Many people think that the aim of Buddhism is let go of any kind of longing. However, without wholesome desires – to awaken, to act ethically, to honor your relationships, etc. – you wouldn’t progress in practice. I discuss five kinds of appropriate longing based loosely on the Vajrayana teaching of the five wisdom energies.
The Buddhist Teachings on Tanha, or Craving
Many people think that the aim of Buddhism is let go of any kind of longing. After all, Shakyamuni Buddha’s foundational insight was that dukkha – dissatisfactoriness or stress – was caused by tanha, which means thirst or craving. Unfortunately, tanha has often been translated as “desire,” leading to all kinds of confusion. Without wholesome desires – to awaken, to act ethically, to honor your relationships, etc. – you wouldn’t progress in practice. More on that in a bit.
The craving that causes dukkha is very different from wholesome desire or longing. Tanha involves making your happiness contingent on a particular set of conditions. There are said to be three kinds of tanha: Craving for sensual pleasure, craving for becoming, and craving for non-becoming.[i] When we crave sensual pleasure, we make our happiness contingent on obtaining physical pleasures as well as comfort, safety, and physical well-being. When we crave becoming, we make our happiness contingent on certain conditions which have not yet come into being. When we crave non-becoming, we make our happiness contingent on an end to certain existing conditions.
Obviously, it’s natural and appropriate to desire physical well-being for ourselves and our loved ones, and to hope for changes in our conditions. It’s not that these basic desires are problematic in and of themselves. However, when we allow our desires to develop into tanha, or craving, dissatisfaction, stress, and sometimes even suffering inevitably follow. We spend our time chasing sensual pleasures and security while lasting satisfaction eludes us. We set ourselves in opposition to life, wishing for things to be otherwise. The Buddha’s foundational teaching, the Four Noble Truths, taught that we can experience relief from dukkha by letting go of craving. It can take a while to learn how to acknowledge your natural human desires and needs without lapsing into craving. I address this aspect of our practice in Episode 285: Ending Dukkha.
Wholesome Desire, or Spiritual Longing
What about wholesome desire, or longing? I like the word “longing” because it’s rarely used in connection with desire for sensual pleasures. Instead, it points to a deeper experience of being inexorably drawn toward something. We long for something that we perceive will fulfill a fundamental need – healing us, completing us, or allowing us to reach our full capacity.
Unfortunately, it’s very easy to translate our deepest longings into specific desires, which can easily lead to craving and therefore dukkha. For example, we may long for intimacy and assume this means we must have a passionate romantic relationship. If we don’t have such a relationship, we’re likely to crave one and thus experience suffering. If we long for spiritual wisdom, we may decide we need to attain some kind of awakening experience or spiritual credentials, and if those things elude us, we may end up disappointed.
It’s extremely valuable to learn how to identify and honor your deepest spiritual longings and translate them into aspirations or vows. Without this, it will be very difficult to maintain your Bodhicitta, or Way-Seeking Mind (as I discuss in Episode 260). Bodhicitta is your energy and motivation for practice, and it must be carefully cultivated and not taken for granted. One of the ways to do this is to connect with your spiritual longing.
I find it very helpful to use the Vajrayana teaching on the Five Wisdom Energies to identify five kinds of appropriate longing you can use to strengthen your Bodhicitta. (See Episode 125: Liberation Through Understanding the Five Wisdom Energies for more on this teaching.) Each appropriate longing can easily become grasping and craving, which is part of the Five Wisdom Energies teaching, but if you connect with the longings at their most fundamental level, they are nothing other than the desire for enlightenment and liberation.
I will go into each of the five energies and longings in detail, but in summary: The red wisdom energy is longing for intimacy; yellow energy is longing for enjoyment; blue energy is longing for knowing; green energy is longing for effectiveness, and white energy is longing for transcendence. Each of us contains all five energies, but usually one or two energies predominate and therefore color our life – driving our neuroses and inspiring our cravings as well as serving as the basis for our vows. When we recognize and work with our wisdom energies, we can let go of some of the neurotic ways we seek to fulfil our longings and seek instead the lasting satisfaction that comes with spiritual insight.
In this episode I will discuss red and yellow energy, and in my next episode, part two, I will discuss blue, green, and white energy.
Red Energy Longing: Intimacy
A person in whom red energy predominates longs for intimacy. They may or may not identify this as their central motivation, but they find themselves preoccupied by questions of relationship between self and others, and between self and the world. Intimacy is about closeness, about a lack of separation. It’s about belonging and being worthy of love. It’s about the rewarding intensity of connection with other beings, and the sensual experience of encountering life in all of its forms.
Red energy is what drives us to connect. It is at the heart of our relationships with other beings, and it’s the inspiration behind our desire to care for all life. It’s also our zest for life.
