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by mtalantikite 181 days ago
This is a core concept of Buddhism, called tanha, and has been contemplated for a couple thousand years at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%E1%B9%87h%C4%81
5 comments

Tanha is about wholesome and unwholesome desires, ie those that lead to or dont lead to liberation. Its not about desires that do or do not change you, as this article is categorizing it.
Do wholesome desires, like practicing the dharma, not change you? Do unwholesome desires, like staying stuck in your addictions, not trap you?

My point is that desire is something that is deeply explored in all three major schools of Buddhism. In the Vajrayana to the point that we take the most difficult of our base desires as paths of practice, like seen in karmamudra.

One could argue that staying in one place unchanged, in a space barred with thin desires, is akin to being imprisoned. And that following newly cultivated thick desires out of one’s thin prison sounds just like liberation to me.
This also sounds like one of the core themes of Augustinian philosophy. The idea of the "restless heart" in that we are never satisfied with earthly wants and desires.
Everything new is old :)
Try having an original thought after 110 billion humans have already lived entire lives thinking.
Doesn’t “tanha” mean “by yourself” in Hindi?
I don't speak Hindi unfortunately, but it's definitely on my list of languages to study (after Bangla)!

It looks like the Hindi tanha comes from Classical Persian [1], whereas the Pali tanha comes from Sanskrit [2]

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%B9%E...

[2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ta%E1%B9%87h%C4%81

Interesting. Looked fornthe simple English version, alas.