Saturday, July 11, 2026

When "desire" is GOOD in Buddhism


The Buddha's [distinction] about "desire" that Western Buddhism gets wrong
The rare beauty of Native American men
(The Midnight Library) July 10, 2026: [Theravada] Buddhism is often described as a tradition that teaches us to eliminate "desire." This is one of the most persistent misreadings in the history of the Western encounter with Eastern philosophy.

The ancient Pali canon makes a precise distinction between two words that, in English, may both be rendered as "desire," but they are almost opposites.

Tanha is compulsive "craving" driven by a sense of lack — whereas chanda is "aspiration" driven by genuine vision.

The Buddha actively encouraged chanda ("desire," "aspiration," "will," "intention") while working to release tanha ("desire," "craving," lit. "thirst").


Professor of Neuroscience Dr. Wolfram Schultz, MD, at Cambridge University, England, documented that the dopamine reward system produces more activation in anticipation (wanting) than in satisfaction (getting) — confirming the structural mechanism of tanha (craving) 2,600 years after the Buddha described it.


The Craving Mind (Dr. Judson Brewer)
Neuroscientist and psychiatrist Dr. Judson Brewer, MD, who studies the default mode network at Brown University confirmed in The Craving Mind (2017) that mindful [dispassionate detached attention to what is happening in the present moment without moving towards the pleasant, away from the unpleasant, or being confused/bored by the neutral] observation of craving interrupts the compulsive cycle measurably.

Radical Acceptance (Dr. Tara Brach, PhD)
Three Buddhist practices drawn directly from the Pali canon: The R.A.I.N. practice, the aspiration question, and the satiation experiment.
  • Recognize, name what is present
  • Allow, do not react (chase, act on, suppress, check out, do not crave, resist, or go dull in boredom/confusion), let it be present (radical acceptance)
  • Investigate, what does it feel like, where is it located in the body, what is its texture?
  • Nurture, bring kindness to the experience, not to the craving itself but to the part of you experiencing it
  • "This practice interrupts the automatic cycle of trigger to craving to behavior and creates a gap in which choice becomes possible."
  • "Prof. Brewer's research has confirmed that this gap created through mindful [dispassionate, equanimous, attentive, vigilant, wakeful, unbiased] observation of craving measurably reduces the compulsive quality of tanha [craving, addiction, obsession, compulsion] over time."
"The Craving Mind"
  • BIO: Dr. Judson Brewer, MD, PhD (aka "Dr. Jud"), is a New York Times best-selling author and pioneering psychiatrist blending cutting-edge neuroscience with 20+ years of Buddhist mindfulness training. A leader in the science of habit change, he is director of research at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center and has held positions at MIT, Yale U., and UMass. Dr. Jud developed app-based programs like Mindshift Recovery, Unwinding Anxiety, Eat Right Now, and Craving to Quit, clinically proven to treat anxiety, addiction, and emotional eating. He’s the author of The Craving Mind, Unwinding Anxiety, and The Hunger Habit, and co-founder of the nonprofit Mindshift Recovery. He is also a collaborator with Clear Mountaineers and medical researchers Dori Rosenberg and Dave Arterburn. More
Beauty is more than skin deep!
If this work matters, support the channel by becoming a member. Support is never expected — but always deeply appreciated. Join here: 👉 @therealmidnightlibrary. For those who resonate with the visual world of The Midnight Library, a curated collection of art and apparel inspired by these themes is available here: 👉 themidnightart.com. For ambient, chant, and cinematic music inspired by ancient traditions, visit The Midnight Library Music: 👉 @themidnightlibrarymusic. For intimate and emotional musical compositions, explore The Romantic Guy: 👉 @theromanticguy. Every story in The Midnight Library opens another door. 🕯️🔑

"The Rewarded Brain"

