Desires and Fears
Desires reflect dissatisfaction
when ordinary experience seems unsatisfactory.
Fears compliment desires, and add to discomfort
in not getting what you want, or getting what you don't want.
Desires can be beneficial
if their underlying aspirations are good
but when desires engender competition and delusion
they can also be harmful.
According to one Zen teacher, all living beings desire:
To eat, to keep the physical body,
To generate, to keep the race,
To be beautiful,
To be strong,
To be known and acknowledged.
However, desires to eat and desires for sex
frequently extend far beyond needs and possibilities.
To be beautiful and strong seems truer when young
than when aged, despite increasing wisdom.
The last line might alternately be translated
"To awaken" or "To be eminent, superior"
but even these become competitive and social,
rather than intrinsic or innate natural desires.
The human desire to awaken,
(to meet oneself, to turn one's eye around,
to know one's mind and self inside out),
approaches satisfaction within awakening.
Social Desire
Mother Theresa's Prayer on Desire, and Fear
Back to Mind and Meditation