Look inside. Free from fear and attachment, she knows the joy that flows from the path. – Dhammapada
The only thing that is not rooted in desire is nirvana, because it is the end of all phenomena… The path to liberation pushes the limits of skillful desires to see how far they can go. -Thanissaro Bhikku
Recently, a bright, smiling Bhante (abbot of Rosemead Buddhist Monastery) suggested I write about the outraged reactions to a recent NASA problem, when protective foam came off the external fuel tank of the shuttle Discovery. To our relief, the shuttle landed safely, with two sonic booms, in the Mohave Desert. We can still imagine the same technical failure that caused the February 2003 disaster of the loss of seven astronauts on the shuttle Columbia, in flames and burning over Texas. Bhante said people were upset that, with all the best engineers and aerodynamicists and $1.4 billion, we hadn’t protected the tank perfectly.
What can we know about insistence on perfection, including thinking that we, ourselves, and our relationships must be perfect? Expectations and desires are healthy only when they are based on an ethical life of not harming others or ourselves; and by the insight that we are interrelated in ever-changing conditions. So why get too attached to what is supposed to be? We learn from the disappointments in our lives and live through the ups and downs in a balanced, thoughtful and caring way, appreciating the here and now, without clinging to abstract ideas of perfection or any unhealthy desire habits.
A passage from the sutta, Nipata tells us that all the delicious things in the world, such as the sweet sounds of music, lovely forms, bodies, energies, attractions, mystical experiences, delicious tastes, caresses, thoughts inspired; “All this, we can agree, bring happiness.” But the suffering comes from the inordinate desire for such forms of happiness, from wanting them all the time, from getting angry when we don’t have pleasurable experiences. Such experiences inevitably change.
We see in meditation the role we play in holding on and creating our own stress. Thanissaro Bhikku writes: “…what appears to be skillful desire can lead only to false or transitory happiness… Wisdom recognizes skillful and unskillful desires for what they really are… Skillful desire undermines skillful desire.” unskillful, not repressing but producing higher and higher levels of satisfaction and well-being, so that unskillful desire has no place.” We compensate for not feeling genuine inner satisfaction by becoming too self-indulgent, introducing the unhealthy into the body, mind and spirit; inexperienced in our desires for fame, power, food, sex, money, security, relationships, control over others. We are exploring our inner journey, so that we can access and nurture our inner sense of well-being, leaving our unhealthy desires without “a place to stand”.