Desire and Suffering

 Watching Master Sheng Yen's video tonight on different kinds of grasping, I started to reflect on how all the things that people want in life can (and do) become forms of suffering. How to reverse that? I don't think it's possible for people to deny that they have wants; after all, we are born in human bodies and are thus subject to the kinds of suffering that come from having a body. But it's important to recognize through a kind of awareness when grasping becomes a form of suffering. If I am vying for a special position at work that is given to someone else, I will suffer from that aspiration. If, on the other hand, I decide that I just want to use that position to benefit the company with what I can give, then my orientation is away from the self.  I can even feel happy for the person who gets the position, since she or he is more qualified to fulfill the same goals that I want to achieve for others. Of course, this approach is not that easy, but it's worth it to try.
   I was particularly moved by Master Sheng Yen's idea that even gaining what a person wants leads to the suffering of having to maintain that want or even developing more "offshoot" wants in response. Two examples I can share; when a person achieves a certain state of physical comfort (such as lying snug in a comforter on a winter day), is it not the case that getting out of that comfort becomes extremely painful? Even the slightest inconvenience of going to the bathroom will jar on the person who is snug in bed! The other example I will share is that of a person who gets a promotion at work. Although this person might begin with a sense of joy, later they might start to believe that they can or should be able to achieve even higher or greater results. Gone is the sense that any achievement is going to have difficulty and uncertainty. A person who is always succeeding in gaining approval from their peers or bosses risks losing the sense of uncertainty and struggle that always accompanies fulfilling one's goals. It's as though one expects to succeed at anything they do without any such accompanying struggle...and this is a form of suffering even greater than the struggle itself! Think about it: if I am struggling to win a sport, at least I am buffered from loss by the awareness that it's a struggle, and there is always going to be a loser in the game. If on the other hand, I am under a belief that this goal should not have to take a lot of work from me, then I am succumbing to a temptation to expect results without even putting any effort into it. I believe that this is a form of suffering which overlooks the role of difficulty in everything one strives to do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnRm4hiAVwE