This was very edifying! I enjoyed reading it, the OCD comparison makes things especially clear.
Adding to our previous conversation, I see another contradiction between orthodoxy and Buddhism here— desire is not something to escape totally in orthodoxy. Where Buddhists seek non-being (sorry if this is the wrong term, I mean to end all compulsions and desires) Christian’s seek to awaken Godly desires : from lust to love, from pride to humility, from avarice to charity, from envy to kindness, from wrath to meekness, etc.
We are not seeking to eliminate desire, only to eliminate selfish desire, because God is selfless, self sacrificial, and full of mercy and charity. There are a lot of metaphysics to this but to simplify it, we want to be like God because He is the ultimate Good, and He is our role model because of it.
It is interesting how the ascetic paths overlap though. It’s different because rather than trying to get rid of all desire, we’re attempting to transform our desires through the ascetic path.
Yet, resistance of sin does look pretty similar, and indeed we also participate in fasting in order to elevate the soul’s control over the flesh. But, there would also be no reason for an orthodox Christian to avoid chocolate when they aren’t fasting. Or the desire to be loved (as long as this is holy, and doesn’t tip into people pleasing or other perversions like lust).
Idk how I would sum it up! Maybe it’s just that because the goals are different, also the specific desires we wish to overcome and transform are also different. Maybe it’s also because we don’t see desire itself as the reason we suffer.
This is a very interesting and subtle point you raise. I think it's important to draw a line between desire and craving — Buddhism seeks to eliminate the latter, the former is not inherently a problem. In fact, desire to pursue the Dhamma is required to progress. Ultimately, desire is just the pressure to act, and that belongs to the realm of sensuality, which is Mara's domain. Craving is when desire is appropriated as "mine", and that's what compulsion is, and, consequently, that's what suffering is — it's when you see no other option and are "trapped", basically, hence why liberation is the overcoming of that. One way to think of that is that if you have a friend who wants chocolate but the store is out, but you don't currently want chocolate, you don't need to ensure your friend stops wanting chocolate. You might feel a little bad for them, but you don't suffer because it's not your desire. So the idea is to (deeply) see it as just not your own desire, but a desire that arises and which you can evaluate on its own. Desire arises naturally on account of the body, craving is what arises when there is ignorance of the nature of desire. Basically, craving = desire + ignorance/appropriation.
For example, the Buddha still had preferences (he had back pain and sometimes asked to take a rest, he enjoyed meditation, enjoyed talking about Dhamma, etc.), but if he couldn't get what he wanted, he didn't suffer as a result. In fact, when the Buddha first became enlightened, he didn't want to teach anyone (he could have just blissed out in jhana for the rest of his life), but decided to teach out of compassion precisely because he was not bound to his desires. So the key is really that it's not so much about eliminating desire as it is not being *bound* to desire. Like you say, avoiding chocolate for no reason wouldn't make sense and would likely be a form of compulsion (just aversion instead of greed in this case). That's why the path really starts at stream-entry, as that's the point at which one is able to discern for themselves what is wholesome and unwholesome — for some people, eating chocolate will be fine, for others it won't. Similarly, washing your hands is necessary sometimes, and an OCD patient has to achieve a level of insight where they can clearly discern the presence and absence of compulsion in two externally identical actions, like "ok, I just used the bathroom, now I need to wash my hands" versus "I just thought of a bathroom, now I need to wash my hands".
But ultimately, even a fully enlightened being takes pleasure in giving, speaking of the Dhamma, helping others, etc. Buddhists just see the elimination of craving as that which enables us to do those things. So for us there's a parallel, but it's more removing obscurations to those things as opposed to transmuting the desires themselves.
I do find it very interesting that you use the phrasing "God is selfless" because selflessness is really the end goal of Buddhism — the full realization of anatta, or non-self. So if the meaning of this were that we should be like God and therefore be truly selfess, it would align quite well in spirit (ontology aside).
One quick question: when you talk about love slipping into lust, what does that entail? I ask because this is a topic I've been thinking about lately.
Hmm! Yeah when you phrase it like this it does seem more compatible— rather than eliminating desires, not allowing them to control us does seem very similar. However I do think we define “selfless” differently: not literally no-self, but self sacrificial.
Even if I’m not sexually perverted (in the sense of seeking out sexual fulfillment outside of marriage) and I’m seeking to be loved, this can still be lustful. I saw a good note by Dylan cambell on this:
Even in friendships too. If I am seeking to get something out of another person (other than of course, ordinary companionship) the desire for love can be perverted.
