3 Kinds of Desire

Source: March 26, 2017 Retreat: Of Hermits and Lovers: The Alchemy of Desire

Type	Definition / Quality	Effect on Being
Craving	Contraction of the being around seeking pleasure or avoiding unpleasantness.	”It does not lead to soulmaking; it contracts the being.”
Clinging	Any “pull or push towards an object,” from gross attachment to the subtle act of attention itself.	Perception depends on it; “to pay attention to anything at all is to cling.”
Eros	The wanting of “more contact, connection, intimacy, knowing, penetration, and opening to an erotic object/other."	"It instigates and supports soulmaking.”

Uncoupling Eros from Craving

The distinction between Eros (the desire for connection, expansion, and depth) and Craving (the painful, contracted drive for a specific object):

• Craving as Blockage: “What we call ‘craving’ is often a result of not connecting to, not realizing, and not allowing the deeper desires to unfold.”

• The Goal of Unfettering: By uncoupling desire from the narrow object (the person, the thing, the status), we allow the energy of Eros to “inseminate and fertilize” the psyche and the intellect (logos).

The Inevitability of Clinging

Clinging is “fundamental delusion” (avijjā) when we believe objects have inherent existence. However, through the “play of ways of looking,” we realize:

• Radical Emptiness: All perception (self, object, world) is dependent on clinging.

• Impossibility of “Non-Clinging”: It is impossible to live without clinging; even attention is a form of subtle grasping.

• Freedom: We realize that “clinging itself is empty,” giving us the freedom to move in and out of different kinds of clinging (e.g., in romantic love) rather than seeking a “monastic or hermit ideal” of total absence.

Playing with Fire: The Intensity of Desire

• The Metaphor of Fire: Desire is “fire” and “there’s heat there,” but, “Where would human beings be if certain experimentation with fire did not take place?”

• Subtlety over Suppression: Rather than suppressing the fire, the practitioner develops a “very keen, well-developed, sharp mindfulness” that can accommodate intense feeling without being overwhelmed by it.

• Neutrality of Intensity: “Intense is neither better nor worse.” The focus is on the resonance and the soulfulness of the energy rather than its volume.

The “Pothos” within Eros

Greek concept of Pothos: the “longing for the unattainable” or the “always wanting more.”

• Inexhaustibility: Unlike standard Buddhist teachings that view “wanting more” as the root of suffering, in this context, the inexhaustibility of desire is seen as a treasure.

• Expansion: This “wanting more” is what naturally causes Eros to “expand, open, deepen, and complexify” our images of the world and the divine.

Characteristics of Eros

• Range: It encompasses everything from “voracious, fierce sexual desire” to the “subtle magic” of looking at a cherry blossom.

• Universal Regard: One can have an erotic relationship with anything: an idea, an image, a suffering, or a sense of divinity.

• Not Reduced to Union: It is not merely a “regressive urge for union” or “merging.”

• Eros vs. Metta: It is not just “love” or “care.” It is a specific drive for depth and knowing.

Why Delineate Eros?

1. To instigate Soulmaking: Eros stimulates the “opening of dimensions and facets of existence” beyond what we already know.

2. To expand Sacredness: It enriches and “multiplies our senses of sacredness.”

3. To integrate Sexuality: There is a need to bring sexuality “more actively into the path” so it has a relationship with sacredness rather than being seen only as “defilement.”

4. To love the Path: We can have an “erotic relationship with the path” and its goal of awakening.