Needs and Wants

  Master Sheng Yen has this adage, "Our needs are few; our wants are many." This sounds like a simple statement, but is it really after all? This afternoon, I had the reflection that what is considered a need nowadays is perhaps once a 'want' or a desire at another point in time. I am thinking of the example of the internet. Once long ago (perhaps 1995), I had heard of something called the World  Wide Web, yet somehow did not really even get an email account until around 2002, almost ten years after learning about the internet. At the time when the internet had first proliferated, there didn't seem to be any necessity for me to have such a thing, and it always seemed like a somewhat unreliable research tool, since anyone could post anything without really validating information. At the time, I had considered published books as 'needs' while the internet was something of  a want. But nowadays, it is hard for me to imagine a life without the internet. So, I begin to wonder, how does one truly draw a line between wants and needs, and is it possible for an individual to demarcate the two? How would Buddhist teachings approach such a distinction?
       It seems that the world of the Internet was not decided by one person but is the result of collective karma, particularly the coming together of many evolving ideas. E.F. Schumacher describes how people often tend to look at industries or technologies as things which are created by a single person, when in fact their complexity is the result of continually evolving ideas (p.175).  There is a snowball effect, it seems, that pushes something from an invention to a household product, and finally to something that is vital  to an individual relating to society. It would be almost impossible to imagine reverting to a time when, for example, there were no computers or networks between them. But at the same time, does this mean that with more technology, there is more want and more attachment in the modern world?
     I think in the original expression by Sheng Yen, a clue is "few" and "many". The reason I can see that I have vexations is that there are so many proliferating and distracting wants in any given day. But it seems that this depends on the state of mind. If my mind is calmly reflective and relaxed, it doesn't cling to the many wants. For example, when I am calmly focused on what is to be done in the moment, there is no impulse to suddenly switch gears and do something 'more stimulating'. This is because the mind is not comparing this current state to any expected or past state of mind. It is in equilibrium. When the mind is settled, it is more likely to live according to needs, which are a function of the present moment. To be stuck in wants, on the other hand, is to be alienated by being enthralled in appearances. I think I 'need' the coat in the store front, but that 'need' turns out to be a wandering thought. It's not based so much on necessity as a kind of emotional craving that comes and goes. In this way, 'want' is not a particular thing but more of a state of mind one has toward things. I can find many things in the Internet that I 'want', but this state of wanting only leaves me unproductive and a bit exhausted emotionally. But if I use the internet only to find what I really need, I won't have this kind of running around in the mind. It is just put to use in a way that enhances my time and energies rather than draining it. I suppose the measure might be: does this tool only make me want to keep going back to it, or is it used for a specific meaningful end?
   Schumacher also doesn't conclude that technology is attachment. He also has a Buddhist approach of seeing technology from the perspective of the middle path, not something to be labelled as 'good' or 'bad'. For Schumacher, if the technology is only replacing the ability to humanly produce, then this kind of technology only proliferates desires and the accompanying feeling of emptiness. A person who is denied the pleasures of creative work is often consigned to producing things for consumption using machines of mass production. But if technology puts people back into the driver's seat of work, then they are no longer stuck in accumulating desires to state off boredom  or emptiness. In that sense, they live according to needs rather than mental wants. So I think in that sense, Schumacher echoes the approach of not treating things as categories of need and want, but seeing the mental states we use to approach things.

Schumacher, E.F (1973) Small is  Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. London: Harper Perennial