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Originally Posted by Gem
Well, all I say is next time these apparently sanctioned as noble desires arise, see for yourself the aversion they come with, see the 'me' at the centre of that. For example, the person has already noticed that the enlightenment quality is not experienced, and they notice they are in the bondage of compultion, but instead of taking that as a fact and examining it so as to understand it, they become adverse to their bound state of mind and desire a different state than the state that IS. Considering the bound state is the state of being compelled by reactivity, continuing the aversion/desire activity isn't the 'way'. Ceasing the desire/aversion activity/reactivity is. Hence the meditation is tricky. It is subtle, nuanced and intricately refined, and isn't the desire for enlightenment or anything so simply stated. It's not that crude.
It is tricky because the ego is what desires, but 'you', the one aware, can observe the desire arising in your mind, notice how it agitates the mind, and see it pass by again, but the one aware is constant as opposed to coming and going. The one aware is unaffected, impervious, and beyond all observables. You 'already are' the one aware, and the one who desires is 'not-me'.
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' Most of us, when looking at the four noble truths, don't realize that they're all about desire. We're taught that the Buddha gave only one role to desire — as the cause of suffering. Because he says to abandon the cause of suffering, it sounds like he's denying any positive role to desire and its constructive companions: creativity, imagination, and hope. This perception, though, misses two important points. The first is that all four truths speak to the basic dynamic of desire on its own terms: perception of lack and limitation, the imagination of a solution, and a strategy for attaining it. The first truth teaches the basic lack and limitation in our lives — the clinging that constitutes suffering — while the second truth points to the types of desires that lead to clinging: desires for sensuality, becoming, and annihilation. The third truth expands our imagination to encompass the possibility that clinging can be totally overcome. The fourth truth, the path to the end of suffering, shows how to strategize so as to overcome clinging by abandoning its cause.
The second point that's often missed is that the noble truths give two roles to desire, depending on whether it's skillful or not. Unskillful desire is the cause of suffering; skillful desire forms part of the path to its cessation. Skillful desire undercuts unskillful desire, not by repressing it, but by producing greater and greater levels of satisfaction and well-being so that unskillful desire has no place to stand. This strategy of skillful desire is explicit in the path factor of right effort: '
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/...inglimits.html
What is right effort? There is the case where a monk (here meaning any meditator) generates desire, endeavors, arouses persistence, upholds and exerts his intent for the sake of the non-arising of evil, unskillful mental qualities that have not yet arisen... for the sake of the abandoning of evil, unskillful qualities that have arisen... for the sake of the arising of skillful qualities that have not yet arisen... for the maintenance, non-confusion, increase, plenitude, development, and culmination of skillful qualities that have arisen. This is called right effort.
— DN 22