On the Negation of Desire

06/12/2006 6:43 AM – 7:05 AM

To extinguish desire. What an odd and difficult desire. To desire the good. To desire the better. The better for ones self. But the self is an illusion. And when someone says that the self is an illusion, I hold tight to my wallet, experience telling that what they want is for my self to buy things for their self.

How much desire should one then keep? Enough to keep you from stepping in front of a bus, one master said. What then is the Good? What is it that you need to do to keep yourself on the Good Path? Desire the Good. What is the Good? What is the Good Path? Compassion I can understand in the context of societal harmony, but what is there to be compassionate towards in the mountain hermitage? The self, what self? If there is no individual self, there is no universal self. But we live here and now. Somehow, I hope this line of questions leads to righteousness, peace and joy.

I don’t know what the koans mean. I don’t know what the parables mean. I can feel it sometimes. Too tired and thirsty for my mind to grab the definition and description of water, I know what water is. All that I come back to is “save your money.” But that implies that the future is present. Perhaps it is. Perhaps I am merely being cantankerous. Perhaps I am merely struggling to let go of the desire for the Good. I doubt it, somehow. But I’m awake. I’m up in the morning and though I do not have my mystic’s eye glancing round the world and finding the Silence of God eminent in all things, I’m here. I have some level of peace. I still fear for my body. I still fear for my soul. The food tastes too good. The cigarette smoke feels too good. Somehow, there is a way underneath the covers where the monsters are forgotten and the warmth of just being is enough. There is, somehow, a game where, as one plays it, one finds one’s self in the abstract and things don’t hurt and they don’t pleasure. Is that what it takes to have peace - the negation of existence? I’d swallow the red-hot iron ball if I could be sure. But surety is in notoriously scarce supply and its value is undeterminable. They are fools or liars who have said that they are not selfish. Every time I have forgotten myself, it was in service of my self. Maybe that’s how we have to go to get there. And so for now, just let it go and save your money.