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").

Simplistic and wrong: Buddhism explained in 1 minute! - Misunderstanding the term "desire"

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.

• Dr. Robert Sapolsky: Behave

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.

• Tara Brach: Meditation teacher, psychologist, author

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"

(Clear Mountain Monastery Project) The Craving Mind and the Default

Mode [Network]’s Addiction to Self | Dr. Judson Brewer. MD, PhD

• 

  Beauty is more than skin deep!

  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

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"The Rewarded Brain"

(Cambridge Philosophical Society) The Rewarded Brain | A V Hill Lecture

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• The Midnight Library @TheRealMidnight...) July 10, 2026; Dr. Wolfram Schultz; Dr. Judson Brewer; Dr. Tara Brach; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

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).

• 

  OK, now shut up, Nerd (iStock)

  Definition of terms: "GOOD": wholesome, skillful, beneficial. "BAD": unwholesome, unskillful, leading to an increase in suffering when karma (deed) eventually ripens and fruits into karmic-resultants in spite of the fact that a deed performed now may seem to bring about an immediate increase in pleasant feeling.

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).

Simplistic, wrong: Buddhism explained in 1 minute?

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."

Will robo-toilets or -dogs fix world?

(The Daily Show) Tech Yeah! AI actress film, "robo-toilets"? | Grace K

*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).

• Karma: Ten Courses of Wholesome and Unwholesome Action
• The Roots of Good and Evil (Buddhist Publication Society, Wheel Series 251/252/253)
• Will Tilly Norwood be the new Gal "IDF Zionist" Gadot?
• Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary via palikanon.com (chanda and tanhā); Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Story of the Buddha Off-Broadway (musical)

A. Jesse Jiryu Davis (Lion’s Roar); Amber Larson, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Yasodhara (Elaine Cotter) tells Siddhartha (Joshua Grosso) she's pregnant (lionsroar.com)

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Off-Broadway musical on the Life of the Buddha

A. Jesse Jiryu Davis and Jennifer Keishin Armstrong* reviewed and photographed “Under the Bodhi Tree” last year for Lion's Roar.

On a Tuesday night [May 2017], an audience of about 50 settled into a small, black box theater less than a block from Broadway.

Over the next two hours, they’d learn about the life of the Buddha the same way patrons of other nearby theaters were getting to know Alexander Hamilton or Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond -- through original, rousing song-and-dance numbers.

We'll turn round and round in this insufferable samsara forever until we wake up.

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Under the Bodhi Tree started as a Korean script written by Jingoo Lee and Julie Song.

It follows Prince Siddhartha from his royal childhood, through his noble [origins] marriage, and eventually on his journey temporarily away from his family and toward enlightenment.

• [NOTE: Siddhartha left to find why we suffer and thus bring all suffering to an end. He came back seven years later with answers and saved his family and many, many others].

The diverse, ten-person cast finished a 12-day run at the Royal Family Performing Arts Space, and producers are hoping to bring the show to festivals and regional theaters throughout America as well as to create a Korean tour.

 

The production aims to make Prince Siddhartha’s life and teachings accessible to young, modern audiences, with an introduction set in current day featuring characters suffering over everything from pennilessness to lack of likes on Instagram.

Why do we suffer, and how can we end it?

As the play moves into Siddhartha’s time, the future Buddha comes across as timeless.

He wears a simple white cotton and is played by Joshua Grosso with naturalism -- not to mention a killer Broadway voice and a luminous presence.

Many of the other characters are blatantly styled in Rent-like punk and played with a modern edge.

Siddhartha’s childhood sidekick, Channa [who cared for Sid's white pony Kanthaka], wears a pink sweatshirt and moto-style jeans, providing comic relief -- though not all of the audience, many of whom were clutching Korean translation sheets, seemed to get his jokes.

(For instance, “You look like you need some moral support. I’d offer, but my morals are questionable.”) Jordan J. Ford appears as Siddhartha’s snarky tempter, Mara, in a kilt and combat boots.