In Reality-with-a-capital-R, there is no inherent separation between self and other, between self and the world, between anything. In Reality, we are so intimate with life that it doesn’t even make sense to call it intimacy, because that refers to the closeness of separate things. Our belonging has never been in question for a moment. Worthiness is an utterly irrelevant evaluation. Real intimacy is available to us any moment, no matter our conditions.
When we doubt this Real-with-a-capital-R intimacy, our longing manifests in all kinds of ways that can cause issues in our lives, including:
- constantly seeking new relationships and experiences, because the rush of intimate connection is more intense with novelty
- demanding that the relationships we have meet our ideal of intimacy, which usually only increases a sense of separation
- a sense of loneliness, and judgment of our relationships as insufficient
- a readiness to believe people don’t actually care about us (even if they say they do)
- seeking to dissolve the boundary between self and the universe with things like drugs, danger, and ecstatic experiences
- compromising healthy boundaries because a relationship makes us feel desired, worthy, excited, or alive
- living in fear of rejection and isolation
The wholesome desire of red energy is to experience, honor, and manifest the truth of our Real-with-a-capital-R intimacy. Part of the great mystery of life and death is that we are embodied in individual existence but simultaneously part of a seamless whole. Our red energy inspires us to explore our connection and interdependence.
If we recognize our longing for Real intimacy for what it is, we can use it to motivate our practice. We can still honor our relationships and relish our encounter with life, but we can recognize that no external, impermanent, or conditional intimacy will satisfy our deepest longing. Only insight into the true nature of self will do that.
When we have learned to perceive the intimacy of each and every moment, we are freed from the compulsion to get what we need by trying to squeeze excitement or intimacy out of our experiences and relationships. Ironically, this only increases the real intimacy we experience in our life.
Yellow Energy Longing: Enjoyment
A person in whom yellow energy predominates longs for enjoyment. They find themselves preoccupied with comfort, beauty, entertainment, and pleasure. Yellow energy may lead us to accumulate material possessions and wealth, primarily as a guarantee that our enjoyment will continue. Yellow energy enjoyment isn’t just limited to sensual pleasures like good food, fine clothes, or precious objects – it’s also about simple pleasures like spending time with family, having good friends, and tending your garden.
Our yellow energy inspires us to appreciate life. It’s at the heart of hospitality, celebration, and the creation of spaces of refuge. It’s the inspiration for many forms of artistic creativity. It’s our joy in being alive, or joie de vivre.
In Reality-with-a-capital-R, we lack for nothing. Every heartbeat is a gift, every breeze is a miracle. Things-as-it-is is luminous with Suchness, right here, right now. Because everything is impermanent, nothing is gained or lost. The cloistered monastic living under lifetime vows of silence and poverty has as much appreciation for the shaft of sunlight filtering into his cell as we have for the flavor of a rich meal at an expensive restaurant (perhaps more). Real enjoyment is available to us any moment, no matter our conditions. True sufficiency is a feature of the human heart and is unconditional.
When we doubt this Real-with-a-capital-R enjoyment, our longing manifests in all kinds of ways that can cause issues in our lives, including:
- being obsessed with a livelihood based on its ability to fulfill our material appetites, regardless of whether the work is ethical, or how much it demands of us
- constantly looking forward to our next source of pleasure
- overindulging in pleasures and entertainments
- hoarding, accumulating, or being miserly with material possessions and wealth because we fear that impoverishment would mean the end of our enjoyment
- stinginess with our time, because we don’t want to give up any of the time we spend doing things we enjoy
- measuring our worth in terms of what we own or the experiences we have access to
- living in fear of loss and impoverishment
The wholesome desire of yellow energy is to experience, honor, and manifest the truth of Suchness. Suchness is Reality revealed when we have dropped our mental map and gaze on it directly. What a miracle it is to be alive! What a precious and amazing existence we have found ourselves in. Our yellow energy inspires us to appreciate and celebrate life.
If we recognize our longing for Real enjoyment – the experience of Suchness – for what it is, we can use it to motivate our practice. We can recognize that no external, impermanent, or conditional source of enjoyment will satisfy our deepest longing. Only insight into the true nature of Reality will do that.
When we have learned to perceive the Suchness of each and every moment, we no longer need to feel dependent on conditions for the enjoyment and appreciation we long for. Although we may feel grateful for our relationships, possessions, and pleasurable experiences, we don’t need to live in fear of losing them, or of not having enough. We’re familiar with the mysterious sufficiency of our own-Being, which will always be with us. Freed our fears and compulsions, we can be generous and spread our joy in life as widely as possible.
That’s it for today, but I will be back soon with part 2, where I will talk about appropriate longing as colored by blue, green, and white wisdom energies.
Endnotes
[i] “Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion” (SN 56.11), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.011.than.html .