Yeah, I think the definitions are probably divergent. Although (and this is another one of those points where there's a lot of debate), the Buddha refused to answer when someone asked him if there's a self or not. The traditional interpretation is that he didn't answer because it would be misinterpreted by someone who isn't already on the path, and someone who is on the path wouldn't need an answer. But one way I've seen it explained is that "the self exists, but the self is not-self". So in some sense, there may be some element of self-sacrifice there, but I think it's probably a bit of a stretch. Mahayana sutras and the Theravadin Jataka Tales (tales of the Buddha's past lives), which are later texts, play off this and make it much more explicit, as there are stories of Bodhisattvas sacrificing themselves for others, including one where the Buddha sees a starving tiger and cuts off his own flesh to feed it, and another where a Bodhisattva accepts spending many eons in hell to save others. The Mahayana definitely comes closer to the Christian view of things in this regard, as Tibetan Buddhists have an idea of union with the primordial ground of the Buddha field, Vairocana, and things like returning to the all-pervasive Buddha nature. These are later developments though, and can potentially be seen as consistent with the early, pre-sectarian Buddhist teachings of the historical Buddha, but they aren't actually traceable to him directly, according to modern scholarship.
Interesting, I like that note. That's basically how I view love vs. lust as well.
Interesting perspective. I tend to just summarize them all into energetic patterns and thought loops to shift. Once we repeat ANY pattern often enough it becomes a dynamo. We need to generate the power to shift those patterns and process the inner world experiences. The pattern's momentum needs to be met with sufficient counteractive forces in the past, present, and future to alter the timeline loop.
Buddhism helped me begin to map and navigate the inner world enough to shift intense energetic patterns like deadly addiction. The medical industry diagnoses anything outside of luke warm surrender to their attempts at spiritual domination as mental disease. Even though they are all largely psychological patterns created by the illness that society is scared to make conscious because the blowback is building to catastrophic pressures.
The issue I see with the counteractive approach is that it assumes more control than I think is possible. I don't disagree that it can be effective, but just that I think it provides less of a permanent solution and induces painful resistance — we have to actively fight against those patterns. The ERPT approach allows urges to be simply known as urges and to naturally let them die out without struggling against them.
I may be misunderstanding what you mean though. And I can only speak to my own experience. For me, trying to use force to change a pattern is painful. Coming to understand the pattern for what it is leads to painless release of the pattern — pleasant release, even.
Ahhh yes. I didn’t make that connection clearly. It sounds more like my experience with addiction then. Which was my first time encountering something I couldn’t beat myself or with force. I needed to learn to surrender to something and be patient for the patterns, my body, and my mind to heal on their terms.
I like how you explained this. It made me think about how sometimes I just sit with uncomfortable thoughts too, even when I don’t fully get what’s happening.
This was very edifying! I enjoyed reading it, the OCD comparison makes things especially clear.
Adding to our previous conversation, I see another contradiction between orthodoxy and Buddhism here— desire is not something to escape totally in orthodoxy. Where Buddhists seek non-being (sorry if this is the wrong term, I mean to end all compulsions and desires) Christian’s seek to awaken Godly desires : from lust to love, from pride to humility, from avarice to charity, from envy to kindness, from wrath to meekness, etc.
We are not seeking to eliminate desire, only to eliminate selfish desire, because God is selfless, self sacrificial, and full of mercy and charity. There are a lot of metaphysics to this but to simplify it, we want to be like God because He is the ultimate Good, and He is our role model because of it.
It is interesting how the ascetic paths overlap though. It’s different because rather than trying to get rid of all desire, we’re attempting to transform our desires through the ascetic path.
Yet, resistance of sin does look pretty similar, and indeed we also participate in fasting in order to elevate the soul’s control over the flesh. But, there would also be no reason for an orthodox Christian to avoid chocolate when they aren’t fasting. Or the desire to be loved (as long as this is holy, and doesn’t tip into people pleasing or other perversions like lust).
Idk how I would sum it up! Maybe it’s just that because the goals are different, also the specific desires we wish to overcome and transform are also different. Maybe it’s also because we don’t see desire itself as the reason we suffer.
Glad to hear you liked it!
This is a very interesting and subtle point you raise. I think it's important to draw a line between desire and craving — Buddhism seeks to eliminate the latter, the former is not inherently a problem. In fact, desire to pursue the Dhamma is required to progress. Ultimately, desire is just the pressure to act, and that belongs to the realm of sensuality, which is Mara's domain. Craving is when desire is appropriated as "mine", and that's what compulsion is, and, consequently, that's what suffering is — it's when you see no other option and are "trapped", basically, hence why liberation is the overcoming of that. One way to think of that is that if you have a friend who wants chocolate but the store is out, but you don't currently want chocolate, you don't need to ensure your friend stops wanting chocolate. You might feel a little bad for them, but you don't suffer because it's not your desire. So the idea is to (deeply) see it as just not your own desire, but a desire that arises and which you can evaluate on its own. Desire arises naturally on account of the body, craving is what arises when there is ignorance of the nature of desire. Basically, craving = desire + ignorance/appropriation.
