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Guided Meditation: Healthy Desire

Hello everyone. I feel a little slow to speak. I think I'm a little bit just happy to be here with you in this way, and somehow more focused on that happiness than speaking. But speak I will.

There's a difference between being mindful and having the desire to be mindful. Many people who learn about Buddhism—and it may be in a simplistic way—will believe that there's something wrong with having desires. This is not the teaching of the Buddha. He said that there is, to paraphrase him, something painful about craving, about thirsting, grasping. Certain kinds of desire carry with them, inherently, pain and stress. But desire doesn't have to have that. Desires can flow through the mind, through the heart, like a small cloud floating in the sky, with no pressure, just floating through. Desires can be quite easy to have, and there are desires that arise out of our goodness, out of wisdom, out of care and compassion. Compassion itself is a kind of a desire.

So, the difference between being mindful and desiring to be mindful is a useful distinction if it helps us to appreciate our desire to be mindful: the wish, the aspiration, the wanting to be mindful. And to find a way to want to be mindful that is—this is my language, which you can translate for yourself—delightful to have. A delightful desire, and maybe an inspired desire, maybe a loving desire that has no expectation in it, no pressure in it, no requirement, no should, no admonition. It is just like, "Of course, this is a good thing." If we can find that kind of desire—someone asks, "Chanda?" Yes, that's the Pali word, chanda^[1]—if we can find that kind of desire, maybe it can support being mindful.

It can be gentle, like the water wheels that used to be in watermills. As the current of the river passes through the wheel, it turns the wheel for the mill to grind flour. Maybe chanda, maybe the desire, can be the current that keeps the mindfulness engaged or present, turning, flowing, moving, active. So in this sitting, maybe after settling in, I'll ask you to explore the nature of a desire to be mindful, and see if that can support the practice.

Establishing a posture for meditation, and then allowing the eyes to close themselves if they want to. Whether the eyes are open or closed, see if you can relax the gaze of the eyes. Relax any engagement with the eyes to see tension. Take a few long, gentle, deep breaths. With the inhale, get a full, embodied connection to yourself, a connection to as much of your body as the deep in-breath reaches. And maybe as you exhale—a long exhale—let it be like all the weight of your body settles into the bottom of your belly, and from there is supported.

Letting your breathing return to normal. For the next three or four breaths, feel wherever there might be tension or tightness in your body. Into the exhale, soften around it. Relax. Then take a couple of breaths to relax the thinking muscle, any tension or tightness associated with thinking.

Take a few moments to feel your whole body, or a wide experience of your body, in whatever way is easy for you. Feeling your body so it can be a reference point, or a deeper connection to your inner life.

Then see if you can find within you a relaxed desire. Maybe one that wells up from within, rather than a thought that carries with it a should. A desire which is maybe a kind of inspiration from within, of the goodness, of a possibility of being present, aware, and mindful here and now. Maybe a desire to be aware of the aliveness of this moment.

Knowing that whatever is occurring in the present, whether it's pleasant or unpleasant, is a manifestation of you. You're alive right now. Desiring to be present for it, to be mindful, because mindfulness itself, being conscious, is a primary characteristic of being alive and awake. It's a wondrous thing to be aware. A gentle, loving, inspired desire, saying "yes" to awareness. A desire that is so simple that it's just a simple "Yes, this is good. This is what I'd like."

Letting there be a gentle, ongoing desire that is like the wind pushing a sailboat through the water, where mindfulness is the bow that meets the water moment by moment as the boat moves through time.

If you find yourself swept away in thinking, because of the wonderful desire to be mindful, when you come back there can be a delight in following through on that desire. Coming back to mindfulness is a happy fulfillment of a simple desire, and you can enjoy that fulfillment, however weak it might be.

As we come to the end of this sitting, appreciate that there's an art to having desires. Many people don't study the art of desiring. Desires can come from a place within of creativity, of non-craving. Desires that have no need within them, just a simple open goodness. "This would be a nice idea, this would be good." A desire which can inspire action, can inspire change, but doesn't assert itself, doesn't push for change.

