When a desire is fulfilled, that desire doesn’t become completely satisfied. A person never feels that now I never have to fulfill that desire ever again. Now that I succeeded in getting this thing, that’s the end of that desire.
It never happens that way. Instead, the desire comes back stronger than ever. So on one hand, when a desire enters our mind, then we have to strive to fulfill that desire. And if we succeed, we haven’t really succeeded, because the same desire comes back again, stronger than ever. And again it comes and pinches my mind,
“Hey, get this thing.”
That creates tension and stress in our mind. So having a desire doesn’t feel good. It feels like,
“I’m missing something and I have to get it, and I can’t rest until I do.”
So on the one hand, even if we go on fulfilling our desires one after another, they won’t end. They’ll only keep tormenting us. And on the other hand, if one fails to fulfill a desire, we all know the outcome of that - disappointment, frustration, and anger, followed by further desire. It’s not like,
“Okay, I was disappointed. I give up. I’m just going to stop having desires.”
No. The desires keep coming. Even if every desire you have is always unfulfilled, you still keep having more and more desires. So either way, once you have a desire enter your mind, you’re going to be trapped in the cycle of greed and/or anger, all of which causes stress and suffering. So we should get rid of our desires, right? This is what one would likely conclude hearing this. And yet it seems like there’s no way out. Because what will one do? If you fulfill the desire, the desire comes back. If you don’t fulfill the desire, the desire still remains.
So we examine the root of desire. What causes a desire to enter our mind in the first place. And we learn that attachment leads to desire. If we aren’t attached to something, its desire won’t just pop up in our mind out of nowhere. Those desires pop up in our mind for those things that we’re already attached to.