For example, the Buddha still had preferences (he had back pain and sometimes asked to take a rest, he enjoyed meditation, enjoyed talking about Dhamma, etc.), but if he couldn't get what he wanted, he didn't suffer as a result. In fact, when the Buddha first became enlightened, he didn't want to teach anyone (he could have just blissed out in jhana for the rest of his life), but decided to teach out of compassion precisely because he was not bound to his desires. So the key is really that it's not so much about eliminating desire as it is not being *bound* to desire. Like you say, avoiding chocolate for no reason wouldn't make sense and would likely be a form of compulsion (just aversion instead of greed in this case). That's why the path really starts at stream-entry, as that's the point at which one is able to discern for themselves what is wholesome and unwholesome — for some people, eating chocolate will be fine, for others it won't. Similarly, washing your hands is necessary sometimes, and an OCD patient has to achieve a level of insight where they can clearly discern the presence and absence of compulsion in two externally identical actions, like "ok, I just used the bathroom, now I need to wash my hands" versus "I just thought of a bathroom, now I need to wash my hands".
But ultimately, even a fully enlightened being takes pleasure in giving, speaking of the Dhamma, helping others, etc. Buddhists just see the elimination of craving as that which enables us to do those things. So for us there's a parallel, but it's more removing obscurations to those things as opposed to transmuting the desires themselves.
I do find it very interesting that you use the phrasing "God is selfless" because selflessness is really the end goal of Buddhism — the full realization of anatta, or non-self. So if the meaning of this were that we should be like God and therefore be truly selfess, it would align quite well in spirit (ontology aside).
One quick question: when you talk about love slipping into lust, what does that entail? I ask because this is a topic I've been thinking about lately.
Hmm! Yeah when you phrase it like this it does seem more compatible— rather than eliminating desires, not allowing them to control us does seem very similar. However I do think we define “selfless” differently: not literally no-self, but self sacrificial.
Even if I’m not sexually perverted (in the sense of seeking out sexual fulfillment outside of marriage) and I’m seeking to be loved, this can still be lustful. I saw a good note by Dylan cambell on this:
https://substack.com/@twocenttheology/note/c-130239754?r=wt31t&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Even in friendships too. If I am seeking to get something out of another person (other than of course, ordinary companionship) the desire for love can be perverted.
Yeah, I think the definitions are probably divergent. Although (and this is another one of those points where there's a lot of debate), the Buddha refused to answer when someone asked him if there's a self or not. The traditional interpretation is that he didn't answer because it would be misinterpreted by someone who isn't already on the path, and someone who is on the path wouldn't need an answer. But one way I've seen it explained is that "the self exists, but the self is not-self". So in some sense, there may be some element of self-sacrifice there, but I think it's probably a bit of a stretch. Mahayana sutras and the Theravadin Jataka Tales (tales of the Buddha's past lives), which are later texts, play off this and make it much more explicit, as there are stories of Bodhisattvas sacrificing themselves for others, including one where the Buddha sees a starving tiger and cuts off his own flesh to feed it, and another where a Bodhisattva accepts spending many eons in hell to save others. The Mahayana definitely comes closer to the Christian view of things in this regard, as Tibetan Buddhists have an idea of union with the primordial ground of the Buddha field, Vairocana, and things like returning to the all-pervasive Buddha nature. These are later developments though, and can potentially be seen as consistent with the early, pre-sectarian Buddhist teachings of the historical Buddha, but they aren't actually traceable to him directly, according to modern scholarship.
Interesting, I like that note. That's basically how I view love vs. lust as well.
Thank you for this interesting take. I always like the way you word these concepts. Good job!
Interesting perspective. I tend to just summarize them all into energetic patterns and thought loops to shift. Once we repeat ANY pattern often enough it becomes a dynamo. We need to generate the power to shift those patterns and process the inner world experiences. The pattern's momentum needs to be met with sufficient counteractive forces in the past, present, and future to alter the timeline loop.
Buddhism helped me begin to map and navigate the inner world enough to shift intense energetic patterns like deadly addiction. The medical industry diagnoses anything outside of luke warm surrender to their attempts at spiritual domination as mental disease. Even though they are all largely psychological patterns created by the illness that society is scared to make conscious because the blowback is building to catastrophic pressures.
The issue I see with the counteractive approach is that it assumes more control than I think is possible. I don't disagree that it can be effective, but just that I think it provides less of a permanent solution and induces painful resistance — we have to actively fight against those patterns. The ERPT approach allows urges to be simply known as urges and to naturally let them die out without struggling against them.
I may be misunderstanding what you mean though. And I can only speak to my own experience. For me, trying to use force to change a pattern is painful. Coming to understand the pattern for what it is leads to painless release of the pattern — pleasant release, even.
Ahhh yes. I didn’t make that connection clearly. It sounds more like my experience with addiction then. Which was my first time encountering something I couldn’t beat myself or with force. I needed to learn to surrender to something and be patient for the patterns, my body, and my mind to heal on their terms.
Thanks for clarifying!
I like how you explained this. It made me think about how sometimes I just sit with uncomfortable thoughts too, even when I don’t fully get what’s happening.