| Excerpted from The Zen of Eating by Ronna Katatznick, Ph.d Chapter 2 ATTACHMENT TO DESIRE CAUSES SUFFERING: A change of Heart Helps Change the Mind Applying the second noble truth "What, now, is the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering? It is craving, which gives rise to fresh rebirth, and , bound up with pleasure and lust, now here, now there, finds ever-fresh delight. But where does this craving arise and take root? Wherever in the world there are delightful and pleasurable things, there this craving arises and takes root." The Buddha The Buddha doesn't just say, "Suffering is a fact," and leave it at that. He gets to the root of suffering and points to the cause of it. In the Second Noble Truth, he states that attachment ot desire causes suffering. Notice that the Second Noble Truth does not day desire causes suffering. It says attachment to desire causes suffering. It's the "I've got to (need to, want to, love to, hate to, don't want to)" part that causes suffering, not the desire itself. HEADS AND TAILS Sometimes the desire for happiness is compared to the head of a snake, and the desire to avoid unhappiness is compared to the tail. If you grasp the head, the snake will bite you. If you grasp the tail, the snake will also bite you because the head and tail both belong to the same snake. No matter which end you grasp, the results are the same. You suffer. Attachment to desire, also described as clinging or grasping, means you are so absorbed in your desire that you can't see clearly. You respond as if you operated on automatic pilot: buy this, eat that, wear this, don't weigh that. You see only what you're lusting after, like a handful of cashews or a pint of your favorite ice cream, but you don't see the force behind it. This is called getting lost or being blinded by desire. What you want feels like a requirement, not an option. The Second Noble Truth invites you to examine the relationship between grasping desires and suffering so you can see how this relationship works for yourself. Take the desire to eat. It happens many times a day. Sometimes the desire is quite mellow. You can decide to eat or not, depending on the situation. Other times, the desire to eat feels like a powerful engine is driving you forward at breakneck speed. That engine is your attachment to eating. It's screaming, "I want something to eat and I want it now." THE NATURE OF DESIRE Desires pull like magnets, and they don't discriminate. When it comes to desire, there is no code of ethics that tells you to grasp only what's helpful and not hurtful to yourself or others. You can see this at the grocery store when you're hungry and filled with the desire to eat. Everything looks tantalizing. Even things you might normally not be attracted to, like a can of premade frosting, look applealing. Another time, when you're not hungry, not in that heightened state of desire, it's hard to believe you lusted after something you don't even like. That's the power of desire. Desires are also deceptive. You are fooled into believeing that satisfying them will bring you happiness. That's their allure; it's how they capture our attention. But what you desire often leads you down a dead-end alley. There's no lasting happiness to be found in any desire because what we want changes. Things that change are unreliable, so investing in them is unwise. It's difficult to remember the Wisdom of the First Noble Truth when a huge wave of desire overcomes you. When it strikes, the desire for a brownie feels terribly compelling. The desire to find the perfect wine to complement a meal feels extremely urgent. But these aren't the keys to happiness, and they certainly aren't the keys to lasting nourishment. These are empty waves of desire, rising and passing away. That's the less of the Second Noble Truth. But these are insights you must discover for yourself over and over again. You may be wondering, "What's wrong with desire?" In fact, nothing is wrong with desire. Desires are a normal and healthy part of life. Asking for chicken soup when you're sick with a cold or looking forward to a romantic meal on Valentine's Day is perfectly natural. Wanting to share restaurant recommendations or recipes with friends is fun. The desire to teach your children good table manners and set limits on sweets is laudable, even if it's an uphill battle. Yet, if every desire were satisfied continuously, one after the other, for the rest of your life, you'd still want more. That's the nature desire. It wants. The number and variety of things to get, have, buy, or be is endless. This allows for endless opportunites to suffer. HUNGRY GHOSTS There's a powerful image to depict the futility of pursuing one object of desire after another: The Hungry Ghost. Hungry Ghosts are large, mythic beings with huge, distended bellies and extremely narrow throats. They try to eat, but their narrow throats prevent them from getting the fulfillment they crave. No matter what they do and how hard they try, they feel empty and unsatisfied. The Hungry Ghost is not just a figure in Buddhist mythology. There's a Hungry Ghost in each of us, too. Every time you pursue your desires blindly, you activate the Hungry Ghost. It often takes the form of a convincing inner voice that says, "You can feel satisfied all the time. You can make the good times last. Keep looking. It's out there." You believe this voice, so you get more cookies, try another restaurant, enroll in the latest get-thin-quick program, or whatever else you believe can satisfy you. But it's never enough. The more you respond to your Hungry Ghost, the more demanding it becomes. It hammers away at you, spitting out desire after desire: eat more grains, eat less fat, enroll in a cooking school, get a new blade for the blender, buy another vitamin, join a gym. You're so busy chasing desire after desire that you don't see that the Hungry Ghost is running your life. It creates trap after trap. If you don't recognize the presence of the Hungry Ghost, you wonder why you feel so bad when all these things and experience are supposed to make you feel so good. CONTINUE |