The first of the Eight Awakenings of Enlightened Beings is having few desires. This is a great practice. It steers us to noticing how often desire lurks just below the surface of our mental stream. All the thoughts of “I want this” or “I don’t want that.” All the ways we are captured by something we experience as a need, but on looking closer is only a desire. We have more choices than we exercise. How often do you eat when not hungry? Or buy something that you never use? Or say something that you don’t really mean or wish you hadn’t said in the first place. All this is extra to a sense of peace, of well-being. In fact, desire often actively gets in the way of being open to the actual moment, bringing along with it much to attend to. So much to acquire and get rid of. The ocean gyres, seeable from space, express this sickness of desires that we are culturally caught up in. What results from this awakening to having few desires? We simplify life. And can appreciate it in the many ways that it nourishes us, all on its own. Nothing to acquire, nothing to drag around, or to dust.
