1
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Okay, go ahead.

2
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If desires are the root of suffering, is there anything inherently wrong with them?

3
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How do you best acknowledge and put to good use our desires without getting carried away by their passions?

4
00:00:19,215 --> 00:00:21,738
Well, that's an interesting question.

5
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I don't quite get the logical movement.

6
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So, the premise is that desires are the root of suffering.

7
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And then somehow that leads you to the conclusion that there may not be anything wrong with them.

8
00:00:38,580 --> 00:00:40,082
I don't see the logic there.

9
00:00:40,783 --> 00:00:43,847
If they are the root of suffering, how could there be anything good about them?

10
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I don't get it.

11
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If anything were the root of suffering,

12
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Isn't that a sign that there's something inherently wrong with him?

13
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I don't know.

14
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So something is a little bit unclear there to me.

15
00:01:09,776 --> 00:01:25,253
But I want to just add something here because there's another point involved with this and that's using desires for good use without getting carried away from them.

16
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Now maybe the idea that you're trying to present is that desires can cause suffering.

17
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Desires are the root of suffering in the sense that they can cause suffering.

18
00:01:34,990 --> 00:01:36,372
That's not Buddhist theory.

19
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Desires do cause suffering.

20
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If you're referring to the mental state of wanting something, instead of just the intention that we call desire.

21
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If it's an actual desire, it can't help but bring suffering as a result.

22
00:01:57,914 --> 00:02:08,200
Now, it's possible that they can be nullified, so not all desires do bring results.

23
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sketchy may not bring results depending on what theory you subscribe to but in general let's say they do bring results and there's no way that a desire could bring a positive result the Buddha is very very clear about this specifically clear

24
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Desire can only bring, I just lost it now, but in the Anguttar Nikaya Book of Ones, desire can only bring suffering.

25
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So, no way, no way to use desires for... I mean, if you ask someone else, they might say, some people I think might say, desires are not so bad, just don't, as you say, let them become passions or let yourself get carried away by them.

26
00:03:03,827 --> 00:03:09,895
But that's not technically honest.

27
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I can couch what I said in those kind of words and say, you know, don't worry too much.

28
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And that's a good advice.

29
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Don't worry too much about your desires.

30
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Try to learn about them and learn about the bad desires and passions.

31
00:03:25,160 --> 00:03:36,017
And that's good advice, because once you do that, you'll start... Because you can't hope, as a person who's never practiced Buddhism, can't hope to get close to their...

32
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You might say innocent desires.

33
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Yeah, you would say innocent desires.

34
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So desires that are not evil, evil, evil.

35
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Evil in a conventional worldly sense.

36
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So desires that don't lead you to kill, steal, lie, cheat.

37
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Kill, steal, lie, cheat.

38
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Yeah.

39
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And so on.

40
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Lost it totally.

41
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Yes, the innocent desires.

42
00:04:06,614 --> 00:04:20,348
But you can get rid of them because you're very much attached to them, but because there's all these coarse and crazy defilements, because you still want to kill, steal, lie, cheat.

43
00:04:20,328 --> 00:04:25,655
And so until you get rid of those, you're not going to be able to see clearly the more subtle ones.

44
00:04:26,776 --> 00:04:28,559
You're not going to have a chance to get rid of them.

45
00:04:30,561 --> 00:04:43,838
And so taking it step by step, it's very good advice to tell you just to try to deal with the passions and so on, and to not worry about them.

46
00:04:43,818 --> 00:04:46,442
So in that sense, I could answer this.

47
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We can't put to good use your desires, because what I mean by not being honest is that all desires are negative.

48
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And even though we might put up with them, we certainly can't put them to good use.

49
00:05:03,044 --> 00:05:09,252
But how would we, if your question was put up with them without getting carried away by them,

50
00:05:12,927 --> 00:05:15,413
I think maybe that's just a good way of summing it up.

51
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Put up with them without getting carried away with them.

52
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Deal with the getting carried away part first, because that's much more important.

53
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And deal with the views that lead you to get carried away first of all.

54
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Deal with your ideas.

55
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and so on.

56
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I mean, a lot of these how do I deal with questions are really dishonest, not dishonest, but it's dishonest of me to give you a direct answer because

57
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That's not the point of Buddhism.

58
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The point of Buddhism is not to deal with.

59
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The point of Buddhism is to get rid of, to be free from.

60
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So the answer in all cases is don't put up with it.

61
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If you can't become a monk, at least start meditating.

62
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Do some serious meditation.

63
00:06:04,473 --> 00:06:06,876
Take time to do a meditation course if you can.

64
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If you really, really want to have answers to all your problems, take at least a meditation course.

65
00:06:15,466 --> 00:06:16,828
You know, hey, I'll be in Canada.

66
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I think a lot of people here are in America, so it's not that far.

67
00:06:21,875 --> 00:06:26,341
Let's see if we can actually run, wouldn't it be great if we could actually run courses in Canada?

68
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One day we'll have a place where we can do that.

69
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We'll see, maybe I can have people stay in my apartment.

70
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or something like that.

71
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You can come and pitch a tent, maybe.

72
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It looks like a really nice, natural area.

73
00:06:40,824 --> 00:06:41,224
There's one.

74
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Laurie said he would come and pitch a tent, and it looks like he'll be able to.

75
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I'll have to talk to the people supporting me, but they seem very kind, and they're very accommodating.

76
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So we'll see.