Desire

I read a very helpful article by Ajahn Candasiri, a Buddhist nun, in Freeing the Heart. Her article is titled "Why Come to a Monastery?" She talks about how desire and aversion have an important part in nature and our survival, but we can get caught up in acting on our impulses without realizing what is truly needed or not and then we suffer. Instead of following desires, we should examine them closely. Desire can be acknowledged without being acted on and eventually it burns itself out. "What our monastic discipline offers is a container within which one can observe desire as it arises... We deliberately put ourselves into a form which prevents us from following all our desires, in order to see them and to notice how they change."


http://www.amaravati.org/abm/english/documents/freeing/freeing%20the%20heart.pdf

So... what if your desire involves checking into the monastery??? Ha ha!

I've had some very strong desires come up lately that would make absolutely no sense to act on right now. It has been difficult not to buy into the stories my mind weaves about how things should or shouldn't be or the fantasy about what would make me happy. The reason this has become a problem for me is that these same desires keep popping up over and over again on and off over several years. It is obvious that bumps in my marriage trigger these so what does it mean that they keep coming up? I feel like I really need to contemplate this deeply and understand better what exactly is triggering these. Is the dissatisfaction really due to problems my husband has or is it problems that I have due to my expectations?

So, Husband still has issues with drinking. He keeps working on it. I am sure that eventually he will work it out and resolve it. He is a functional person. He takes care of the cars and the yard and the dishes and the trash and the kids. He is a great Dad. He does the best he can at work. He always listens to me and loves me and the kids completely. So what do I really have to complain about? Oh, I can think of quite a few things, drinking issues aside. But is it due to my own expectations? What did I really expect when I married him? Wasn't he exactly what I was looking for when we decided to get married? Weren't the most important things that he is a growing person, knows how to communicate well, spends time with me yet allows me the freedom to be who I need to be?

Who do I need to be now? Do I really need to be anything? Even though I could be or do anything I wanted to, would it really matter? Would it really solve my "problems" and make me happy? I could instead treat my situation as a metaphor for the monastery: I've deliberately put myself into this form of marriage and family, which in so many ways prevents me from following all my desires. And in so many ways, this life is a much more challenging way to face desires than the monastic life because this lay life is filled with people and media and culture that encourage you to follow all your desires. All the more reason for me to meditate EVERY day and to go to Common Ground every week. Worldly desires are difficult to overcome when you are right in the middle of everyone saying "just do it!"

Only after I have overcome these desires in the middle of my family life will I be able to finally say I am ready for the next step beyond my family life.