Suffering vs Desire

Can We Live Without Desire? 

In a prior article entitled “Why Do We Exist?”, I touched upon the first of the 4 noble truths of Buddhism which relate to suffering (referred to as Dukkha). According to this ancient Dukkha, all of the suffering that we experience is a function of our wants and desires. Buddhism thus, equates our expectations or wanting to the suffering that we inevitably experience throughout our lives. The Buddhist thinking here is simply that we continue to suffer due to failure to obtain or achieve all of that which we want/desire.

Additionally, and most interestingly, we can see a parallel Dukkha within the 3 Abrahamic religions (see more on this below).

Expectations 

The key to this suffering relates to our expectations as well.  If something is impossible and we understand it to be such, we don’t usually want it as much as something else that is achievable. Thus, we sometimes place great expectations upon obtaining some goal only to suffer great disappointment if we don’t meet it. 

Think about this. When we suffer from illness, it is because we assume that the normalcy of our life is to be without illness. We expect good health. 

On a related note, often the death of a loved one creates great suffering. Why? Apart from the attachment and love we may have for the departed, as humans, our flaw is that we assume life. That is, we assume the continuity of life. We don’t deal well with such losses as they disrupt our normal pattern of daily life. 

How to Stop Desire

When we take even a cursory look at this premise, it is not an easy “sell”. How can we simply not want anything? If that is the secret of happiness, is it even possible to reduce desire within ourselves?

There is an inherent problem with this Buddhist solution for suffering. Some clarity is needed here first. 

Desire has different drivers as shown below:

• Desire for things from the external world solely for gain and achievement as the end goal
• Desire for things from within (i.e., health)
• Desire caused by Evil intentions (i.e., akin to the seven deadly sins in Christianity)

The problem is that it is really not completely possible to reduce man’s goal-seeking behavior as it is also nascent and fundamental to our collective survival. 

For example, man “desired” food and learned how to hunt (to seek the goal of his prey) in order to survive. 

What do Buddhists Recommend to Stop Desire?

The embedded premises of the 3rd & 4th Noble Truths relate to the separation or disengagement of the self from negative desires. In a quasi-utopian doctrine, Buddhism nobly requires its followers to self-regulate their behaviors in order to reduce the evils of greed, lust, hatred and false truths. 

The overall and long-term Buddhist objective here is that we must get rid of our wants and fears in order to complete all cycles of rebirth and to achieve Enlightenment (Nirvana).

What is the Christian, Jewish and Muslim Perspective on Desire?

As mentioned in the introductory section of this article, the premise of reducing our desire for the illusory, temporal things to achieve happiness is not exclusively a Buddhist phenomenon but really runs along the same lines as all the Abrahamic religions with some differences.

Apart from the fact that Buddhism is a non-theistic faith (there is no official identifiable god in the Buddhist faith), there is a broader distinction between Buddhism and the Abrahamic religions in that within Judeo-Christian and Islamic doctrine there is no real “cleansing” of the behaviors and nature of man via cycles of rebirth. This is important to understand here because the Abrahamic religions acknowledge man’s imperfect nature such that cannot really achieve progressively greater pre-nirvanic or pre-divine hierarchies via reincarnations.

Nevertheless, there are some parallels within all 4 religions. 

In the Bible we need only to point to the Book of Ecclesiastes to realize that the single verse, “All is vanity” relates to anything to be desired from the temporal world (i.e., wealth) is without value as it strays man away from the path to God. 

In Islam, as implied within the Bible, man is not ever really free from his Earthly desires (referred to as Dunya or the things and experiences of this, our present, known world. Islam also encourages a balance between “Deen” and “Dunya” aka, achieving a balance between religious faith and practice with the responsibilities of tasks, desires and goals of living in society. 

However, as with Judaism and Christianity, Islam doesn’t encourage a complete disengagement from the things of the world in order to become closer to God. 

When examining the concepts of suffering vs desire under the Abrahamic religious lens, man can only regulate himself and his desires to the extent of his abilities, but he will never become more “Godly” as man and God are not in the same divine “ballpark”. Man is also not thought to be able to improve his internal self or his external experiences without help and blessings from God. 

Probably, the most important point here is that neither all desire nor all suffering can really be extinguished by mere mortals. Oh, we might achieve some levels of reduction in both along the way. But let’s face it. The total elimination of desire would require both a physical and a cognitive disengagement of the self from its attributes and needs. 

Living such life might be paradise but, for now at least, we’re just not built that way.