Do pleasurable things cause desire?

Dhr. Seven, Ananda, Amber Larson; Ashley Wells (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly; Lana Del Rey, "Noir"

It's not that I'm addicted. I just love pleasure. I have an unquenchable craving for it.

  

Answers? Inquire within.

Is the cause of suffering "desire" (tanha, addiction, craving, literally, "thirst")?

The enlightened Buddhist nun, Sayalay Susila, once asked us: "We get stuck to pleasant sights, sounds, and sensual feelings. Is it their 'stickiness,' or our desire, or what is it that holds us?"

 

Well, clearly, anyone who's ever been in love with or addicted to a sight, sound, or sensual feeling (associated with a person, drug, or habit) will say that it's THAT PERSON or THING that captivate us like Cupid (Mara Devaputra, Eros, Kama-deva) with an arrow or a Siren with a irresistible song.

"Oh, baby! Guys, release me! Let me loose!" Ullyses from Homer's Odyssey (by H.J. Draper)

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The nun nodded her head, said "Mmm hmm," and asked this follow-up question:

Cupid deva (Mara, Eros, Kama)

"Fully enlightened beings also experience pleasant sights, sounds, and sensual feelings. Do they get stuck? When shot by Cupid's arrow, are they captivated, trapped in Mara's snare, held in bondage, obsessed, addicted?"

"No!" we shouted.

"They're free!" we added. They're completely free. They're liberated, emancipated, nirvana-ed (quenched, cooled, utterly having gone out, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond all that can upset).

• Nothing Higher to Live For: A Buddhist View of Romantic Love

A beautiful Buddhist goddess

At that very moment we collectively realized that the things in and of themselves do NOT have the power to hold us. They are not sticky. "Stickiness" happens through our flawed interaction with them, our misapprehension (seeing the as they are not, as permanent/enduring, pleasurable/capable of fulfilling us, as personal/essential).

But the true nature of reality is that they are anicca, anatta, and dukkha -- hurtling toward destruction (impermanent), disappointing (incapable of fulfilling us), and impersonal (empty, devoid of independent existence apart from their constituent parts).
 

Vedic Lord Shiva turns Kama (Cupid) to ashes (Madan-Bhasma, metmuseum.org)

 

Cupid as Kamadeva (Bertel Thorvaldsen)

How do we interact when we misunderstand -- beset as we are by wrong views, preferences, and aversions/fears?

When we miscomprehend things, we cling to them, repel/fear the loss of them. We habitually run away from whatever we perceive as being unpleasant (or boring if it's neutral) and habitually run toward whatever we perceive of as being pleasant.

But although we have become addicted, things themselves are not addictive. It's an inside job.

Therefore, freedom from all suffering is also an inside job! It cannot be otherwise. We can get help, we better get help (a teacher, book, or noble friend to point this out), and we will still have to actually do the freeing ourselves (from greed, hatred/fear, and delusion). Why? Buddhas, Awakened Ones, only point the way.

 

“No one saves us but ourselves.

No one will, and no one may.

We ourselves must walk the Path.

Buddhas only point the way!"

(The Dhammapada Verses 165, 276)

-- This is an excellent summary of what Budh-ism (Awaken-ism) is for.

The Buddha said thing in a slightly longer Buddhist verse translated into beautiful English by Paul Carus in Karma: A Story of Buddhist Ethics (1894). It is a summary of the full quotation derived from the Dhammapada:

By ourselves is harm done,
By ourselves we pain endure,
By ourselves we cease from wrong,
By ourselves become we pure.

No one saves us but ourselves.
No one [will] and no one may.
We ourselves must walk the path:
Buddhas only show the way.

A more literal modern translation might go something like this from accesstoinsight.org:

By oneself is harm done;
by oneself is one defiled.
By oneself is harm left undone;
By oneself is one made pure.
Purity and impurity depend on oneself;
No one can purify another.

Karma: Story of Buddhist Ethics

In other words, we are responsible for our own karma (profitable, unprofitable, and neutral actions). Not the Buddha, not God, not the devas, not saints, angels, teachers, parents, friends can save us -- even though they would want to. We can save ourselves, by our actions (our intention and follow through to develop some things and let go of other harmful actions by leaving them undone). We have to save ourselves because no one else is going to nor can they.

NOTE: Excessively devotional Pure Land Buddhism (a Mahayana sect), like messianic Catholicism/Christianity, teaches that enlightenment (salvation, deliverance) is only possible through the grace of a divine being, in this case Amida Buddha (Amitabha), But it’s necessary to acknowledge that this savior approach to liberation contradicts what the historical Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) taught -- which is that buddhas (fully awakened teachers) only point the way, and that we must ourselves walk the path pointed out by those who awakened before us.