Desires Rightly Directed

All dhammas are rooted in desire.

Think about that. Dhammas are the basic building blocks of our experience, and they’re not rooted in concrete.

They’re rooted in something that flows. Desire has a direction. That applies to dhammas as well. The word dhamma means datum or fact, but it also means action. In a sense, this seems to be the more appropriate translation in this context. It’s not just that all things are rooted in desire. All things are actions, and all our actions are rooted in desire. These are the basic building blocks, but they’re not really building blocks. They’re vectors. They point in a direction.

The problem is that our desires tend to be ignorant. The things they want either are impossible or they are possible but they’re not going to be satisfying. Often one desire will conflict with other desires. They point and pull us in conflicting directions.

So you can’t just go with the flow, because there are many flows. You have to choose, to make value judgments. This is one of the mind’s basic activities. It doesn’t just register facts. It has to pass judgment on these desires that come welling up, as to which ones are worth going with and which ones are not. And it’s a constant, ongoing process of judgment.

We need certain standards for how we judge things. We’ll find that we get addicted to certain desires, and they take charge. Sometimes they’re wise, in which case we’re lucky. But in many other cases, they’re not. This is why the Buddha said that craving is the source of suffering—all these ignorant, conflicting desires. In trying to make sense out of them, we get addicted to certain patterns of behavior.

That’s what clinging basically means: We get addicted to certain activities. After all, the aggregates are activities. Form deforms. Feelings feel. Perceptions perceive, and so on. We get addicted to these aggregates in four ways: in line with our sensual fantasies, our ideas of how the world works, our ideas about how things should work in terms of habits and practices, and our ideas about who we are. We hope that from these things we’ll be able to get some consistency out of our desires. We’re going to point them in a consistent direction so that we can actually accomplish something instead of being whirled around.

That, by the way, is the Thai translation for samsāra: “whirling, swimming, dying and being reborn.” It’s also one of the reasons why, when Buddhist texts talk about causality, they don’t talk about billiard balls hitting one another. They talk about lakes feeding into rivers feeding into lakes feeding into rivers. It’s a fluid system.

What the Buddha says is not to stop having value judgments or to stop acting right away. He says that there’s a path of action, based on a consistent set of value judgments that are not ignorant, that will lead to consistent, possible, and really desirable goals.

The path itself is also rooted in desire. It makes use of the aggregates. It makes use of three of those four ways of clinging. The Buddha has us put aside sensual fantasies, although he does promise us the pleasure of jhāna, the pleasure of concentration—so that we won’t be tempted to go back to sensuality.

But in terms of the other three types of clinging, he gives us a view of the world in which action is really paramount. Action is powerful, and it doesn’t end with death. It keeps on going, going, going.

He gives us a sense of which habits and practices we should develop: the habits of virtue, the practices of concentration.

He also advises us to have a good, strong, healthy sense of self:

self as an agent capable of doing the work of the path;

self as a consumer who will enjoy the results of the work;

self as an observer, able to step back and watch your actions; and

self as a judge, judging which actions are in line with the path, which ones are not, which things should be developed, which things should be abandoned.

It’s as if we were addicted to certain drugs, like heroin or cocaine. The Buddha, in prescribing the path, gives us alternative drugs that reduce the desire for our bad drugs and will eventually get us to the point where we don’t need any drugs at all.

So think about the fact that you want to get yourself rightly directed. That, according to the Buddha, is one of the blessings that comes with the practice, one of the ways of protecting yourself.

You don’t pretend to have no direction. You don’t just say, “I’ll just sit here in the present moment and accept it.” You realize the present moment is a vector. It’s full of vectors. It’s moving someplace. Is it moving to a good place?

The Buddha does give you the standards against which to judge these things. You will be making decisions. You will have intentions. The question is: Are those intentions skillful or not?

Think of the instructions to Rāhula. Before you do anything, ask yourself, “This action I want to do: What do I intend it to accomplish? Will it harm anybody?” If it’s going to harm somebody, either yourself or others, don’t do it. If you don’t expect any harm, you can go ahead and do it.

While you’re doing it, check to see the results that are happening right while you’re doing it. Not all actions save their results for the next lifetime. Some of them will show up right here and now. When you spit into the wind, it comes right back at you. If you see that what you’re doing is causing harm, you stop. If it’s not causing any harm, you can continue.

When you’re done, then you reflect on the long-term consequences. If you realize you did cause harm, you make up your mind that you’re not going to repeat that mistake. Feel a sense of healthy shame around it, that you shouldn’t have done it, and then go talk it over with someone you respect, to see what ideas you can gain so that you don’t have to reinvent the Dhamma wheel all the time.

If you didn’t cause any harm, the Buddha says, take joy in that fact and then continue training. In other words, find joy in your success but don’t be satisfied. There’s more to be done. That’s how you keep yourself rightly directed: Keep all the vectors pointing toward true happiness.

So keep on using the aggregates for that purpose.

