Tanha - Exploring The Craving That is Suffering
by aalif · 18 things on Twos
- According to Buddha's definition of craving,
- craving produces renewal of being and repeated existence
- is bound up with delight and lust
- seeks pleasure now here and now there.
- There are three types of craving: craving for sense pleasures, for existence/becoming, and for non-becoming/non-existence.
- Craving's Seduction and Delusion: Craving often "feels enlivening" and natural, giving a sense of mission or purpose, a "feeling of being alive". This makes us habitually seek refuge in craving for pleasure and happiness, often without realising it.
- "Wanting puts feathers on the object" – a Tibetan saying highlighting how craving makes the desired object appear more beautiful, perfect, or desirable than it is
- Craving leads to "tunnel vision" and a narrowed field of awareness, preventing clear seeing.
- It "limits the mind" and perception, leading to actions based on misperception.
- Your mind tells you to "have another piece of cake, it's good for you," and then after you eat it, it says, "I wouldn't have done that if I were you,"
- Four Areas of Clinging (Upadana):
- Clinging to sensual pleasures.
- Clinging to views (ditti): This is attachment to ideas or opinions, believing "this alone is true. Everything else is false." This attachment leads to suffering, anger, and hatred in the world (e.g., politics, religion). In practice, it manifests as attachment to how one's practice "should be" or how things "should be better," leading to internal conflict and self-judgment.
- Clinging to rules and observances. This can involve attachment to specific ways of doing things, like posture or rituals, believing they are necessary for a certain outcome.
- Clinging to personality view (sakhya ditti): This is taking "any aspect of experience... as me or mine," grasping at a sense of a fixed, unchanging self. It leads to identifying with thoughts or feelings ("I'm an angry person," "I'm hopeless," or "I'm going to be the next Dalai Lama"), rather than seeing them as arising and passing processes.
- When the mind is free from clinging, it is "unbounded," experiencing a "peace of presence without any reference point," which is the "peace we wanted in the first place"
- Anandamayee Ma tells worldly people: "it's YOU who are the renunciates—you are the ones renouncing the great joy of Divine Presence."
- A beautiful and succinct Tibetan definition of Samsara is simply 'the urge to correct.'