Handsome American Indian
Six product available from July 10, 2026: The Midnight Library tagged products below. The Gatekeeper’s Key – Eternal Archive | Vertical Canvas themidnightart.com/products/the-gatekeepers-key-eternal-archive-vertical-canvas?variant=094821f7-d55d-4833-800d-ee98a75db6f9 (2) The Gatekeeper’s Key – Eternal Archive | Square Canvas themidnightart.com/products/the-gatekeepers-key-eternal-archive-square-canvas?variant=00d02de9-db5c-4f1d-814c-4b664ccd4d50 (3) The Gatekeeper’s Key Fleece Joggers – Diagonal Dual Leg Print | Red | themidnightart.com/products/the-gatekeepers-key-fleece-joggers-diagonal-dual-leg-print-red?variant=046999e8-a90e-463d-a8aa-7f71915ae2a0 (4) The Gatekeeper’s Key Fleece Joggers – Diagonal Dual Leg Print | Charcoal Heather | themidnightart.com/products/the-gatekeepers-key-fleece-joggers-diagonal-dual-leg-print-charcoal-heather?variant=03131e9d-8c12-41c2-8321-743a28efa530 (5) The Gatekeeper’s Key Classic T-Shirt – Front & Right Shoulder Print | Cardinal | Bella+Canvas 3001 themidnightart.com/products/the-gatekeepers-key-classic-t-shirt-front-right-shoulder-print-cardinal-bella-canvas-3001?variant=02cc472b-afe5-4c9d-898a-d9eefcae7208 (6) The Gatekeeper’s Key – Bone Archive Edition (Front & Back Print) | Unisex Midweight Hoodie themidnightart.com/products/the-gatekeepers-key-bone-archive-edition-front-back-print-unisex-midweight-hoodie?variant=02f06482-5483-499d-9f82-7216acba7efb

The more beautiful game: Buddhist sports?

The JOY of victory for England!

'All Trump touches dies': US soccer
World Cup violence and rioting
Football is my religion: chanting


What if there were alternative UK spectacles?

The Cup (a Tibetan Buddhist film from Bhutan in Indian Himalayas)

Buddhist sports: The Cup

Bhutan's submission: The Cup
While the soccer World Cup is being played in France, two young Tibetan refugees arrive at a monastery (lamasery) boarding school in exile in India. Its atmosphere of serene contemplation is somewhat disrupted by soccer fever, the chief instigator being a young student, the soccer (association footballfanatic Orgyen. Prevented by various circumstances from seeing The Cup finals on television in a nearby village, Orgyen sets out to organize the rental of a TV set for the Buddhist monastery. All the quiet contemplatives become loud sports enthusiasts instead, whose behavior borders on worldly hooliganism.

The Cup stars: Orgyen Tobgyal, Neten Chokling, Jamyang Lodro. Directed by Khyentse Norbu. Executive produced by Jeremy Thomas. Twitter: @recordedpicture

Monty Python's "Philosophy Football" coming to FOX Sports?

Desire can be "good" in Buddhism?

Don't look at my bikini butt, okay, you perverts? It's just flesh for sitting on toilet seats.*
.
Good (beneficial) "desire"
I want to meditate now to make progress.
Chanda: "intention," "desire," "will." 1. As an ethically neutral psychological term, in the sense of "intention," it is one of those general mental concomitants or factors (cetasika, Table II) taught in the Abhidhamma (the "Dhamma in Ultimate Terms"), the moral quality of which is determined by the character of the volition (cetanā) associated with it.

The Commentary explains it as "a wish to do" (kattu-kamyatā-chanda). If intensified, it acts also as a "predominance condition" (see paccaya 3).
2. As an evil quality it has the meaning of "desire," and is frequently coupled with terms for "sensuality," "greed," and so on, for instance: kāma-cchanda, "sensuous desire," one of the Five Hindrances (nīvarana); chanda-rāga, "lustful desire" (kāma). It is one of the Four Wrong Paths (agati, motivated by greed/chanda, hate/dosa, delusion/moha, or fear/bhaya).

3. As a good quality, it is a wholesome (kusala) will, motive, or zeal (dhamma-chanda) and occurs, for example, in the formula of the Four Right Efforts (padhāna): "The meditator rouses will (chandam janeti)..." If intensified, it becomes one of the Four Roads to Power (iddhipāda).


Bad (harmful) "desire"

Oh, hells yeah, look at that butt!
Tanhā
(lit. "thirst"): "craving," the chief root of suffering [behind ignorance], and of the ever-continuing cycle of rebirths [known as samsara].

