do we desire sadness?

[zabrianne]

in the same way that we desire to feel happiness and pleasure
do we desire to feel pain?

thoughts?

[Unseeking Seeker]

Any fear
Any desire
Any attachment
In the transience
In the external
The ephemeral
Is delusional
Be it fleeting pleasure
Or suffering
Whereas
If we engage
And disengage
Seamlessly
Effortlessly
Completely
Unclingingly
We are free
Here & now

***

[Native spirit]

No body would desire to feel pain willingly im in enough pain as it is with fibromyalgia and arthritis I don't need any more.
we all desire to be Happy though.


Namaste

[A human Being]

Originally Posted by Native spirit

No body would desire to feel pain willingly im in enough pain as it is with fibromyalgia and arthritis I don't need any more.
we all desire to be Happy though.


Namaste

Well, masochists do, odd as it may seem. I used to think masochism was perverse in the extreme, but, weirdly enough, the more the more conscious I become, the more I can actually see why people engage in that sort of thing (though, um, I do just want to stress that I'm not about to bulk-buy bondage gear any time soon ).

In regards to the subject of the thread - on the contrary, in my own experience at least it seems that when I perpetuate sadness, it's precisely because on some (largely unconscious) level I don't want to feel it, for whatever reason (I think basically I became conditioned by my childhood experiences to think that it wasn't all right to feel like that, so that in time I reflexively pushed the feelings away - I suspect that's pretty common amongst human beings, in fairness). So a big part of my spiritual journey has been concerned with learning how to allow those feelings, and it's been bleedin' challenging to say the least (I mean I'm a guy, for pity's sake! An English guy! A white English guy!).

So I'd say that a big step in overcoming sadness is to actually become conscious of the not wanting it - that is often what goes under the radar for a lot of people, I suspect, myself included - and to basically train your body to let go of that resistance (which to me is the essence of meditation). It can be challenging, because human minds tend to go into reactivity very quickly (that sort of mental activity is often actually an unconscious defence against the pain); we have a tendency to tell ourselves all sorts of stories about the way things are and the way we think they should be, and those stories can seem so very valid, too. But when we argue with what is, we suffer, even when our arguments seem completely justified.

Originally Posted by zabrianne

in the same way that we desire to feel happiness and pleasure
do we desire to feel pain?

thoughts?

I don't know that we desire to feel pain or sadness, but happiness and sadness, pleasure and pain, like yin and yang, are duelistic pairs. The one defines the other, to know the one we must know the other. A price to pay to fully live the experience of life, and to expand and grow from what it has show us. Some teachings say to blunt the sadness, one must also blunt the happiness. Either way there is a price to pay.

[inavalan]

Originally Posted by zabrianne

in the same way that we desire to feel happiness and pleasure
do we desire to feel pain?

thoughts?

No. We fear pain, our subconscious senses our focus on pain, and directs us to act to cause and feel pain.

[iamthat]

Originally Posted by zabrianne

in the same way that we desire to feel happiness and pleasure
do we desire to feel pain?

thoughts?

The desire for happiness and pleasure is also the desire to avoid pain. We seek to maximise pleasure and minimise pain.

The problem with desire is that it is usually based on form, and all form is limited. Therefore any happiness or pleasure derived from form is also limited. It is only temporary. So people repeat the same actions to try to recapture pleasure and happiness. But it always ends, and people feel dissatisfied. Searching for happiness in form is ultimately futile and frustrating.

Which is one reason why people turn to meditation. Consciousness turns its attention away from the limitations and change of form, and looks within to find that which is unchanging and limitless. In other words, formlessness.

There is a stillness within each of us which has no attachment to pleasure and no aversion to pain. In this stillness we finally let go of seeking and rest in a state of peace.

Peace.

Originally Posted by iamthat

The desire for happiness and pleasure is also the desire to avoid pain. We seek to maximise pleasure and minimise pain.

The problem with desire is that it is usually based on form, and all form is limited. Therefore any happiness or pleasure derived from form is also limited. It is only temporary. So people repeat the same actions to try to recapture pleasure and happiness. But it always ends, and people feel dissatisfied. Searching for happiness in form is ultimately futile and frustrating.

Which is one reason why people turn to meditation. Consciousness turns its attention away from the limitations and change of form, and looks within to find that which is unchanging and limitless. In other words, formlessness.

There is a stillness within each of us which has no attachment to pleasure and no aversion to pain. In this stillness we finally let go of seeking and rest in a state of peace.

Peace.

We might think of the forms like the words of a story. The more we focus on the words, the harder it is to get into the story. When I am really into a story, I lose sight of the words altogether and I just experience the story.

I don't necessarily think desire is a bad thing overall. I think desire pulls my story forward. The problem for me comes in when I have too much desire for the story to be what I want it to be instead of just accepting it for what it is. It is like getting mad at the author because the plot is not going the way I want it to go. My frustration brings me out of the story to criticize the author.
If I just relax and experience the story the way it is written, I often find that it is a good story and there was a deeper hidden reason and meaning in the way the plot had twisted.

Always without desire we must be found,
If its deep mystery we would sound;
But if desire always within us be,
Its outer fringe is all that we shall see.

From the Tao te Ching

“When someone seeks," said Siddhartha, "then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.”

― Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by Native spirit

No body would desire to feel pain willingly im in enough pain as it is with fibromyalgia and arthritis I don't need any more.
we all desire to be Happy though.


Namaste

Ditto to that..for the past week or so, my arthritis, fibromyalgia, dysautonomia, menopause symptoms and GERD has been having a "field day" with my body, and I would love it all to just go away so that I can get on with it.

[Altair]

Yes, it can happen. When people are very sad they can get stuck in that feeling and it may the only thing they are capable of feeling, so it becomes a sort of desire, albeit in a twisted way.

Originally Posted by ketzer

“When someone seeks," said Siddhartha, "then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.”

That is nice advice to the extremely lucky people who get full blown spirituality out of nowhere for no ''apparent'' reason. For many people however it takes practice and working towards goals. I don't believe it's right to suggest that we shouldn't have any goals. It's spoken from a different perspective and from a practical perspective it's just not much to go by. 99% of people aren't self realized souls or anything.