Lion's Roar (lionsroar.com)

Those boots would be at home in the current Tony-darling Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812. One of the cast members wears a Nirvana band T-shirt throughout -- get it?
 
Even if it doesn’t become the next Jesus Christ Superstar, Under the Bodhi Tree is a delightful way to spend an evening -- and remember why we practice. Source

*REVIEWERS

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong is the TV columnist for BBC Culture and also writes for several other publications, including The New York Times Book Review, Fast Company, Vulture, and Billboard. She’s the author of the New York Times bestseller Seinfeldia: How the Show About Nothing Changed Everything and a history of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted. She now lives in Manhattan.

 

A. Jesse Jiryu Davis is a programmer and photographer living in New York City. He is a student of Enkyo Roshi at the Village Zendo. Visit his blog at emptysqua.re.

"Playboy" and Men's Dreams

Crystal left Playboy's founder to make beautiful music with someone else, planning to cash in on a post "runaway bride" spectacle interview (FOX). Men's dream comes undone: Girls not included? Hefner a gay pandaka? Has "Playboy" been nothing but false advertising?

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, dumped by his fiancee days before their wedding, said Wednesday he is affixing "Runaway Bride" stickers over her picture on the cover of the magazine's upcoming issue.

Hefner, 85, announced a day earlier that 25-year-old Crystal Harris had "a change of heart," and that Saturday's wedding ceremony for 300 people at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles had been canceled.

In an unfortunate coincidence, Harris appears on the cover of the July Playboy issue, hitting newsstands Friday, described as "America's Princess ... Introducing Mrs. Crystal Hefner."

In the interests of journalistic accuracy, Hefner has moved quickly to remedy the situation. More

• The story, of course, is much funnier and stranger. Crystal Harris planned on abandoning Hugh Hefner at the altar -- in view of cameras for a big pay off selling her interview afterward. And she may have been having an affair with Dr. Phil's son all along.

Mend's Dreams: Runaway Bride uses Porn King

Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

The sad thing is that Hugh Hefner has essentially been living the life most men want. He has:

• a castle in Los Angeles
  
• millions coming in annually from destructive but exciting work
• potency-inducing pharmaceuticals
• gala parties
• and, best of all, an endless bevy of newly nubile "playmates" and "bunnies," Scandinavian twins in open marriages and group activities...

If Hef can't get it to work, what hope is there for the rest of us?

When lust (kamachanda, or tanha and lobha, "craving" and "greed") fails us, it suggests that maybe, just maybe, the Buddha was right:

Investing our energies and dreams in developing sensual desires -- and trying to satisfy them -- is not actually the way to happiness.

Craving, in fact, may be the problem causing our "suffering" -- our dissatisfaction, disappointment, and distress.

If that were true, freedom-from-craving would be the solution -- freedom-from-suffering (nirvana).

But what could be the path leading to such freedom? These four assertions are the centerpieces of Buddhism as a path to perfect liberation. But who will strive to be free without first realizing the disappointment of being enslaved to craving?

• "Bye-bye, pervert" - Weiner heckled as he resigns
• Arnold Schwarzenegger's mistress threatens to sue
• Gay bar wins right to ban "predatory" women
• Bloomsday riddle: Crossing Dublin sans pubs
• Football star Tyree: Gay marriage will lead to anarchy
• Tupac Shakur's murder under investigation again
• Policeman who murdered Oscar Grant released

Desire in Meditation

Whether one speaks of seeing "God" or of attaining such things as the counterpart sign in meditation, samadhi (concentrated, purified, stilled mind), absorption, insight, or enlightenment -- desire is both necessary and an obstacle. Balance in the solution.

One must persist, but one cannot be needy. One must want it for the right reasons not to aggregate it to the ego. Therefore, in that sense, there must not be "wanting," a sense of lack, or a hope for fulfillment. Paradoxically, one must both desire (chanda) and not desire (serenity, coolness, acceptance of what is).