"What, O meditators, is the origin of suffering (disappointment, unsatisfactoriness, off-kilter woe)? It is this craving that gives rise to ever-fresh rebirths and, bound up with [sensual] pleasure and lust, now here, now there, [continues wandering on, trying] to find ever fresh delight.

"It is [threefold:] sensual craving (kāma-tanhā), craving for [eternal] existence (bhava-tanhā), and craving for non-existence (vibhava-tanhā)'' (D.22).

Tanhā is the eighth link in the formula of the Dependent Origination (paticcasamuppāda). Compare also at the kinds of "truth" (sacca).

Corresponding to the six sense-objects, there are six kinds of craving, craving for:
  1. visible objects (sights),
  2. sounds (auditory experiences),
  3. fragrances (aromas),
  4. tastes (flavors),
  5. tactile impressions (bodily contact),
  6. mental impressions (rūpa-, sadda-, gandha-, rasa-, photthabba-, dhamma-tanhā). (M.9; D.15)
Corresponding to the threefold existence, there are three kinds:
  1. craving for sensual existence (kāma-tanhā),
  2. craving for fine-material existence (rūpa-tanhā) [in the many celestial/dimensional "heavenly" (sagga, deva-lokas) realms],
  3. craving for immaterial existence (arūpa-tanhā) [in the four formless worlds] (D.33).
If I can't get butts, I'll scarf dopamine-chocolate
There are 18 "thought-channels of craving" (tanhā-vicarita) induced internally, and 18 induced externally; and as occurring in past, present, and future, which total 108. (See A. IV, 199; Vibh., Ch. 17 Khuddakavatthu-Vibhanga).

According to Dependent Origination, craving is conditioned by feeling; on this see DN 22 (section on the Second Ennobling Truth).

As for "craving for [continued or eternal] existence" (bhava-tanhā), it is said (A.X.62):

"No first beginning of the craving for [continued] existence can be perceived, O, meditators, before which it was not and after which it came to be. But it can he perceived that craving for existence has its specific [cause and] condition. I say, O, meditators, that craving for existence also has its condition that feeds it (sāharam) and is not [subsisting] without it. And what is that condition? It is 'ignorance,' one must reply."


*Deposit used chocolate here.
Craving for [continued] existence and ignorance are called "the outstanding causes that lead to happy and unhappy destinies (courses of existence)."

(See The Path of Purification, Vis.M. XVII, 36-42).

The most frequent synonyms of tanhā are rāga ("lust," "greed," "passion") and lobha ("greed"). See the "roots" of good and evil, the skillful and the unskillful, at mūla).

Why 'meditation' feels hard (Dr. Ricard)


(Study Buddhism) Why "meditation" [striving, straining, struggling to get into absorption] feels so hard (and what to do about it) | [Western scientist and Vajrayana Buddhist lama] Ven. Matthieu Ricard [known as "the happiest person in the world"*]. "There is no Samsara 2.0."

Who is he?
Sure, I'm happy, but the happiest?
Matthieu Ricard (French matjø ʁikaʁ, Nepali माथ्यु रिका, born Feb. 15, 1946) is a French Nepalese writer, photographer, translator, and Buddhist monk (lama) who resides at Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Nepal.

Dr. Matthieu Ricard grew up among the personalities and ideas of French intellectual circles. He received a PhD degree in molecular genetics from the Pasteur Institute in 1972.

He then decided to avoid a common scientific career and instead did the daring thing and took up the practice of Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana Bon), living mainly in the Himalayas.

Matthieu Ricard is a board member of the Mind and Life Institute. He received the French National Order of Merit for his humanitarian work in the East with Karuna-Shechen, the non-profit organization he co-founded in 2000 with Rabjam Rinpoche.

Since 1989, he has acted as the French interpreter for the 14th Dalai Lama. Since 2010, he has been traveling and giving a series of talks with and assisting in teachings by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, the incarnation of Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche....

*Matthieu Ricard has been called the "happiest person in the world" [4, 5]. Why?

It is because Matthieu Ricard was a volunteer subject in a study performed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison on happiness. He scored significantly above the average of hundreds of volunteers [4].

