DESIRE
It is rare that happiness alights just so on the desire that called for it.
MARCEL PROUST
No one will dispute the fact that it is natural to have desire and that desire plays a motivating role in our lives. But there is a crucial difference between the deep aspirations that we generate throughout our lives and the desire that is solely concentrated on craving and obsession. Desire can assume infinitely varied forms: we can desire a glass of cool water, someone to love, a moment of peace, the happiness of others; we can also desire our own death. Desire can nourish our existence and can poison it.
It can also mature, free itself, and deepen into the aspiration of making oneself a better human being, of working for the good of others or of achieving spiritual awakening. It is important to make the distinction between desire, which is essentially a blind force, and aspiration, which is inspired by motivation and attitude. If the motivation is vast and selfless, it can be the source of the greatest human qualities and the greatest accomplishments. When it is narrow and egocentric, it fuels the endless preoccupations of daily life, which follow upon one another like waves, from birth to death, and offer no guarantee of deep satisfaction. When it is negative, it can wreak devastating damage.
As natural as it is, desire degenerates into a mental toxin as soon as it becomes craving, an obsession, or an unmitigated attachment. Such desire is all the more frustrating and alienating in that it is out of sync with reality. When we are obsessed by a thing or a person, we misconstrue them as being one hundred percent desirable, and possessing or enjoying them becomes an absolute necessity. Not only is greed a source of distress, but the “possession” of what we desire can, in any case, only be precarious, momentary, and constantly threatened. It is also illusory, in the sense that we ultimately have very little control over what we think we possess.
Desires come in different degrees of duration and intensity. A minor desire, such as for a cup of tea or a nice hot shower, is usually easily satisfied and thwarted only by extremely adverse conditions. There is also the desire to pass a test, to buy a house, the achievement of which may present certain difficulties that can generally be overcome with perseverance and ingenuity. Finally, there is a more basic level of desire, such as that of starting a family, of being happy with the companion of one’s choice, of doing work one enjoys. The attainment of such desires takes a great deal of time, and the quality of life it engenders depends on our deepest aspirations, on the direction we want our lives to take. Do we want our actions to promote joy in our lives, or do we just want to make money and achieve a certain status in society? Do we picture our relationship in a couple as an instance of possession or of altruistic reciprocity? Whatever we choose, we always participate in the dynamic of desire.
In Hong Kong I knew some of the young lions of the stock exchange, who bed down on the floor in the office in their sleeping bags so they can get up in the middle of the night and hit the computers to “catch” the New York exchange before it closes. They too are trying to be happy in their own way, but without much success. One of them told me that he goes down to the beach once or twice a year and looks at how beautiful the ocean is. At such times, he said, he can’t help thinking, “What a strange life I lead. And yet I’ll start all over again come Monday morning.” Lack of priorities? Of courage? We perch at the mirrored surface of illusion without taking the extra time to allow the question to rise from our inner depths: “What do I really want out of life?” Once we’ve found an answer, there will always be time to think about how to attain it. But isn’t it sad to stifle the question itself?
THE MECHANISM OF DESIRE
The craving for pleasant sensations is readily implanted in the mind, since pleasure is accommodating and always ready to offer its services. It is attractive, instills confidence, and with a few convincing images sweeps away all hesitation. What could we possibly have to fear from such a tempting offer? Nothing is easier than setting off down the path of pleasure. But the breeziness of those first few steps doesn’t last long, and soon gives way to the disappointment of naive expectations and the loneliness that goes with the satiation of the senses. It’s hardly realistic to hope that such pleasures will bring us lasting happiness one day.
The great pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer stated: “All striving springs from want or deficiency, from dissatisfaction with one’s condition, and is therefore suffering so long as it is not satisfied. No satisfaction, however, is lasting; on the contrary, it is always merely the starting point of fresh striving. We see striving everywhere impeded in many ways, everywhere struggling and fighting, and hence always as suffering.”1 This assertion is true but incomplete. It assumes that we cannot escape desire and the suffering it perpetuates. If we want to escape it, we have to know how it is created.
The first thing to note is that all passionate desire—as opposed to such primary sensations as hunger or thirst—is foreshadowed by a feeling and a mental representation. The formation of that image can be set in motion by an outward object (a shape, a sound, a touch, a smell, or a taste) or an inward one (a memory or a daydream). Even if we are influenced by latent tendencies, even if desire—primarily sexual—is branded onto our physical constitution, it cannot express itself without a mental representation. It can be voluntary or seem to impose itself on our imagination; it can form slowly or with lightning speed, surreptitiously or openly; but the representation always precedes the active desire because its object must be reflected in our thoughts. It considers desirability to be an inherent characteristic of a given person, whose qualities it exaggerates and whose defects it minimizes. “Desire embellishes the objects on which it rests its wings of fire,” wrote Anatole France.
Understanding this process helps us to accelerate the inner dialogue that allows us to overcome afflictive desire.
Generally, once mental images linked to a desire begin to build up in the mind, one either satisfies the desire or suppresses it. The former action represents a surrender of self-control, the second initiates a conflict. The inner conflict created by suppression is always a source of distress. On the other hand, the option of indulging a desire is like saying: “Why make everything so complicated? Let’s satisfy the desire and have done with it.” The problem is, you’re never done with it: satiation is merely a respite. The mental imagery that desire is continuously creating very quickly reemerges. The more frequently we assuage our desires, the more these images multiply, intrude, and constrain us. The more salt water we drink, the thirstier we become. The repeated reinforcement of mental images leads to addiction and dependency, mental and physical. Once we reach that stage, the experience of desire is felt more like servitude than pleasure. We have lost our freedom.
