Desire, Desire, Desire: Observations on Greed, The First Defilement in Buddhism

What makes the engine go?

Desire, desire, desire.

The longing for the dance

stirs in the buried life.- Stanley Kunitz

How much of your everyday activity is driven by desire? Obviously, we all desire food and water to keep our engines going. Perhaps we all desire love, comfort, and safety too. Perhaps we all desire connection. Perhaps we all desire a sense of meaning or direction. And perhaps we all desire sex or escape or hedonistic pleasures. Desire is the stuff of all human activity, the thing that keeps us going and wanting more and more. Desire is what the economy going (what would happen to the worldwide economy if people were completely satisfied with what they have?)

For most of my life, I did not question this instinct. But that has changed over the last few years. Desire, I’ve observed, causes so much of my suffering. On one level much of my pain is the result of wanting what I cannot have or wanting things to be different. It seems so obvious. Give up desire, and maybe I can be happier. But trying to give up desire is like asking a fish to stop swimming. Swimming is in fish’s very nature. Desire is how we operate. There is no escaping that.