Overcoming Desire & Suffering - Ayurveda's Perspective 7 of 9

Yoga and Buddhism teach that if you overcome desire, you'll overcome suffering. And that belief comes from Sankhya, which is at the philosophical root of yoga and Buddhism, and also the philosophy that had a tremendous influence on Ayurveda as well. We all have many desires, and some of these desires cause a problem. Some people want love. Some people want to buy a new boat. Some people want to travel. Some people desire money. Some people want fancy shoes. Some people desire to be popular. Well, who can satisfy all these desires? Nobody. So, therefore, every person is frustrated with, on some level, with desires, right? And this is true for me too. I have, I can think of some things that I would like to happen in my life, and because they aren't happening right now, oh, I'm a little frustrated, right? Normal, natural. So, desire nags at a person every day. And Sankhya says, hey, let's eliminate this nagging feeling. Sankhya says that if you detach yourself from desire, you'll be free from the fundamental disappointment with life. Ayurveda texts also agree that desire and an aversion, not just desire, but also aversion, the flip side of desire is an aversion to things, that both desire and aversion is a root cause of disease. And it says that in the Ashtanga Hridaya. Suffering in yoga, Buddhism, Sankhya, et cetera, comes from the insatiable desire of the will. And so, to eliminate frustration, you have to eliminate desire, and really, you have to eliminate the will too, all self-will. And that is what yoga and Buddhism mean by eliminating the ego. So, what are some of the techniques that is used or advocated to achieve that? Well, one of them is sitting still in meditation. Because that sitting still is the act of doing nothing, and that means you've overcome your will, right? You've overcome, if you're sitting there doing nothing, that means that you have successfully controlled every desire that could possibly move you. And then, once you've made all your external motion still, then it's time to calm the internal motion, the internal thought chatter that comes with it, that comes from your will. All right, so what are some of the most fundamental desires? I said before that your will creates lots of desires. What are some of these fundamental desires, and how does Sankhya eliminate each of them one by one? Well, I said that meditation overcomes the desire to move, and then, in meditation, you try to overcome the desire to think. And one of the techniques to do that is breath retention, that breath retention takes your meditation up a notch, according to Sankhya. It stops the mind, because suddenly you've challenged the most fundamental survival instinct, right? The most fundamental motivation of your will, which is to breathe. Breath retention challenges your desperation for oxygen, and so it's this real radical way of challenging desire. Another way that Sankhya eliminates desire is by overcoming the desire to procreate. And even overcoming the desire to get caught in the cycle of birth and death. Elimination of desire is why Sankhya philosophies like Buddhism and yoga try to escape the cycle of birth and death. All right, so having a healthy perspective on desires is important. Desires can be unruly. They can lead to addictive behaviors, alcohol, drugs, sex, overeating, to excessive indulgence in those areas. And so we need to have a healthy perspective on desire. We shouldn't be in denial that reality includes some suffering. We all need to examine desire, and contemplation and mindfulness can help us examine those desires, and can be a great tool. Ayurveda also teaches that some cravings and desires are false. And these false cravings typically come from toxins in your body, according to Ayurveda. So if you have a craving to eat a bowl of ice cream, is it because you're feeling depressed or because you're hungry? And if you have a lot of amma and your kapha dosha is high, et cetera, et cetera, then you may crave the ice cream just because you're depressed. But that's a false craving. You're not really hungry. Or a person who eats sugar because they feel tired, but their blood sugar levels aren't low, so they shouldn't eat sugar, but they do it because they want the energy hit. So Ayurveda teaches that some cravings and desires are false and I think everyone all over the world would agree that some desires are problematic. But Ayurveda also teaches that some cravings are true and that those cravings should be followed, not just eliminated. Many desires are actually good too. So for example, the desire to be generous, should that be eliminated? Our desire to know God or to see God or to imitate God's goodness, is that a desire that we should eliminate? Should we eliminate the desire to love somebody? Can enjoying life be a part of spiritual living or must we try to escape the cycle of birth and death? So I think some alternative models on desire and passion would say things like desire and passion fuel our search for true happiness. How would we know how to find our bliss without desire and passion? We'd be just wandering aimlessly. So yes, desire leads us down some bad paths that can hurt us. I've been there, I'm sure you have too. Because of desire and passions, I've made some mistakes in my life, but I've also learned along the way and my desires and passions are hopefully getting refined through time. And I wouldn't wanna throw them away because they're very motivating. I mean, I have a desire to teach people about Ayurveda, should I eliminate that? I think you would find me a very boring teacher if I did that. Hopefully I'm not a boring teacher even with it. Anyway, so it would be incredibly disorienting if we suddenly lost our desires and passions. Desires help you discover your mission. So think about it. In what area of your life are you the most generous? Just take a moment to consider that, even hit the pause button and write it down. Because that's the area where God is most likely calling you. That area where you wanna give yourself, where you wanna sacrifice yourself, where you recognize your true fulfillment, that's probably where God's calling you. What about sex? What about food? What about relationships? Should we eliminate the desire for them? I would say that we desire those things, not just because they're pleasurable, but because they're life-giving. Most of our pleasures behind them have a healthy life-giving impulse, right? Why do we desire food? Because food helps us survive. Why