FROM DESIRE TO OBSESSION
The obsessive desire that often accompanies passionate love can degrade affection, tenderness, and the joy of appreciating and sharing the life of another. It is the diametric opposite of altruistic love. It arises from egocentrism that merely cherishes itself in the other or, worse still, seeks to forge its own happiness at the other’s expense. This kind of desire wants only to appropriate and control the people, objects, and situations that attract it.
This is how one dictionary defines passion: “Powerful, exclusive, and obsessive love. Violent affectivity that hampers the judgment.” It is fueled by exaggeration and illusion, and insists that things be other than the way they actually are.
What about sexual infatuation? We may agree with Christian Boiron, an author and CEO, that “sexual attraction is not pathological, but it is not an emotion either. It is the normal expression of a desire, like hunger and thirst.”2 Nonetheless, it arouses the most powerful emotions in us because it draws its strength from all five senses combined: sight, touch, sound, taste, and smell. In the absence of inner freedom, any intense sensory experience unleashes its succession of attachments and subjugates us ever more cruelly. It’s like a whirlpool in a river: we pay it little heed, we think it’s safe to swim, but when the eddy suddenly accelerates and deepens, we’re sucked in without hope of rescue. Conversely, the person who can maintain perfect inner freedom feels all these sensations in the simplicity of the present moment, with the delight of a mind free of attachment and expectation.
Obsessive desire exaggerates the intensity and frequency of the mental images that trigger it. Like a scratched record, it endlessly replays the same leitmotif. It is a polarization of the mental universe, a loss of flow that paralyzes inner freedom. Alain writes: “What would be left of the sorrow of the thwarted lover, tossing and turning in his bed and fantasizing devious schemes of revenge, if he were to stop mulling over the past and the future?”3 Such obsessions become extremely painful when they are not assuaged and grow in power when they are. The universe of obsession is one in which the sense of urgency is bound to powerlessness.
Another characteristic of obsession is the fundamental dissatisfaction it elicits. It knows no joy, much less fulfillment. It couldn’t be otherwise, since the victim of obsession stubbornly seeks relief in the very situations that torment him. The junkie reinforces his dependency, the alcoholic drinks to delirium, the scorned lover stares at his beloved’s picture all day long. Obsession generates a state of chronic and anxious suffering made up of equal parts desire and repulsion, insatiability and exhaustion. In truth, it is an addiction to the causes of suffering.
Studies indicate that different regions of the brain and neuronal circuits are in play when we “want” something and when we “like” it. This helps us to understand how, once we grow used to feeling certain desires, we become dependent on them—we continue to feel the need to satisfy them even after we stop enjoying the feeling they give us. We reach the point of wanting without liking.4 At the same time, we may wish to be free of the obsession, which hurts by compelling us to desire that which no longer pleases us. Conversely, we can also love something or somebody without necessarily desiring them.
In the same vein, scientists have implanted electrodes in a region of the brain in rats that produces sensations of pleasure when stimulated. The rats can stimulate themselves by pressing on a bar. The pleasure is so intense that they soon abandon all other activities, including food and sex. The pursuit of this feeling becomes an insatiable hunger, an uncontrollable need, and the rats press the bar until they drop from exhaustion and die.
DESIRE, LOVE, AND ATTACHMENT
How do we tell true love from possessive attachment? Altruistic love might be compared to the pure tone of a crystal glass, and attachment to the finger on the rim of the glass that stifles the sound. It must be said that the idea of love without attachment is relatively foreign to the Western sensibility. Not being attached means not that we love the person less, but that we are not primarily focused on self-love through the love we claim to have for the other. Altruistic love is the joy of sharing life with those around us—our friends, our lovers and companions, our wife or husband—and of contributing to their happiness. We love them for who they are and not through the distorting lens of self-centeredness. We are concerned for the other’s happiness, and instead of wanting to possess him, we feel responsible for his well-being. Instead of anxiously awaiting some gratification from him, we can receive his reciprocal love joyfully.
And then gradually we try to extend that love even further. We must be capable of loving all people, unconditionally. Is it asking too much to love an enemy? It may seem like an impossible undertaking, but it is based on a very simple observation: all beings without exception wish to avoid suffering and to know happiness. Genuinely altruistic love is the desire for that wish to be granted. If the love we offer depends exclusively on how we are treated, we won’t be able to love our enemy. However, it is otherwise certainly possible to hope that he will stop suffering and be happy!
How do we reconcile this unconditional and impartial love with the fact that we have preferential relationships with certain people in our lives? Look at the sun. It shines over all people impartially even though it may be hotter and brighter to those who are nearer to it. Despite the limitations inherent in any metaphor, we get the idea that it is possible to develop within ourselves the kind of goodness that embraces all living beings. In Nepal, for example, all women older than oneself are addressed as “big sister” and those younger as “little sister.” Such open, altruistic, and caring kindness, far from diminishing the love we bear for our nearest and dearest, only increases and ornaments it.
We have to be realistic, of course—we can’t very well overtly express our affection and love in the same way to everyone. It is normal that the effects of our love should involve some people more than others. Nonetheless, there is no reason why a special relationship with a friend or lover should limit the love and compassion we may feel for all people. When it arises, that limitation is called attachment. It is harmful to the extent that it pointlessly restricts selfless love’s field of play. The sun ceases to shine in all directions; it is reduced to a narrow beam of light. Such attachment is a source of suffering, because selfish love constantly butts up against the barriers it has itself erected. The truth is, possessive and exclusive desire, obsession, and jealousy have meaning only in the closed universe of attachment. Selfless love is the highest expression of human nature that has not been obscured and distorted by the manipulations of the ego. Selfless love opens an inner door that renders self-importance, and hence fear, inoperative. It allows us to give joyfully and to receive gratefully.