Why is desire considered bad?

Why in Eastern Philosophy is desire considered bad?

The Buddha says craving causes suffering, not desire, and The Buddha himself had many desires like spreading his own Gospel.

In Eastern Philosophy craving, desperation, needing, attachment, clinging, etc...causes suffering....but not desire...so whats wrong with desire? Why is desire frowned upon?

In the Srimad Bhagavatam, Lord Krishna states:
"One who fixes his pure mind on Me in My manifestation as the impersonal Brahman obtains the greatest happiness, wherein all his desires are completely fulfilled" (SB 11.15.17)

Here is saying that the ultimate happiness comes from desires being fulfilled

So whats wrong with desire?

 

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Desire is attachment. If you fulfill your desires, you will become attached. If you suppress your desires, you will become weak, and when you are weak, the desires come back.

The ultimate happiness is to have all desires fulfilled, but they can't be fulfilled with the material transient things of the world. We must learn to sublimate desires. That's the only way to get them fulfilled without getting attached.

But we can't learn to control and transform desires if we don't know them. The only way to know them is to be with them. So live your life as you want, because there is nothing that has to be done.

 

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You can choose to neither fulfil nor suppress your desires, but overcome them.

Freedom from desire frees the mind to greater rationality and tolerance.

 

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Exactly. Siddarthar had the right idea, but he didn't take it far enough. He was so terrified of the attachments he saw to material things that he tried to control the material things, instead of controlling the desires. If he had gone one step further in his mental development, he would have realized that you can have both.

There is much pleasure and fulfillment to be had with the love of material things. The way to keep this from becoming a dangerous attachment is to be able to let go of the need at the drop of a hat. For instance, I love my computer and get much joy from it. Recently, when my computer bit the dust and a hard-drive crashed, I bought a new hard drive without worrying about the lost data or feeling the need to have that data back. It was something that happened, and the cost to get the data back (thousands of dollars) is too much for me. So I choose to not feel bad about the loss.

In this way, I can have the joys of "having" things, without ever feeling the pain of them being taken away. Similarly, I was able to sell my old sailboat, that I lived on for many years, to a friend for a dollar. He needed a home, and I had one. I had much attachment and joy associated with that vessel, many years and miles that we shared together, and once it was not mine again, there is no pain of loss.

Likewise, I do not envy other people for the things that they own which I can not have. And these two stances, the ability to not want what you can't have, plus the ability to get over losing what you once had, give you a power stronger than Siddartar's resolve to not want to own anything. It gives you another source of joy and fulfillment without adding another source of pain and dissapointment.

And the people that rail against consumerism and capitalism make the same mistake Siddarthar made, they blame the objects that people desire, instead of learning to both harnass and control the desire itself. They are the ones missing out on many joys, not the other way around. Especially since the joy of ownership does not preclude the other joys that they like to say are superior.

 

Since I share your attitude, I totally agree with it.

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So you are saying attachment causes suffering, but not desire.

 

You guys aren't really answering my question.

The question isn't why is clinging, craving, attachment, desperation, etc...bad the question is why is desire itself bad

There's no doubt that attachment and craving causes suffering

 

I think you are missing the point.

The Buddha taught that the nature of reality was impermanent and interconnected. We suffer in life because of our desire to transient things. Liberation from suffering may come by training the mind and acting according to the laws of karma (cause and effect) i.e. with right action, good things will come to you.

This teaching is known as the Four Noble Truths

Dukkha: Suffering is everywhere

Samudaya: There is a cause of suffering, which is attachment or misplaced desire (tanha) rooted in ignorance.

Nirodha: There is an end of suffering, which is Nirvana (the possibility of liberation exists for everyone).

Maggo: There is a path that leads out of suffering, known as the Noble Eightfold Path (right view, right thought, right speech, right conduct, right vocation, right effort, right attention and right concentration).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha


In essence, desire is the root of craving; per se it is not bad.

 

Ok, I agree attachment and craving causes suffering like The Buddha says and that desire is often associated them.

But what does The Buddha mean by this:
"Hard is it to realize the essential,
The truth is not easily preceived,
Desire is mastered by him who knows',
To him who sees (aright) all things are naught." - (Udana, 8.2)

Here he is talking about not the removal of desire, but the mastery of desire in association with realizing the truth

 

Yes, that was what I was talking about, the mastery of desire (overcome it) not the removal of it. One cannot avoid desire unless we are dead.

As for the Udana, it indicates how ignorance and craving causes suffering.

One looks at external attributes and is attracted. This leads to craving which in turn leads to grasping. The attainment of such craving is the cause of suffering, because it creates a greed for the object of desire. There is a nice analogy with fire.

Hence knowledge can help to alleviate ignorance and lead us to the truth of the matter. At this point, we can appreciate our desires and acknowledge them without becoming slaves to them.

 

Well-said Samcdkey.

Do you try to master your emotions and thoughts? It sounds like you and I share some philosophical bents.

 

Yes, its a daily uphill climb, since I tend to react and then think.

But hopefully, I'll get there someday.

 

"right view, right thought, right speech, right conduct, right vocation, right effort, right attention and right concentration"

I would say that this is the finger that points at the moon, not the moon - if you are familiar with that old saw.

I think the eightfold path could never exclude suffering from a person's life - it can only lead a person to a place where they think clearly enough to see things as they are, without the trappings of mentally created distinction. In that place desire can neither be good nor bad, and so i don't understand how siddartha could be afraid of "attachment to material things", unless he was just talking smack, and wasn't really all that. My statement here applies if you are talking about guatama buddha, and not the character from herman hesse's book (which I only read for fun and never seriously studied, so I have no comment on THAT sidhartha.

How can "Tathagata" be afraid of attachments?

Please don't think this is an argument - just a wedge to split the old wood with, maybe.

A thought about the thread's opening question - I would imagine that a buddha that "desired" to see all beings saved before allowing him or herself to quit this material plane, doesn't "want" to see this happen, per se - they act in a way which furthers that cause. And talking about this I am leaving out the whole non-egoic aspect which must apply to the words of guatama buddha.
I think there are so many conflicting packets of information in the universe that there is no way for a person to rationally have desires, in the multiplicities with which humans normally have them, and also be one-pointed or single-minded at the same time.
So they are "bad" in mitigating quotes, not bad.

 

It's nothing generally wrong with desire.

Desire for material things can make someone steal things, then it's wrong for him to have that desire. Bodily desire can cause people to cheat on their husband or wife, or make them jelous. There are so many bad things that can come from desire, therefor desire is at risk at being seen as generally bad. While some bodily desires can be good for you, like the desire to eat, or the sudden desire to move your hand from a hot plate, or just simply taking care of the body so you can live.

 

I get what you guys are saying, I like that fire analogy,
Mastery over desire is the way to go then

 

Desire is good. It gives people interests. Who the hell wants to sit around staring into his navel?

 

On the contrary the belly button represents the futility of ego and striving

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Obviously you have not yet unlocked the mysteries of your belly button

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samcdkey,
I am impressed with your knowledge of Buddhism!

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I don't think the Buddha considered desire "bad" in the typical sense of the word. He was describing a method for transcending suffering, and desire is the root of it. It is also the root of many pleasurable things, but this is what makes it problematic. If you desire to follow the Buddha's path, then desire is something you must confront within yourself. In the end, even the desire for enlightenment must be overcome. This may seem paradoxical, but Buddhism is above all an experience, not a logical philosophical construction.

 

Actually The Buddha never states that desire is the root of suffering....rather the correct translation is "craving"