The Desire to Be Desireless

Perhaps this is what happens when one thinks too much.

One thought leads to another, and another, and another, until suddenly I find myself walking in circles inside my own mind.

Recently, while scrolling through YouTube, I came across a passage attributed to Rumi which spoke about desire—not as something to be ashamed of, but as a possible doorway to the Divine. The words suggested that longing itself might carry a message, that what we experience as desire may sometimes be pointing toward something deeper within us.

I was struck by it.

Perhaps because I have been wrestling with questions about desire for much of my life.

But almost immediately another voice entered the conversation.

The Buddha.

Didn't the Buddha teach that desire—or more precisely, craving—is the cause of suffering?

And there I was again, caught between two apparently different teachings.

One says: listen to your longing.

The other says: understand your craving.

Then came the realization that perhaps they are not as far apart as they first appear.

There is a difference between desire arising and becoming enslaved by desire.

Desire appears.

That may be unavoidable.

But then something else happens. The mind says:

I must have this.

And if I cannot have it:

Something is wrong.

And then:

I cannot be happy without it.

Perhaps this is where desire becomes craving.

Perhaps the suffering is not always in the original longing but in the grasping that follows.

And then I encountered another paradox.

What if I decide that I must become completely desireless?

There it is again.

A desire.

The desire to have no desires.

And suddenly I am chasing my own tail.

I want to become free of wanting.

But wanting to become free is itself another form of wanting.

This reminded me of Zen.

Zen seems to have little interest in allowing the mind to construct an elaborate philosophy around every experience.

Desire arises.

Notice it.

Don't immediately obey it.

Don't immediately condemn it.

Don't turn it into a personal failure.

Just see it.

And perhaps that is where the endless circle of thinking begins to break.

Instead of saying:

I am desiring.

Perhaps simply:

Desire is here.

There is a subtle difference.

The first statement seems to make desire part of an identity.

The second simply acknowledges what is happening.

A wave has arisen.

Why fight the ocean?

And perhaps this is what I have been slowly learning through all these years of searching: I don't necessarily have to conquer every thought, every longing, every impulse that appears within me.

Perhaps I have to become intimate with them.

To look.

To listen.

To understand.

And then let them pass.

Rumi asks me to listen to the longing.

The Buddha asks me to look deeply into craving.

Zen asks me, perhaps, to stop making so much noise about either one.

And somewhere between these three voices, I find myself sitting quietly.

Still thinking.

Still desiring.

Still searching.

But perhaps not quite so willing to believe that every thought requires another thought.

Maybe the door is not found by thinking my way out of the circle.

Maybe the door appears when I simply stop walking.

And breathe.

For this moment, that is enough.

Wallahu Alam.

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