Unfortunately, the story of the Buddha's great enlightenment is told as a story of will, effort, and intense striving that if that were in fact representative of all he did, Siddhartha would not have seen the light. And anyone who takes the tale literally, believing that is ALL effort and exertion, will emulate the story and fail. The story should be retold more accurately as a delicate balance that in Sanskrit is called sthira-sukha: effortful-ease, hard-softness, strength-relaxation, or "yin-yang," if you will.

"Introduction to Buddhism" (Los Angeles class)

Pasadena's Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara (labuddhistvihara.org) serves everyone who desires a basic understanding of the Buddha's Teachings with educational and training programs. In addition to regular walking and sitting meditation (FREE, Tuesdays and Saturdays at 7:00 pm), a new short-term course is offered to show how practice applies to theory.

Course Description
Discourses (sutras) of the Buddha contained in the Pali canon serve as the primary source of study. They represent the original Teachings of the historical Buddha. The significance of Buddhism as a system of thought that revolutionized first India then the world will be studied.

The innovative features of Buddhism in comparison with existing systems will be considered with a focus on concepts of truth and knowledge, the Four Noble Truths, Dependent Arising, psychology, mind, meditation and spiritual potential, ethical values, the nature of the political and social order, and finally the place of rituals and forms of reverence in Buddhism.

• Course: "Introduction to Buddhism"
• Fee: Donations welcome for maintenance and expansion of Temple programs for the well being of many.
• Dates: 8 Tuesdays starting March 30, 2010, 8:00-9:00 pm
• Location: 920 N. Summit Ave. (at Mountain, east of Fair Oaks), Pasadena, (626) 797-6144
• Instructor: Ven. K. Chandananda
  former lecturer in Buddhist Studies at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka, BA (with Honors) in Buddhist Philosophy and Pali
• Topics: (Week 1) pre-Buddhist Indian social and religious background, (2) Buddha and the emergence of Buddhism, (3) Buddhist literature, (4-5) Fundamentals of Buddhism as the Four Noble Truths, (6) Basics of Buddhist Psychology, (7) Theory of Karma and Rebirth, (8) Introduction to Meditation
• Recommended Readings: What the Buddha Taught (Walpola Rahula), An Introduction to Buddhism (Peter Harvey), justbegood.net

Man accused of ramming Playboy Mansion gates

Man accused of ramming Playboy Mansion gates...
Daily News Wire Services (9-2-08)

The Daily News is reporting that a Ventura County man accused of ramming a car into the gates at the Playboy Mansion twice in less than a week pleaded not guilty today to a pair of felony vandalism charges. Glen Allan Meador, 55, is due back in court Sept. 12, 2008 for a hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to require him to stand trial.

The criminal complaint alleges that the crimes occurred late last month at the home of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner on Charing Cross Road, just north of Sunset Boulevard, in the Holmby Hills area. Hugh Hefner apparently was not home on either occasion. Meador remains jailed in lieu of $250,000 bail.

Rooted in Craving

Numerical Discourses of the Buddha

Book of Nines, Sutra 23 (Nyanaponika & Bodhi)

The Buddha said: "What are the nine things rooted in craving? "Because of craving, there is pursuit. Because of pursuit, there is acquisition. Because of acquisition, there is decision. Because of decision, there is desire and lust. Because of desire and lust, there is selfish tenacity. Because of selfish tenacity, there is possessiveness. Because of possessiveness, there is avarice. Because of avarice, there is concern for protection.

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"And for the sake of protection, there is the seizing of cudgels and weapons, and various unskillful, unwholesome things such as quarrels, strife, dissension, and offensive talk, slander and lies. These are the nine things rooted in craving."

• "Decision" refers to thoughts of deciding on the utilization or value of what has been acquired, whether it should be used or stored, etc.
• "Desire and lust" signifies a weaker degree of desire caused by unwholesome thoughts arising from the object.
• This weaker desire is intensified at the next stage, "selfish tenacity," the strong insistence on "I" and "mine."