Desire, as soon as the word is mentioned, people seem immediately to think of sexual desire. And it is probably true that sexual desire can be the most insistent of human desires. But desire comes in many forms. On the spiritual path the renunciation of desire is a common practice, and it can be useful. But we can also work with our desires to see what we can learn from them. We can actually make a practice of turning into our desires instead of turning away from them.
Good evening and welcome to Monday Group Meditation. We will be sitting from 7:30 to 10:00 PM EST. It is not necessary to sit for the entire extended time, which is set up to make it convenient for people in four North American Time Zones; sit for as long as you like and when it is most convenient for you. Monday Group Meditation is open to everyone, believers and non-believers, who are interested in gathering in silence. If you are new to meditation and would like to try it for yourself, Mindful Nature gave a good description of one way to meditate in an earlier diary, copied and pasted below:
"It is a matter of focusing attention mostly. In many traditions, the idea is to sit and focus on the rising and falling of the breath. Not controlling it, but sitting in a relaxed fashion and merely observing experiences of breathing, sounds, etc. Be aware of your thoughts, but don't engage in them. When your mind wanders (it will, often), then return to focus on breath and repeat."
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By turning into our desires we learn that if we do not become attached to our desires they can crest and ebb like a wave that breaks and advances on a beach, and then recedes back into the ocean. Truly, desire can arise and fall away; we can learn to recognize it and just watch it come and go.
So it follows then that we can learn we do not have to gratify every desire; however there are also lessons to be learned from letting a desire percolate for a bit. We observe the effect of letting desire hum along, how does it make us feel? Does it make us feel anxious? Does allowing desire to percolate feel pleasant…or not? Sometimes delaying gratification of a desire, perhaps for a piece of chocolate for example, makes finally indulging that desire just that much more potently satisfying.
When we lean into our desires we learn that desire is not necessarily a bad thing. As we grow into the practice we learn that there are some desires, heart’s desires which if we are paying attention, are literally felt in the center of our chest, and which are actually quite positive. For example, we might desire a deeper understanding of our own true nature and the nature of reality. A desire to serve others might also be a heart’s desire if there is no sense of ego gratification in performing the service. At some point silence calls to us and we long deep in our hearts to merge more deeply in it, and to integrate it more completely in our lives.
Heart’s desires do not necessarily need to be so lofty though. They can be as simple as a longing for a particular food, or a heart’s desire might even draw you into a career or hobby you are passionate about. For example, I have always loved to take photos, and since retiring I have been spending more time at it. As it sometimes happens, suddenly I had people all around me interested in photography as well, and I couldn’t help comparing my work to theirs. It wasn’t so much that their work was better than mine, although my friends are clearly more advanced and better at photography than me. I just felt that there was something more. I wanted to take photos in which I was in love with my subjects, and in which my mind stopped in the process, with the goal of making the viewer’s mind silent as well.
Somehow, and I don’t even know how it happened, I learned about a form of contemplative photography in which the photographer’s intent is to approach the world with no preconceptions, to just see and photograph things the way they are. Recognizing images to photograph happens through stillness and a quiet mind, by simply being open to the world exactly as it appears. Being open this way allows the world to present itself in raw nakedness, and images stop us in our tracks. Taking photos in this way completely disregards conventional rules of composition, it is a whole body experience with the mind, eye and heart in unity. It is a method of meditating through a camera lens. The goal is not to create beautiful images, but instead be good at seeing beyond one’s likes and dislikes, beyond what one might think is beautiful or not beautiful, beyond one’s attractions and aversions.
The result of following this heart’s desire for me is that I’ve found an activity that I am really excited about, and there is one more unintended and surprise benefit: for some time I have been wanting to learn how to integrate stillness and unity consciousness into my life off the meditation cushion. Approaching the world this way with my camera has literally brought naked openness and joy into focus in my day to day awareness. So following my heart’s desire into photography led me to an activity that that is satisfying on multiple levels.
That is frequently the way heart’s desires tend to develop and play out. They satisfy on multiple levels and sometimes I think the gratification of them feels like a long lost key turning a rusty lock that has been closed for a very, very long time. The fulfillment of heart’s desires often suits a situation in ways we might have never expected, or even dreamed possible.
Finally, I can't wind this up without plucking at the loose thread of duality winding through this whole piece. We have seen that desire is neither inherently bad nor good, and that it can be beneficial to either renunciate desire or turn into desire. This is just one example of how this dual natured universe works. If we can be open to the world just as it appears, we can find both good and bad, positive and negative in everything. Approaching the world with this kind of openness requires a particular kind of trust. We need to trust that we can be open enough to see and accept the world as it is, and we need to trust the world to present itself to us fully and completely. Approaching the world in this manner, either with or without a camera, is a powerful tool to satisfy our heartfelt desires for happiness.