Matthieu Ricard, however, has called the label "absurd" and untrue [6, 7]. More

Abuse of the Buddhist term "mindfulness"

  • "Mindfulness" defined by Ven. Analayo Bhikkhu
  • The field of psychology appropriated (hijacked) the Buddhist term "mindfulness" (originally sati but now just "awareness" or "paying attention")
  • Anyone who thinks it was a commonplace practice in ancient India during the time of the Buddha should look up the Hindu definition of sati, which reveals it used to mean throwing a wife on the pyre when her husband died 😲
  • The great work of Jon Kabbat-Zin to help therapists led to the unexpected disconnection of the practice with anything, as if it could be a standalone endeavor
  • "Bare attention" is a component of sati, but it must be coupled with dispassionate (unbiased) looking on, free of greed, hatred, and delusion (wanting, aversion, and confusion)
  • What is one to be mindful of to advance to insight, realization, and awakening? The Buddha pointed at four things: body, feelings, mind, and mind-objects. What does this mean? Psychology cannot tell us, but the Dhamma can
  • Who needs Dhamma when we have a corporate bottom line to advance, productivity to raise, and mental health symptoms to abate?
  • Why call it "mindfulness," Psychology? Why not pick a new name for what you've turned this into?
Ego (buddhism podcast) The Buddha didn't teach us only to be "present." He taught us to remember (recollection, memory, bearing in mind, the faculty of sati)

On the road to Berkeley like Benji (The Graduate)
Personally, in college at UC Berkeley many years ago, I took a "Buddhist Psychology" course in the department and was so excited to finally be able to learn what "cognition" meant and what the Buddha had to say about all these psychological things. Our assigned textbook, written by a psychologist, was called Mindfulness. "All right," I thought, "I'm finally going to advance in my practice and being in college is going to help me. Imagine my surprise when, as I read, I did not recognize what was being called "mindfulness." It did not align with all the translated ancient texts I had read and was continuing to read from the Buddhist Publication Society and the Pali Text Society. A few years in the future I would even visit BPS Editor Bhikkhu Bodhi in Kandy, Sri Lanka, to ask him about all this.

The Art and Science of Mindfulness
Not yet having him as a direct resource, except through his translations and BPS newsletter messages, I asked my professor in class about how I was left perplexed by reading our textbook. She looked at me and shrugged, "Of course! This "mindfulness" isn't the Buddha's mindfulness. It is psychology's," she explained. I looked around and many students were nodding their heads in agreement. "There are two mindfulnesses?!" I balked. "There are now" was the implicit answer. "Does Berkeley know about this? Why is this class called Buddhist psychology if all we're going to talk about is Western psychology?" She winked because she was subverting the system and introducing Buddhist ideas back into class, but we had to know that the new mindfulness had been taken, changed, and applied in rigorous scientific ways to the behavioral sciences, therapy, counseling, and the mental health field. Sure, it wasn't the Buddha's mindfulness, but that's because it had to be stripped of all spirituality and/or religiosity to get by the gatekeepers of the university system. What a gyp.

Ratings for FOX News and Trump crash 📉

(Raw America) Weekend at Mitch's (Laughing at the dead Republican who's still voting?)

US heat wave: California bursts into flames

(CBS News) Severe weather across USA, heat wave: California's Summit Fire is 0% contained

Pastor, when will 'The Rapture' arrive? ✝️

American Dad! "Rapture's Delight" segment

Wait, this religion is real?
"Rapture's Delight" is the ninth episode of the sixth season of the American animated television series American Dad! It originally aired on the Fox TV network in the United States on Dec. 13, 2009 [and remains one of the funniest and most satirical takes the show dared to make]. This episode centers around CIA Agent Stan and his housewife Francine's life after the vast majority of the church, including their children Hayley and Steve, are raptured ("taken up"), leaving everyone else Left Behind. When Stan begins to blame Francine for not getting into heaven, Francine ends their relationship and befriends a man whom she later finds out to be Jesus Christ. Francine becomes his bride, leaving Stan behind to participate in the showdown at ArmageddonMore
The Christian myth of The Rapture

God is coming to beam us up, well, His son
"The Rapture" is a Christian eschatological ("end-times") belief held by some Christians, particularly those of American evangelicalism, consisting of a magic event when all dead Christian believers will be resurrected and, together with Christians who are still alive, will rise "in the clouds, to meet the Lord [who might be in a spaceship] in the air" [1, 2].

