Desire and wanting

I came accross this very interesting site called Urban Dharma
where they talk about the hinderances in our lives. I especially liked the following paragraph about desire and the price we pay for it.


"One of the interesting things when you start to look at and work with the hindrance of desire is to see that what relieves it, what makes one finally happy about it, is not so much the thing that you get, or the person, or the experience that you get at the end - this is important, so listen to this - it's actually the fact that the state of desiring has ended. I'll give you a simple example. Suppose you have a craving for some food that you really want to have. It can be pizza or ice cream or cannelloni, you name it, whatever it happens to be. You go and you get it. You do all the things. You get in your car, you go, you finally get it, you have it in your hand, and you take the first bite of whatever it is. And usually the moment that you taste it, there's this great sense of delight and release, and so forth, and part of it may be because it tastes good and it's pleasurable, if it's part of your fantasy -- but the main piece is, in that moment, finally the wanting stops. Do you understand that? And that a good deal of the joy of fulfilling desires is not so much of the getting of the thing, because you have it for a little while and then you want the next thing -- it's endless -- but rather that there's a moment where the wanting itself stops. If you look closely in yourself, if you let yourself look, you find that the very process of wanting is painful; that the very state of not being complete or content or present with what's here is what the pain is about."

Here is another article about renunciation of wanting

This is how it starts... "Where compassion is the wish that others not suffer, renunciation is the wish that I not suffer. What causes me to suffer? Wanting. Renunciation, then, means not so much giving up things, desires, or a way of life, but to give up desiring itself. But to do so is not so easy."


enjoy! and feel free to comment with your toughts and feelings on desire and wanting.