Discernment is a matter of the aggregates. You apply certain perceptions to help wean yourself away from unskillful desires and to see the joy in being skillful.

Concentration, of course, is composed of all five aggregates. You’ve got the form of the body as you focus on the breath, the feelings of pleasure you create as you play with the breath, the perceptions you hold in mind as to where the breath flows in the body, where it can flow in the body, and where you want it to flow in the body.

As for fabrications, they include the intention to stay here, the intention to get the mind really, really settled in by using your powers of directed thought and evaluation. Even when you drop the directed thought and evaluation, you still have the intention to stay. All that is fabrication. Then, of course, there’s consciousness, which is aware of all these things.

You’re shaping these aggregates into a path.

The point of the image of the path is not that you’re just going to look at the path or map the path. You follow it. It’s a path of action, rooted in desire, using all the aspects of becoming: a sense of the world in which you’re operating, a sense of you in that world, and a sense of something within that world that you want.

As you’re focusing these fabrications all in the right direction, toward the end of suffering, those little vectors now become knowledgeable. Your value judgments become more and more consistent. It’s a good path to be on.

But it’s not a path to lie down on. In other words, you’ve got to keep going, because you realize that even if you have a really healthy, consistent sense of self, there’s going to be a sense of what it’s identified with, and you realize the things you’re identified with are inconstant. They, too, are actions. They, too, can be threatened.

This is one of the reasons why we worry about the future, worry about death, “What’s going to happen to me?” Even without a sense of self, there’s a built-in insecurity. Your views, your sense of good habits and practices: Those are not totally solid. Something happens to your brain, and you may forget these things. So before that happens, you want to find something that really is solid.

That’s what the path is for. It keeps everything pointed in the direction of a happiness that’s not going to change. The irony, of course, is that once you get there, that happiness is not going to need you. It’s not going to need right views; it’s not going to need any of the factors of the path.

But how do you get there? And will you be willing to let go of your sense of self in order to fully enjoy that happiness?

It comes in stages. You have a first glimpse of it. It’s like going to the Grand Canyon and, as you draw near, you look through the trees and can see the cliffs on the opposite side. You don’t get a full sense of how broad the canyon is, but you do see, “Oh, there’s something impressive up ahead.” Once you’ve had your first glimpse—you’ve gotten to the edge, you’ve had your first real glimpse—you realize it really is amazing. So you’re more inclined to say, “If this happiness, to be fully realized, requires that I let go of this constant chatter I have about myself, maybe it’s worth it.”

What you do is that you get the mind to the point where its alternatives are basically two states of concentration—you either stay in this one or you go to another one—and you realize that either one is fabricated. Either one will eventually come to an end. You get to a point where you don’t want anything—not because you’re just disappointed with the world, but because you’ve gotten to the best point. You realize that this is as good as fabrication can get, this is as good as action can get, this is as far as desire can go, and there’s something better when you let go of all that. And you do.

After that experience, you have no regrets, because you’ve found what you really wanted. Everything and anything that any possible desire could aim at is there, but without needing the vectors, without needing the desires anymore, without needing the aggregates anymore, without needing the forms of clinging, even the good medicine of the path.

It’s hard to get your mind around it, and fortunately you don’t have to get your mind around it. All you have to do is learn how to develop your sense of values, put them in line with the Buddha’s values, and direct yourself rightly. Use the three perceptions to let go of things that would pull you back. Keep the four noble truths in mind as to what’s worthwhile and what’s not. These are all value judgments. They’ll take you to where you don’t need value judgments anymore in order to enjoy what you’ve found, because there’s no more action.

As the Buddha said, the realization of nibbāna is a dhamma, it is an action, but nibbāna itself is not a dhamma, it’s not an action. It’s the ending of dhammas. And it doesn’t exist for the sake of anything else. It’s the end point.

Before you get there, of course, the Buddha will actively want you to desire it. You can’t follow the path without desire. And you will need to use the aggregates as tools, you’ll need to use your senses of self as tools. But try to have the right perspective on “me” and “my self.” It’s not all about “me.” It’s about learning how to get your “me” to become a tool for something better. Then you can put all your tools and values down.

So have a clear sense of values. Practice the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma. Take on the Buddha’s values, which include not only accepting the way he taught the Dhamma and trying to put it into practice, without changing the Dhamma to suit your defilements, but also aiming high. If aiming high seems too much to ask of yourself right now, aim in the right direction. Direct yourself rightly.

True happiness lies in the direction of getting your desires to be consistent, getting them to be realistic, getting them to be aware of the fact that there is something unfabricated that really is worth desiring. It should outweigh all your other desires. Give direction to any other desires that are needed to take you there. Get all those vectors pointing in the right direction.

At the very least, you’ll be on the path. It’s a good path to be on. As you keep following it, you become a different person, because we are defined by our desires. Learn to take on some new ones and let yourself grow in the right direction. You won’t regret whatever progress you make.