I don't want to be left behind with all the sinners!
Many different timelines have been asserted that tie to ideas of a seven-year "Great Tribulation": pre-tribulation [3], mid-tribulation, pre-wrath, and post-tribulation raptures; and to a thousand-year age of Messianic rule: millennialism, pre-millennialism, post-millennialism, a-millennialism, and preterism [4, 5].

The origin of the term extends from translations of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians in the Christian Bible, which uses the Greek word harpazo (Ancient Greek ἁρπάζω), meaning "to snatch away" or "to seize."

The idea of a rapture as it is defined in dispensational premillennialism is NOT found in historic Christianity. It is a relatively new doctrine, originating from the 1830s.

Why was I left behind, not good enough?
Most Christian denominations, and the numerically largest, do NOT
 believe or subscribe to "rapture theology" and have a different interpretation of the aerial gathering described in 1 Thessalonians 4 [6].

They do NOT use "rapture" as a specific theological term, nor do they generally subscribe to the dispensational theology associated with its use [7].

Instead, most Christians typically interpret "rapture" in the sense of the elect (the saved) gathering with Christ in Heaven directly after the Second Coming. They reject outright the idea that a large portion of humanity will be "left behind" (like the very profitable, fearmongering book series depicts) on Earth for an extended tribulation period after the events of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 [6, 8]. More

Friday, July 10, 2026

Vajrapani Bodhisattva: The Thunderbolt

(Buddha's Wisdom) VAJRAPANI: The Thunderbolt Bodhisattva who challenged Lord Shiva himself | Om Vajrapani Hum

Fierce protective spirit being
Vajrapani (Sanskrit Vajrapāṇi, Pali Vajirapāṇi, "holder of the thunderbolt," lit. meaning, "Vajra in [one's] hand") is one of the earliest-appearing bodhisattva in various sub-schools of Mahayana Buddhism.

He is alleged to be the protector and guide of the historical Buddha Gautama and rose to symbolize the Buddha's power.

Vajrapāni is also called Chana Dorje and Chador and extensively represented in Buddhist iconography as one of the earliest three protective deities or bodhisattvas surrounding the Buddha. Each of them symbolizes one of the Buddha's virtues... More

The Empty Nature of All Things


The Suñña Sutta [15] ("Discourse on Emptiness"), part of the Pāli canon, relates that the monk Ānanda, the Buddha's attendant, asked:

"Venerable sir, it is said that the world is 'empty,' the world is empty. In what respect is it said that the world is empty?"

The Buddha replied, "In so far as it is empty of a self or of anything that belongs to a self. So it is said, Ānanda, that the world is empty." More

Bibi, Israel, Iran, boring politics | Death Metal

It's blood libel to say we did what we did!

Help preserve the Jewish-Zionist genocide: The Nakba, Part II: Gaza
(Secular Talk) Israeli Crime Minister Bibi's Israel panics as an archive of Israel's genocide through a website is established to document all of homicidal Zionist Ashkenazi Israel's atrocities, extermination campaigns, media blackouts, murdering of journalists, war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and confirmed genocide | The Kyle Kulinski Show
It's you guys who'll kill me, right? - No, no, Iran
Crime Minister Netanyahu and Israel commit blood libel, telling Pres. Trump "Iran is plotting to assassinate you," implying he must reenter their war and illegally attack modern Persia again. Is this said publicly to provide cover for Trump, who is actually reentering Israel's war to prevent Israel from releasing the Epstein Files it has on him? Is he only succumbing to blackmail, like a guilty pedophile caught in a honeytrap by top spies for Israel Epstein and Maxwell?

Did Israel dream up deliver Iran banner?
(NY Post) How far will hasbara (Jewish Zionist Israeli propaganda) go?

Bibi: Israel doesn't want US money?
Enough politics, what about death metal?

TOP STORY: (Garza Podcast) Rap feuds? Who needs 'em? Old and new Cannibal Corpse singers feud but OG Chris Barnes tries to make peace with newbie George Corpsegrinder | SIX FEET UNDER

Jon Stewart speaks at 9/11 tribunal