And there can be, then, a desire for the well-being of others that comes from this place of creativity and simplicity. That is a form of art, perhaps. It comes from a kind of grace, a non-neediness, a non-obligation. From a place within where it just seems like this is a really good idea, that others would be well. It's a desire which feels good to have. It's nourishing and supportive to you to have this desire. There's so little pressure or sense of lack, or sense of inadequacy that goes with it. It's the opposite. It's a desire that comes from a sense of being content here, settled.

From such a desire, expressing the wish in simple words in the quiet of your own mind, you might repeat these words that I say:

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

And may your peaceful desire for the welfare of others be nourishing for you.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Right Effort (2 of 5) Abandoning the Unwholesome

So this week we're doing the Buddha's teachings on Right Effort, the sixth factor of the Eightfold Path^[2]. In the classic description of each of the eightfold factors of the path, this has the longest description and has a lot of repetition in it. There are Four Right Efforts, and the way it's worded, each one is mostly the same, just with some variation. There's a lot of repetition of some words, and that repetition has an impact as we read it or listen to it with that kind of emphasis.

Each Right Effort has a series of words that describe the kind of effort to be made. We'll talk about these different kinds of efforts that the text says, but each of these Four Right Efforts is supposed to be done with desire. The Pali word is chanda, a rather innocent word for desire that sometimes is used for appropriate desires, and sometimes for inappropriate desires or painful ones. It's kind of a broad word for desires, without any ethical or other kind of valence implied except in the context in which it's used. But it's used for wholesome things, and one of the wholesome engagements is this Right Effort, how to practice.

So, learning how to have chanda, to have desire which is itself Right Effort, which is itself without any afflictive tendencies or the unwholesome, and which has wholesomeness as part of it, which is skillful, which is nourishing, which is supportive for us. The art is discovering, investigating how we have desires so they come from a place within that's not afraid, which is not greedy, which is not angry, hostile, or aversive. A place that's not related to conceit—thinking, "I have to make the effort here so I can be the most perfect effortful person in all my Buddhist community," or something.

But really, it's about beginning to take desire seriously enough that it deserves attention. Let's look at this desire. What does it mean to have desire? Rather than a simplistic understanding of Buddhism—"I'm just supposed to let go, I'm just supposed to let go of everything, let go of desires, let go of everything." There is a time and place for that kind of approach, but to have that be the broad swath of what we do with our life, it's not really what the Buddha was teaching. To go along with his emphasis, he talked about having desire for the practice, for the path of liberation.

We need to discover how you hold the desire in a way that is inspiring for you, so that it comes from a place of goodness and rightness and doesn't add stress to your life. If anything, it reduces the stress, and you're just happy to have this desire. Rather than, "Oh, one more desire, one more thing to do, I have this long to-do list and now I'm supposed to do this too." Not like that, but something like, "Oh, I'm so lucky, I'm so fortunate to have this. This is a great thing."

In a sense, one of the great aspects of these Four Right Efforts is that it's an application. It's a way of being, a way of being with everything we can possibly do. No matter what we're doing, we're looking at it from the point of view of how I'm doing it and what's motivating it. Is it wholesome or unwholesome? Is it helpful or unhelpful?

And then we desire to not be involved with the unhealthy ways of doing things, and to desire the healthy ones. Then, how is that desire? Am I in a hurry with desire? "I have so many things to do, I'm in a hurry." If you are in a hurry and trying to fill your life, can you tap into the healthy form of desire? Does healthy desire come from some other place?

One of the paradoxes of really strong desire, of neediness or craving or thirsting, of wanting to do things—even if we do it out of fear, fear of missing out or something—is that it diminishes the wholesome. Sometimes the wholesome within us gets eclipsed entirely by all the desires we have. But if we find how to have wholesome desires in a place where there's time and space, then the wholesome can well up. The ways in which we do things can be fulfilling in and of itself, and we don't need to find fulfillment from accomplishing a lot of things. We find our fulfillment in the moment of doing something, much more so.

Each of these Four Right Efforts talks about taking up, taking hold of the mind with desire. The way that Right Effort is often translated, it's a little bit—I often felt I was just tired by the time I read it. Here's a common translation. It's a part of each of the Four Right Efforts that's similar for each one. It says, "One makes effort, arouses energy, exerts the mind, and strives."

That seems like a lot of work. But I want to read you a different translation, one that I've made. Some of what the original Pali has is left out in this English translation.

