The Way of Wisdom: What’s Wrong with Desire

Last night's talk by Phra Cittasamvaro Bhikku, part four of his excellent 'Way of Wisdom' series, was about sense desire, and Phra Pandit started out by saying clearly that the Buddhist path is not about destroying desires, but observing how they work and thus being able to restrain them. The middle way that the Buddha taught is a path not of renunciation, but of restraint.

The one extreme, of severe asceticism, is something rarely seen. The other, of not even noticing desire as it arises, and thus being a slave to it, is very common, and Phra Pandit gave some of the Buddha's analogies for it. It is like a hungry dog chewing on a bare bone, or a blazing torch blowing fire back at the person carrying it, or a man stripped of his master's fine clothes.

But the story I liked best was the one Phra Pandit told from the Magandiya Sutta about the leper who, after being cured of his disease, would no longer want to scratch at and burn his body, and would fight not to. "If you can see things as they really are" Phra Cittasamvaro Bhikku said, "you can attain the happiness that is independent of the sense desires".

So the Buddha asked Magandiya to imagine a leper covered with sores and devoured by worms, picking at his scabs and burning his body over a pit of embers to try to relieve the pain. "Now imagine" the Buddha said, "that his friends and relatives took the poor man to a doctor and the doctor was able to cure him. Would he still desire to scratch himself and burn his flesh?"

Of course not. And should, the Buddha suggested, the poor man be grabbed by two strong men and dragged back to the pit of embers, he'd struggle to get away. "Now what do you think, Magandiya? Is the fire painfully hot to the touch only now, or was it also that way before? Why does the man try to avoid this fire now when he used to so enjoy it in the past?"

Magandiya answered the Buddha by saying "Both now and before it is painfully hot Master Gotama. It's just that when the man was a leper covered with sores and infections, devoured by worms, picking the scabs off his wounds with his nails, his faculties were impaired, which was why, even though the fire was actually painful, he had the skewed idea that it was pleasant."

"And it's exactly the same" the Buddha said, "with sensual pleasures. Sensual pleasures have always been painful to the touch, in the future they'll be painful to the touch, and right now they are painful too. But when beings are not free from passion for them, when they are devoured by craving, their faculties are impaired, and they have the skewed perception of pleasant."

"And the more people indulge in sensual pleasures, the more their craving increases. But look" the Buddha added, "at the alternative. Look at those who live free from thirst, with their minds at peace. They achieve this by seeing, as it happens in the present moment, how desires arise and fade away. They observe the start and finish of desires in their minds, and thus have freedom from them."

Adapted from the Magandiya Sutta (MN 75), translated from Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 2009. Please follow the link below for the original.

Links:
Access to Insight:

"Magandiya Sutta: To Magandiya" (MN 75), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 2009

On Littlebang:

Littlebang: The Way of Wisdom - introduction

Littlebang: The Way of Wisdom - weekly topics

On Marcus' Journal:

The Way of Wisdom: Introduction

The Way of Wisdom: Prelude

The Way of Wisdom: Panya

The Way of Wisdom: The Relay

The Way of Wisdom: The Guaranteed Method

Photo: Early 18th century mural (detail), Wat Ko, Phetchaburi. Apologies for the poor quality of the image.