is sex pleasurable? Because it leads to procreation and helps people bond in relationship. So we have to attend to our basic needs. And luckily, the divine plan included making those needs into desires. And attending those basic needs ensures good health. So generally, Ayurveda does not try to eliminate desire. It tries to discern desire and know which desires are false cravings and which are true. And that's because Ayurveda takes a body positive approach. It doesn't try to escape the cycle of birth and death. It's a natural philosophy. And natural philosophies in general affirm the goodness of nature as opposed to liberation from it. Sankhya says that reality was created out of ignorance and that we should try to attain moksha or liberation from nature. And Ayurveda sometimes tips its hat towards that philosophy. But by and large, it seems to me to be a very body positive approach and a reality-affirming, nature-affirming approach. Now let's ask a question about love, right? Because desire ultimately is on the, in its ideal case is love, right? So am I being selfish? Am I being egotistical by loving? And, or should I eliminate all the desires in my marriage? Well, I wanna just, I'm just gonna say flat out. I don't just love my wife because I'm supposed to or because it's good or because it's kind. I love my wife because I want her. Does that make my love selfish? Well, I don't know, yes and no. You know, what if I love my life without desire for her? Do you think, would she like that? I would say she probably wouldn't. Do you want your spouse to desire you? So I'm gonna say that love is probably, even though it's something I want, is not entirely selfish. And why not? Because my, the reason is really because my wife and I share the same humanity, humanity. People have the same humanity. And so my desires are frequently in alignment with your desires, right? My desire is frequently in alignment with my wife's desires. You know, I wanna have a nice home. I wanna build a good environment for myself. But when I do that, I'm probably also building a good environment for my wife, right? And of course I take her direction on that, right? She, you know, she helps me choose the color of the curtains and all those things, right? Any case, our desires are what help us work together, what help me and my wife work together to create an environment where everyone thrives, where my kids thrive. So in seeking to be fulfilled by love, I hope I'm becoming good at loving. That making my wife happy makes my home a happy place. That the highest good for me is the highest good for you. So of course this equation doesn't always work. Some people have distorted this notion of survival of the fittest, right? This idea that like evolution is survival of the fittest, this real Darwinian nihilism or cynicism that pits every person against every other person, portraying the world as a merciless doggy dog place where people say, oh, I've gotta be selfish, I've gotta be opportunist. You know, the books like The Selfish Gene, right? Some more modern writings on that. And I think that is a terrible distortion of reality and a terrible distortion of survival of the fittest. Because honestly, when I look around me, many of the humans that seem like they're the most fit and the most able to survive are the ones who are generous and loving. And so when I think about my own survival and when I think about my own fitness for survival, right away, I don't think of, you know, pitting myself against everyone. I think, how can I be a more generous and loving person? And so, you know, personal, you know, selfishness and love are not opposites. I wanna say something else. That as a parent of four children, I find the idea of eliminating desire and escaping the cycle of birth and death terrifying down to my bones. This idea that we would reject the life cycle is chilling to me. It, you know, it's just, it's painful to imagine willfully preventing the existence of my sweet children or not desiring them. And here I see my two youngest, Francesca and little John. This was about five hours after little John was born and you see him there. Still got the umbilical cord attached there if you look at this photo and he's crying and little Frenchie is so excited to see him. And to me that is, you know, that is spiritual fulfillment, not escaping the cycle of birth and death. And really that model of escaping the cycle of birth and death has always been a bitter pill for me to swallow. Detachment from everything has, you know, as in my mind, it creates this great big empty hole in the center of Sankhya's worldview. And this folks is the reason why I never ever do empty bowl meditation. You know, the idea that I would deliberately seek to make the empty hole inside of myself bigger to me is, you know, is a real, you know, opposite of the direction I wanna go to in my life. All right, so what are some other healthier, healthy ways to deal with desire other than just eliminating all of it? Well, first of all, we should re-examine desires that don't come true. Should I be frustrated when I don't get what I want? You know, have you ever heard the story about the Midas touch or the golden touch? And this is a really great anecdotal story about a king who wants more gold. And so he wishes that everything he touched would turn to gold. And then that wish is granted and suddenly everything he touches turns to gold. So he tries to eat something and his food turns to gold and he can't eat it anymore. And then at some point he wants to hug his wife, but when he hugs his wife, she turns to gold. And then she's basically, he can't have her anymore because she's now gold. And so when things that, when your desires, when my desires don't come true, I try not to sit around being frustrated about them. I think to myself, well, maybe, you know, God doesn't want me to have that cause it's not good for me, right? Maybe this is an example of the Midas touch. I don't, am I, are my desires perfect? Do I always know what I should be desiring? Do I always know what will make me happy? Probably not. And so since my desires aren't perfect, then I should re-examine them when they don't come true instead of becoming frustrated by them. So, you know, I try to redirect my frustrations to trust in the divine plan for me and put my faith in that. Put my faith that, you know, that God wants something, you know, God knows where my true happiness lies better than I do. Let's talk about another thing here that can help alleviate some frustration for