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On Buddhism Essay For Gil Shalev MUN Philosophy Department Due Date: March 05, 2021

Yousef Alabed (201803715) Bachelor of Business Administration

For this essay, the topic of Buddhism will be discussed in further detail as well as it will take a deeper dive into Desire in Buddhism which is viewed as the base of all suffering. How feasible or even necessary is this withdrawal from desire? And are all desires the same? Those are two questions that this essay will try and find an answer to from the perspective of The Buddha or the Buddhist ideology. If you look at desire from other worldly religions or theories, you will notice that desire it is always regarded as evil and negative. However, the solution to eradicating desire is not just as simple as eliminate all desire and the problem has been solved. Rather the word desire itself has more than one meaning that need to be differentiated for us to understand the state of nirvana that Buddhist talk about. One step to understanding desire in knowing that there are two different kinds of desire which are conscious desires and unconscious ones. The second step is remembering that the saying “Desire is the root of suffering” was said in Buddha’s language which is not English rather is the Pāli language. The word for desire in Pāli is tan ṇhā however it does not mean all and every desire that exists. Barlament (2020) claims that “it descends from the Proto-Indo-European root suffix -ters, meaning dry, which is itself a distant ancestor of the modern English word thirst. Hence, we arrive at the translation “thirst is the root of suffering””. Another important word to understand the meaning to, is dukkha One explanation of the word is that dukkha actually meant discomfort, resulting from the unpleasantness of poor axes on the Indo-European carriages. This concept of discomfort soon grew considerably, with dukkha coming to include some kind of uncomfortable situation, including feelings such as misery, pain, tension, anger, discomfort and dissatisfaction However, from all those unsatisfactoriness is the most common meaning that is being projected by scholars and the Dalai Lama. So, all desired are not necessarily what The Buddha was against rather the bottomless craving of desires that come unconsciously to oneself. Moreover, The Buddha was not opposed to desire rather the need to eradicate the lusts and cravings that dominate your unconscious thoughts and adversely affect your life. Now that we understand a little bit more about desire in Buddhism the next step is detaching from that desire. In Buddhism, detachment is translated int two words mainly, Viveka and viraaga, even though

that they don’t mean the exact same thing. Harris (1997) claims that “the later commentarial tradition, however, identifies three forms of viveka: kaaya-viveka (physical withdrawal), citta-viveka (mental withdrawal), and upadhi-viveka (withdrawal from the roots of suffering)” Kaaya-viveka which is physical detachment was common during Buddha’s time. Yet to equate the renunciation which The Buddha encouraged with a physical withdrawal which either punished the body or completely rejected human contact would be a mistake. Kaaya-viveka was valuable only if seen as a means to the inner purging and mental transformation connected with the destruction of craving. However, cittaviveka and upadhi-viveka become essential parts to carry out the full scope for ditching desire in the Buddhist spiritual theology. Upadhi-viveka, as a separation from the source of pain, ties up to viraaga, the other term used in Buddhism to describe detachment. Viraaga indicates the freedom from raaga which means lack of lust, desire, and appetite for earthy desires. It signifies, thus, indifference or detachment from the ordinary subjects of raaga, such as material possessions or gratification. Raaga is a closely tied with upaadaana (grasping). Moreover, there are four kinds of grasping that a person needs to get rid off in the Budhist text which refer to the grasping of sensory pleasures(kaamupaadaana), views(di.t.thuupaadaana), rules and custom(siilabbatupaadaana), and doctrines of self(attavaadupaadaana) which are all supposed to be types of raaga. In order to break the influence of those impulses over the mind of a human, attachment to them must be turned into non-attachment. Consequently, detachment or non-grasping will flow from the knowledge that no possession, friendship, accomplishment is enduring or capable of giving long lasting satisfaction, from the revelation that there is no self that needs to be preserved, encouraged or defended and from the recognition that the desire for narcissistic sensual pleasure is futile, as it only leads to longing and addiction. Expressions which correlate with attachment in this sense and which may help to explain its significance include: aloofness in relationships, defensiveness, envy, greed, superficiality, and rivalry. They are diminished and eliminated by detachment. So, on one hand the Buddhists take on non-attachement or separation (viraaga) do not simply imply that the removal from the pursuit of reality, but a step towards a clearer view of the true nature of things.

On the other hand, saraaga (attachment) contributes to distortion and false expectations, when things are perceived through a network of biases to desire and resistance. In reality, if any decision is to be taken, the possibilities would not be easily considered equally long as the mind is overshadowed by raaga. Deceit and the coercion of another in order to achieve the outcome of what is desired. One of the situations that faced The Buddha was when a comment crossed him which claims that the most deserving individual is the one who talks neither in disdain of the undeserving nor in appreciation of the deserving. Harris (1997) states that: “The Buddha disagreed with this. He replied that, because of his ability to discriminate. , the person who speaks in dispraise of the unworthy and in praise of worthy is best. The Buddha rejects the self-distancing which refuses to take sides or to speak out. against what should be condemned.” The Buddha criticizes the desire to keep the reality inviolable and untouched by a desire that refuses to partake in the society it is in. Thus, the words Viveka and viraaga may not simply mean a type of withdrawal that did not care about what human welfare sees as good or bad, in fact the contrary as we have observed above. To sum up all that have been discussed in this paper, Desire in Buddhism is not as clear-cut of an idea as everyone thinks it is. In fact, it is far more complicated. For humans, to curb desire they have to understand it and differentiate the desires they should pursue and the ones they have to abstain from according to the Buddhist theories. Not only that but also comprehending how to detach and the different types of the detachment that The Buddha recommended or meant.

References:

Barlament, J. (2020, February 22). Buddhist etymology and the differences between desires. Retrieved from https://jwbarlament.medium.com/buddhist-etymology-and-the-differences-betweendesires-2720bf72c2a6

Harris, E. J. (1997). Detachment and compassion in early Buddhism. Buddhist Publication Society.Retrieved from: https://www.what-buddha-said.net/files/library/leaves/bl141.pdf...