Desires, Good and Bad

During meditation tonight, I felt an extreme discomfort in the spine, perhaps owing to a kind of tired sensation in the body. I let it dawn upon me, and eventually, I started to practice using the sensation as a 'doubt sensation'. Feelings of discomfort can easily be lead into huatou, simply by turning the discomfort into a kind of questioning: if I am so certain that I am suffering in this moment, where is this "I" located? In this way, it's very easy for discomfort to become part of practice rather than being distant from it.
   I have often read about Tibetan Buddhist traditions which emphasize transforming desires into spiritual experiences or lessons, quite simply by using a refined awareness to approach those desires. According to this approach, the only reason that desires produce suffering is that one has somehow missed the mark of not knowing how to use proper awareness to engage the energy of the desire itself. For example, rather than seeing the energy of care and concern that underlies certain forms of anger or impatience, I squander that energy through unskilful actions like taking my anger out on furniture.
   What makes desire more 'productive', perhaps, is that it is not being derailed into something that is purely for my own comfort. For example, rather than simply stay in the mode of wanting my pain to disappear, I start to work how I might be curious about it or see what's having that experience. The pain becomes a teacher or a guide rather than being an obstacle to avoid or surmount at all costs. If I didn't so badly want something for myself, would desires be such a profound source of suffering? What would like be like if we could enjoy the flowers rather than trying to bottle up their essence?