"One takes up and takes hold of the mind."

Here, one begins by being present for one's own mind, one's own inner life. One takes hold and takes up. Our inner life, the mind—this is important to engage and be attentive to.

"One takes up and takes hold of the mind, and generates desire."

One arouses, one gives birth to desire.

There's a conscious intention here to look for that desire that is appropriate, that's healthy, that's beautifully done, like a piece of art that you like to look on.

"One takes up and takes hold of the mind, and generates desire, initiates courageous effort."

The word initiates is there in the original, and the word for courageous effort is viriya^[3], which is a very powerful word. Sometimes it means power or strength, and sometimes it's translated, I think maybe in Tibetan Buddhism, as "courageous effort." A warrior is sometimes called a word that's related to viriya. I like the phrase "courageous effort," that sometimes we have to have some courage to be present for ourselves. It's bringing some strength to it.

"One takes up and takes hold of the mind, and generates desire, initiates courageous effort for the non-arising of unwholesome states of mind."

That's the first Right Effort. For today, I want to introduce the second one. This one goes: "One takes up and takes hold of the mind, and generates desire, initiates courageous effort for abandoning unwholesome states of mind."

The word pahāna^[4], "abandoned," is a powerful word. It's different than just letting go. Letting go has more of a sense of letting go of it for the moment. Abandoning is letting go done with wisdom and commitment and clarity, and a fullness. "This I'm going to put down. This I'm not going to be involved in anymore." Of course, mostly they come back, but there's a kind of a definitiveness, a fullness or seriousness. "This I will abandon. This I won't do anymore."

Here again, we have this idea of living in a conscious, mindful way that comes when you take hold of the mind. Take hold of your attention, take hold of being here in the present moment. Take it up, be here, so that when you're doing something, you do it wholeheartedly. Here, this Right Effort is to generate the desire to wholeheartedly abandon whatever you're doing that's afflictive, that harms you, and maybe harms others as well.

It's not at all easy to abandon and let it go. To say it so simply can be confusing or even stressful. But we're talking about having the desire for this, the healthy desire. Taking the time to find that definitiveness of clearness that, "I think I want to be finished with this. I've been critical of others in an aversive, annoying way, and I'm done with this. I've done this for so long. It's not good for them, it's not good for me. I want to abandon this aversive nature that I have, this criticalness, this cynicism, the resentment I have. I've been caught in addiction," which is very difficult—I don't want to understate the difficulty of it—"but still, I've had enough and I want to have the desire here to abandon it."

Once that clear desire is there to abandon it, then we can engage in the process of doing so. It might not just be snapping our fingers and then we just do it. Then we practice the rest of the Eightfold Path so that we can find a way to do that.

The second of the Right Efforts is to arouse, give birth to, generate the desire. Find the desire, find the way to desire that you enjoy. It does require you to take some time to get to know what that kind of desire might be. Maybe it's a desire you arouse when you're relaxed, at ease, having a cup of tea, looking out the window. Or maybe you can be in touch with that kind of healthy desire at the end of a sitting of meditation.

This is not an obligation to let go of unwholesome desires. Having unwholesome mind states is not a statement that you're a terrible person. It's rather discovering something wonderful inside, a wonderful desire that cares for yourself, that wants to engage in a process of bringing these to an end so they can be abandoned, put down once and for all. Maybe it's done in small pieces, small steps. Maybe it's done gradually over time.

Maybe for today, if you know you have some afflictive, unhealthy mind states and desires that you don't want to live by but you're caught in often, maybe the goal for today is not to abandon them entirely, but to discover a desire to abandon them.

Whenever they arise, take the time to find a healthy desire, one that you like, that you enjoy having in relationship to the things that you would like to abandon. Then, rather than abandoning them entirely, maybe you can lessen their frequency or their intensity today by 10 percent.

What would that look like? Just turning down the volume a little bit, as opposed to being caught up in the idea that it should be all or nothing.

I hope you enjoy your desires. Take time today to look at them and explore them, and maybe enjoy the desire to be done with some of the unhealthy, unsupportive states of mind that you might live with. Maybe you'll enjoy doing them ten percent less.

Thank you very much. Tomorrow we'll start the discussion about the third Right Effort, which is related to wholesome mind states. Thank you.