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Is there a balance to be struck between worldly pursuits and letting go for a layman?

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Should any kind of ambitions, career goals, preferred professions be allowed?

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If any desire is considered false, what of the desire for nirvana?

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There's another question on the moderator site, our Google moderator site.

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that says, it's even better than this one.

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It's kind of a unique formulation, although I've heard the question many years ago.

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The question is, I've started to practice something like, I've started to practice meditation and I can feel myself losing my sexual desire.

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And I'm afraid that I'm not going to be able to perform.

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I'm afraid if I lose my lust I won't be able to be with my wife anymore.

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And how can I balance my practice but still... Basically, how can I not accidentally... How can I be sure I'm not going to accidentally lose something that's precious to me, that's important to me?

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It's not the same question as this one, but it's along the same lines.

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But you're talking about two opposite things in one sense.

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So I guess this is where the concern arises because clearly any even superficial reading of the Buddha's teachings shows us that Buddhism considers any craving, any clinging, any ambition

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whatsoever, any desire basically, to be unwholesome.

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Depending what you mean on the word desire, and we get into big arguments about this.

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I got into an argument some time back with people who tried to say that desire can be beneficial.

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So it's a matter of semantics, what exactly you mean by the word desire.

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But worldly pursuits definitely, there's quite a clear implication in the Buddha's teaching that worldly pursuits are antithetical to progress towards enlightenment.

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So how do you strike a balance?

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It's like striking a balance between drinking alcohol and sobriety.

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They're opposites.

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It's one or the other.

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If you want to do them both then it's a tug of war.

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You're being pulled in both directions and you have to understand that.

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That's the first part of the answer.

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The second part

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is to understand that it doesn't, in reality, it doesn't work that way.

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There isn't a choice being made.

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Like, I'm going to practice this much or I'm going to hold on to these things, I'm going to let go of those.

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So you could accidentally make the wrong choice and whoops, you've let go of something and that's a real shame because you still like it.

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It can't happen because as long as you don't

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Because what people don't realize is how profound and complete insight into reality is.

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It really is insight.

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It really is understanding.

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It's not a book.

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We think of it like our only example, only comparison is book learning.

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And so we think it's something like you look up in a book and you get it.

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You say, oh yeah, I agree with Socrates or Kant or

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or Schopenhauer.

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I agree with these guys.

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And therefore, I know it.

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That's my understanding.

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I understand this theory of reality or this philosophy.

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It's not like that.

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The understanding that you gain from meditation is real understanding of the truth.

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So, it's not something to worry about.

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It's only going to come if it really and truly is 100% for benefit, for good, for...

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It is only 100% a positive thing.

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So this fear of, this irrational fear people have of nirvana.

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You hear about nirvana, you think, whoa, that sounds scary.

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I mean, leaving the world behind, that sounds like, I have to be careful I don't fall into that, right?

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Nirvana is based on a perfect realization of the truth.

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That's all you have to know.

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If you can meet anyone who says they want to delude themselves, or if you ask someone whether they want to delude themselves into thinking that that which is unpleasant is actually pleasant, no one in their right mind, I think, would answer yes.

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That something that is hurting you, would you rather carry the belief that it is causing you, bringing you happiness?

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Or would you like to know that it's hurting you when it is in fact hurting you?

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That's really the question we have to be asking because the truth that you're going to see is that those things which you think are bringing you pleasure, bringing you happiness, are actually hurting you, are actually a cause without question, without doubt, without any qualifier, are bringing you unqualified suffering.

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That is what we mean here.

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So, where I heard this question was, I heard it in Thai, this Lumpa Chodok, this monk in Bangkok, one of the big Vipassana meditation teachers, about 50,

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30, 40 years ago.

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He had a Western person, I think it was a Western person come up to him and say to him, you know, I'm really afraid, I feel myself letting go and I really love my girlfriend so I'm afraid that I'm going to let go of something and I don't want to let go of my love for her.

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And it's not something you have... His answer was, you know, don't worry about it.

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There's lots of defilements left.

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You don't have to worry about them all disappearing.

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And his point was that it's really not that easy.

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You don't just one day wake up and have no... or one day...

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come out of a meditation session and suddenly, whoops, you've got no more desires left.

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It's really a painful, arduous process of realization that forces you to rethink or see things in a new way.

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Well, see things in a new way, see things differently.

