JOY WITHOUT DESIRE?

 

 

 
ONE OF THE EARLIEST DEPICTIONS OF BUDDHA (Notice that he is NOT fat!)

"Schopenhauer noted a correspondence between his doctrines and the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. Similarities centered on the principles that life involves suffering, that suffering is caused by desire (tanha), and that the extinction of desire leads to liberation. Thus three of the four "truths of the Buddha" correspond to Schopenhauer's doctrine of the will. In Buddhism, however, while greed and lust are always unskillful, desire is ethically variable - it can be skillful, unskillful, or neutral.

Schopenhauer accepted Kant's double-aspect of the universe—the phenomenal (world of experience the noumenal (the true world, independent of experience)."                                                ~Wikipedia

Despite the many wonderful principles found in Buddhism, I cannot accept it.  What is life without desire?  Perhaps no suffering, but also no joy!  I cannot conceive of a life never wanting anything!!!  Besides, if we kill the desire within us, are we not placing ourselves in a vulnerable position to others to use us for their purposes?

I do, however, strongly agree with Kant's existentialist view:  that there is objective reality and subjective reality (which is our perception of what is real).  I believe strongly though we cannot prove empirical reality, without belief in it, we are lost.

SEE POSTS:  WHY DOES GOD ALLOW SO MUCH SUFFERING and WHAT IS REALITY?