If he give rise to the thought of wanting more, but is not
obsessed and not attached, then he is liberated.
That means, if he fails to get it, he still does not suffer out of
the attachment.
He desires, but is content even if he did not get it, then it shows
he has not given rise to the mind of increase and decrease, he does
not give rise to the attachment of form, of 'gaining' (de2) and
'losing' (shi1).
On the other hand, a person who gives rise to the thought of
wanting more, and keep grasping and pursuing the mental image of
forms and appearance, is constantly affected by gain and loss,
increase and decrease, birth and destruction. He is unable to
perceive the Emptiness nature of all appearances, and suffers all
the time in endless dualistic pursuit.
When this happens, useful and compassionate desires become
dualistic greed.. greed
being founded on ignorance and attachment.
....As stated earlier, a helpful
concept here is compassion, a heart aspect of the practice and
reality related to kindness. You see, wherever there is
desire there is suffering, and wherever there is suffering there is
compassion, the desire for the end of suffering. You can
actually experience this. So obviously there is some really close
relationship between suffering, desire and compassion. This is
heavy but good stuff and worth investigating.
We might conceive of this as compassion having gotten
caught in a loop, the loop of the illusion of duality. This is sort
of like a dogs tail chasing itself. Pain and pleasure, suffering
and satisfaction always seem to be over there. Thus, when
pleasant sensations arise, there is a constant, compassionate,
deluded attempt to get over there to the other side of the imagined
split. This is fundamental attraction. You would think that we
would just stop imagining there is a split, but somehow that is not
what happens. We keep perpetuating the sense of a split even as we
try to bridge it, and so we suffer. When unpleasant sensations
arise, there is an attempt to get away from over there, to widen
the imagined split. This will never work, because it doesnt
actually exist, but the way we hold our minds as we try to get away
from that side is painful. When boring or unpleasant sensations
arise, there is the attempt to tune out all together and forget the
whole thing, to try to pretend that the sensations on the other
side of the split are not there. This is fundamental ignorance and
it perpetuates the process, as it is by ignoring aspects of our
sensate reality that the illusion of a split is created in the
first place....
--- Dharma Dan.
Remember how it was stated above
that suffering motivates everything we do? We could also say that
everything we do is motivated by compassion, which is part of the
fundamentally empty nature of reality. That doesnt mean that
everything we do is skillful; that is a whole different
issue.
Compassion is a very good thing, especially when it involves one's
self and all beings. It is sort of the flip side of the Second
Noble Truth. The whole problem is that misdirected compassion,
compassion that is filtered through the process of ego and its
related habits, can produce enormous suffering and often does. It
is easy to think of many examples of people searching for happiness
in the strangest of places and by doing the strangest of things.
Just pick up any newspaper. The take-home message is to search for
happiness where you are actually likely to find it.
We might say that compassion is the ultimate aspect of desire, or
think of compassion and desire on a continuum. The more
wisdom or understanding of interconnectedness there is behind our
intentions and actions, the more they reflect compassion and the
more the results will turn out well. The more greed, hatred and
delusion or lack of understanding of interconnectedness there is
behind our intentions and actions, the more they reflect desire and
the more suffering there will likely be.
~ Dharma Dan
Just my 2 cents. Perhaps others can share their understanding on
'greed'...