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So definitely not something you have to worry about.

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Now, it's actually not exactly what you're... it's not answering everything that you're asking here.

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So let's be more concise and to the point based on what we've just talked about.

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So the balance I've talked about, it's not really a balance, it's a tug of war.

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You have to understand.

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But that being said, I think the concise answer is to continue what you're doing.

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And until you understand or have some reason to believe that these things are causing you suffering, then don't worry so much about them.

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Focus more on self

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investigation of reality than on condemning or denouncing certain activities.

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So, all in due time.

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Once you see that those activities are causing you suffering, then it is proper to abandon them.

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To abandon them first,

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It works in certain instances, but in the deeper ones it will not, in the long run it will come and hit you, it will come back to you.

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because you're ignoring or you're smoothing over the fact, overlooking the fact that you don't really see those things as harmful.

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So if you just say, I'm going to give up all sensuality,

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And so you just stop it and try to live your life like that, without really truly understanding that it's wrong for you.

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This is the wrong way to go about things.

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What you should do is put everything aside, put aside your worldly pursuits and investigate them.

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You can't just put them aside and try to live your life without the proper investigation.

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That's what I'm saying.

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So, this is why the Buddha allowed all these things, because he encouraged people to, lay people anyway, into self-exploration.

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Now if you want to take up the sort of self-exploration that would allow you to give these things up, then

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you give them all up but at the same time practice the type of intense meditation intensive meditation that will allow you to see that they're wrong simply for example becoming a monk and not practicing meditation but giving up all sensuality and living your life as a perfect example of Buddhist morality no worldly pursuits no sensual indulgences

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So maybe you can live in a cave, not speak, just seclude yourself from reality, but without actually investigating the problem to give up the attachment will in the end do nothing for you and will come back and bite you in the butt and you'll find that whenever you go back into society, the desires and the aversions are still there in full force.

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And so this is why you find, as we were talking about before, you find many monastics who actually aren't able to give up sensuality.

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They find themselves indulging in it and having big widescreen televisions and so on, listening to music, etc.

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Because they...

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They are living life, but they're walking the walk.

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No, I don't know.

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The external form is good, but their minds are not actually at the point where they can give up the desires and the attachments.

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That sort of addresses the second question.

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It's not worry too much about your ambitions, except to ask yourself the question that a Buddhist should, are you sure that they're actually of benefit to you?

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And once you have some sense that they're not, to the extent that you have a sense that they're not beneficial to you, to that extent you should give them up.

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But not to just believe the Buddha blindly and say, okay, well, I'm going to give that up, not because I have any sense whatsoever that it's wrong for me, but because my teacher said that I should.

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That's not really helpful.

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Not in the long term.

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In the short term it can be helpful.

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In the short term it works, but unless you then apply meditation that allows you to see it for yourself, in the end it's going to come right back and maybe even be stronger because you've just been repressing it.

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Okay, final question.

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Desire for nirvana, which again comes down to semantics.

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I would say desire for nirvana could be a very bad thing because it's escapism.

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Not a very bad thing, but it could be a problem.

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because it points to a desire to run away from things, desire for something not to be, which is some kind of partiality.

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You don't need desire to meditate.

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Meditation is about understanding reality.

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In the beginning, it can be useful, you see.

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Just like any of these things, you come to meditate and you're very passionate about meditation, so that leads you to meditate.

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But eventually you realize that that passion itself is getting in the way.

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So in the beginning it can be a good thing, only because it leads you to the meditation center and so on.

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But it leads you for the wrong reasons, with the wrong understanding, a desire to run away.

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eventually you realize, oh, you can't really, that doesn't really work, and your whole reason for coming to the meditation center, ironically, is a bad reason, or it's an unwholesome thing.

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You will see that, and you'll see that you have to give that up as well, to the point that you have no desires whatsoever.

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You're just able to see things clearly as they are.

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Really it's all about slowly, slowly giving up all desires.

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Once you have no desires, then you're happy, then you're satisfied.

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But again it's semantic because you could say, you could talk about a certain type of desire just meaning, referring to intention or the decision to do something that an arahant still seems to have but it's a functional decision.

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If there were any, for any reason, any reason for it not to, them not being able to follow through with their desires

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they wouldn't have any feeling either way.

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It would just be another realization that they can't, that they have to change their decision, make a new decision.

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So it's not really desire.

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All desire is, I was a