Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘One place where the mental and physical dimensions of human life converge is the domain of desire. Our desires cut across the body/mind divide because they always seem to implicate both. Perhaps this is one reason why all classical religions hold desire in suspicion. In the throes of desire, we can hardly tell where matter stops and spirit begins. No traditional religion had given desire a more negative role than Buddhism. Desire was named in the Four Noble Truths as the singular cause of suffering. Desire was precisely what was to be eliminated in enlightened life.

At this point in the development of Buddhist thought and practice, however it is not dificult to see the limitation of this perspective. Desires, more than anything else, get us moving in life. They provide the energy for accomplishments of all kinds, including the quest for enlightenment.

We can learn to desire the good, we can desire a comportment of peace and compassion, and when they are fully developed, desires can help us work for the enlightenment and health of all beings. The question before us therefore is: What is the relation between human desire and the energy that moves us? How can we conceive of desire so that we can contemplate both the problematic side of desire that early Buddhists saw so clearly and the inevitable role that desire plays in any life of excellence? Addressing this central issue while giving justice to the obvious truth of contrary views, we will come to more clearly understand what the perfection of energy ought to be.

Although reconciliation between these two positions on desire would appear to be very important to a full understanding of the perfection of energy, it is extremely difficult to find a plausible solution in traditional Buddhist texts. We can even find texts that in different sections take both contradictory positions that desire is the fundamental problem, and that without desire you will not be able to attain enlightened wisdom- but still no systematic reconciliation between the two poles is attempted.’ (The Six Perfections)

I have head talks over the years considering this issue, of the desire to practice set against the admonitions against gaining ideas; lets just say that some desires causes more suffering than others.