Wanting.
Somehow I've talked myself out of wanting. Out of letting myself fully embracing my desires. Not of experiencing it, desire comes and goes many, many times during the course of my day. But somehow, in attempting to achieve a Buddhist detachment or to avoid attaching significance to my desires, or to avoid the fixiating and daydreaming that I slip into like a soft t-shirt, I don't let this desire take hold. I distance myself from it, make it disappear. Like Pierre, I say "I don't care."
But I do.
Like so many other things I do unconsciously, it's been in an ultimately futile attempt to avoid pain. Wanting, desire, feels like pain; more accurately, it feels like the herald of pain to come. In this mostly unconscious reality in which we live, desire leads to pain - unfulfilled desire hurts, hurts like heartbreak and unfulfilled dreams. Desires that are met hurt too. When reaching goal weight doesn't make us happy. When love brings real world issues of children and money and the other person's baggage and happily ever after takes work. So we apply the old "post hoc" false logic and think that the cause of the pain lies in the desire itself. So I tell myself, I won't want anything strongly. I'll have goals and things I think would be nice, but mostly I'll just float and be happy with what I have. (I'm past the sour grapes response for the most part, though I have my moment. For that, you have to acknowledge that you wanted something in the first place.)
I have a habit of closing myself off when I'm overwhelmed. I know I'm not the only one. My world gets small, physically and emotionally and spiritually. And I don't look at things because I "know" I can't have them, it will just hurt to want and not have. So I won't want.
I am a rock. I am an island.
But it isn't that. Desire isn't where the pain lies. Far be it from me to argue with Buddha, but I think he would say it is in the attachment to the results of desire rather than the feeling itself that pain and suffering lie. I think, if you don't want things, if you don't allow desire to breathe through you, your world collapses and then you die.
Desire, as I see it, is like breath, like a heartbeat. Desire is where the possibilities for change live. It's where change and growth is born. Pure Desire resides in the realm of undifferentiated possibilities. Some traditions teach the universe as we know it came into being because of the desire of the Divine to know and love itself. The cosmic I Am. It's the meaning and we attach to the outcomes of this desire that causes the pain.
So can I find a away to let desire back in? To let myself want things? Everything from banana cream pie and new knee-high boots to a fulfilling job and true love? It does feel thrilling in that beginning part, doesn't it? The first rush of desire. And we are capable of amazing things when fueled by that desire! We'll move mountains for love and cross continents for ambition. I want to feel that all the time and let it inspire to greatness and move me and make me a better person. I want to learn to get past the fear.
And so I simply chose to. At this moment, I'm inviting all my desire for things and opening up my world. And I'm going to act on my desires without judging the outcome or expectations. Think how happy I could be!
