Buddhism: too much desire makes us unhappy

◎Desire for money: 

    No one doesn't like money. Everyone thinks that his money is not enough, because we can buy many things with money. The stronger our desire for money, the stronger our material desire. With money, it is not a problem to buy fashionable clothes, eat expensive food, consumption for entertainment, video games, music, stylish houses, and high-end cars. In addition to basic survival needs, we always look forward to having more money to satisfy our excessive desires. So some people are frugal, hoping to save some money; some people try to increase the opportunity of earning money, not only decreasing spending money, but also increasing working hours, hoping to have more money by this way; some people engage in investment and financial management, dreaming of making more money one day….... In fact, the reason is not the money they earn is not enough for their lives, but because their money is not enough for their desires. So in their opinion, money has become the most important thing in the world; It does not matter to sacrifice happiness in order to be richer.

    Think about it, if you are busy all day long to make money, working from morning to night, and have no time to enjoy happy things, then, living this kind of life, you will not be happier than a poor person who does not worry about money, even if you already have owned a lot of money. The real happiness does not come from you being able to live a luxurious life, but from having a calm mind and being able to enjoy the peace of mind –– no need to make ourselves feel unpeaceful by spending money, making money, saving money, and managing money all day; originally we wanted to use money to make ourselves happier, but in the end we make ourselves busy for money, why bother.

◎Sexual desire:

    Modern society is too open in the sexual attitude. People constantly receive too much stimulation in their daily lives, which often makes our hearts fall into chaos. Some people may say that "sex" is happy, instinctive, and a way of passing on from generation to generation, but, apart from these statements, it does bring a lot of annoyances. For example, wearing over-exposing fashionable clothing, provocative advertisements, and sexually related products and pictures that are easily available fill our daily life, stimulate our senses, and make the originally calm mind thirsty for no reason after being stimulated. Compared with ancient people, our sexual desire is much stronger. When this kind of desire accumulates in the mind, the annoyances of wanting to vent will arise. If the mind is full of sex and cannot be satisfied, people hardly can think about something calmly and correctly, which means that our mind is already in a state of chaotic annoyance –– this is the pain caused by the insatiable desire. In fact, it is also a pain to plan and prepare by all means in order to achieve a few minutes of pleasure but we often enjoy it.

◎Your image in the eyes of others:

    Some people care too much about the public’s evaluation of themselves, that is —— in the eyes of others, whether I am a successful person; about my school, my job, my wife (husband), my Children, my appearance, even my salary, my house... etc. will it be too bad compared to others? What kind of perspective will they look at me when they know my situation? So we tried our best to make ourselves look affirmed in the eyes of others, but often not satisfactory, we always feel that our living conditions, personal image, and social status are not good enough. We probably envy someone because he has a family which is praised by others, or envy someone because everyone admires him, or envy someone because he has something that I don’t have yet; so, in order not to be looked down upon by others, we will try our best to change the current situation, Not only self-demand, but we will become very concerned about all people and things related to our image. At this time, worries and pain will arise in our mind. Actually, we have not done bad things, therefore we don’t need to care too much about what others say. We don’t live for others. As long as we are worthy of ourselves, others’ evaluation of us is just a shell, which satisfies our desire of winning and vanity. And some people sometimes may think: “Everyone is doing this, so I should do this too, so that I will not be laughed at by others and be judged that I can’t keep up with the times.” Such an attitude will increase their burden. How much ability we have, we show how much image of our appearance. There is no need to force it and make our annoyances increase.

    The three desires mentioned above, plus the desire to eat and the desire to sleep, can be said to contain almost all the desires in the world. Calm down and think about it. From opening our eyes in the morning to going to bed at night, what we do is to achieve these desires, and most of the things we worry about are generated from these desires. The stronger the desire, the more difficult it is to be satisfied; the more difficult it is to be satisfied, the more pain and annoyance there will be. With less desire, the mind can be calm and peaceful. And when the mind can be calmed down, only then can there be a way to feel easy happiness. Trying hard to reduce these desires can be said to be one of the key points of Buddhist practice. Of course, no one can immediately throw away all desires in a short time. If we are not familiar with the method and insist on suppressing these desires, not only will it not succeed, but will cause the opposite effect. If we can gradually make ourselves to have little desire and be content through the methods provided by Buddhism, we will find that we become happier and happier. Until we have no desire at all, we can transcend birth-and-death and get the so-called “relief”. (to be continued)