common sense that, say, for example, wanting to drink water isn't going to lead to suffering if I've got a clean glass and a cold clear tap.

Another way to grasp the subtlety is to consider it from the suffering side of the equation. Maxy's put up some good posts about Buddhist dukkha in the past, and what I remember from that is that there's various shades and type of suffering they account for. At one end of the spectrum is a form of dukka that is just a sort of baseline of being alive: just age, wear and tear, and inevitable deterioration.

If we accept that last idea as a form of suffering then it has nothing to do with any conscious, overt desire, but instead, this suffering could be related to desire by way of the attachment to being alive.

[laughter]

Jul 30, 2018 8:23:14 GMT -5 enigma said:

Jul 30, 2018 5:39:15 GMT -5 preciocho said:

Are you leaving open the possibility that desire can be fulfilled out of alignment with creation?

I spose you are, but then we wouldn't be looking at fulfillment but rather temporary absence of self seeking due to an egoic restructuring or a fleeting mind state.  Which roughly translates into what desire is a compensation for pain and which desire is present in the absence of such pain?  

Yeah. Of course, all manner of egoic and delusion based desire can be momentarily fulfilled, but when such is the basis of a desire, it runs counter to the natural flow of creation. Ultimately, instead of creation providing what one desires, one begins to desire what creation is providing. One aligns, not with what is created, but with the force of creation itself, because the individual IS creation.

My understanding of the way the Buddhists look at it is that since any desire fulfillment is temporary it will always have the potential to lead to more craving as time goes on, regardless of how in alignment the original desire might have been. The way I see it, if someone's SR and significantly "out of alignment", they might feel the pain of getting smacked down in pursuing an "impure desire", but they ain't gonna suffer from it.