you cause it did for me. And I can't remember the book I read it in. I really wish I had the reference here but there's this big difference between having a wish and having hope. Not every one of your wishes will come true but being an optimist means believing that the world is fundamentally good and satisfying, that the world is fulfilling, that having hope means having a fundamental belief that you will be blessed. Now you don't always know how you're gonna be blessed. You don't always know how the divine gift is gonna be given. So wishes kind of are a narrowing of hope. Wishes take the world of hope and direct it towards one thing only, getting a new boat, getting a fancy car, having a new shoes, a better home, et cetera. Hope is just the opposite. Hope is open. Hope says, I will be blessed. I don't know how yet, but the world is good. The world is satisfying. God loves me and his happiness, my happiness is in his hands and I can put a lot of hope in that. So hope stays open to the divine mystery whereas wishes often say, hey, I know what I want better than you. And so how do you justify optimism? How do you justify hope? That's a fundamentally spiritual question. It's really fundamental to your concept of who God is and what divinity is. So I think I would say that to be healthy, we all need a source of hope in our life. And then I'll ask the question, what's your source of hope? All right, and then let's talk for a minute about philosophical pessimism here. Philosophical pessimism is the exact opposite. It's the idea that desires can never be truly satisfied. And philosophical pessimism is kind of what Sankhya is, what Buddhism is, and even what yoga is, is that desires can't be satisfied, that we have to eliminate desire if we wanna eliminate suffering. This is pretty central to that theme. And philosophical pessimism basically says that reality is somehow deficient. Reality in Sankhya is born out of ignorance and a loss of consciousness. So pessimists believe that true happiness doesn't come from optimism, which is naive. Pessimists would say optimism is completely naive. Pessimists, on the other hand, would say happiness comes from accepting this fact, accepting the fact that desires can't be fulfilled and that creates suffering, or that reality is somehow deficient and unsatisfying. So we should escape the cycle of birth and death. And for more about philosophical pessimism, see the work of Arthur Schopenhauer. He was a Western philosopher that was heavily influenced by Sankhya and Indian religions. And you can see what his model for happiness is if you're really into Sankhya yoga or Buddhism and wanna see what happiness looks like in those models, then you can check out his work. So I just wanna make a note. Philosophical pessimism is not depression. It's not gloomy either. It's not a gloomy emotion, in other words. It may be a little gloomy about life, but it's not a gloomy emotion. It's not a person who's sad. Philosophical pessimists believe that happiness comes from this idea of eliminating desire, that pessimism is the path to happiness. So pessimism is commonly talked about as a gloomy emotion, but it's not. It's more like a belief system than an emotion. All right, what are some alternatives to overcoming suffering other than the elimination of desire or other than numbing oneself to the drama of life? Well, one way is to seek professional help to talk about some of your disappointments. I would say another way is healthy grieving to help you deal with emotions so that you don't try to suppress or hide pain. And also a model for having hope, have a reason to hope, even if it's a totally irrational reason to hope. You know, hope anyway. Another model is to see suffering as redemptive. Why would suffering ever be redemptive, right? You see that a lot of saints and ascetics or among other people, they see suffering as a good thing, right? Well, how could suffering be a good thing? Well, suffering is never a good. I mean, we should never try to have more suffering, right? But when suffering comes, we shouldn't entirely reject it either, right? That perhaps it's God's will that we should suffer in some ways here and there, and that suffering, we have something to learn from it. Right, I know that the suffering that I've gone through in my life has taught me greater compassion, has taught me greater generosity, and it's also aroused empathy for other people. I remember as a kid, you know, I had less empathy than I do now. And I think suffering has helped me, has helped arouse that empathy so that I can care more, not less. Suffering arouses a desire to help people. So I think suffering does have some good effects, even if it's never actually, you know, a good itself. Anyway, how do we resolve the tension between the two extremes of selfishness and transcendence, between being an opportunist and having many desires and self-denial where we've eliminated desire altogether? Well, I would say that true happiness is found in that meeting place that is your mission, that when you've discovered your mission in life, you've not only discovered your deepest desire, but you've also discovered that, you know, healthy transcendence, right? So your ego doesn't disappear when you have a mission because it's still you doing it, it's still you desiring it. But on some level, you are also selfless because we all sacrifice ourself to something, right? We all, you know, we all give up our time and energy for something in life. So we might as well fulfill that ultimate mission. We might as well respond to God's call and get to bring happiness and joy and happiness, desire, and selflessness all together into alignment with God's loving purpose. And I think that, you know, that is, that's certainly what I'm going, that's certainly what I'm, you know, if my life was an arrow, that's the target I'm seeking. So to conclude, we all need perspective on desire. We all need some detachment from desire. We all need to know how to eliminate some desires that are making us suffer. But we can't really say that all desires are bad. Some desires can even make you happy, especially ones that are aligned with your mission. So the ego is a source of evil, true, and selfishness, true, but it's also the source of good and loving acts. So we need to know how to recognize which desires are healthy, how to deal with frustrated desires, and a way to heal suffering rather than denying suffering's existence. We need to know when to detach from what hurts us and when to attach to what's good for us.