[Buddha-l] Hope

[Jackhat1 at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/23/2010 7:59:40 A.M. Central Daylight Time,  
joy.vriens at gmail.com writes:
 
Hi Jack,


> I meant mind moment when I say moment. The  actual "outside" moment is
> different time-wise from the "inner" mind  moment. I'm not sure what you 
mean by
> "Being mindful of the present  moment is in fact being mindful full stop."
> ==============

I am  a bit uneasy about using the moment or mind moment of a Buddhist
analytical  context, because it tends to overschematize the present
moment as an  indivisible moment that lasts only a small part of a
finger snap. I prefer  Bergson's explanation of duration to tackle what
being mindful of the  present moment is. As I see it from a practical
point of view, it's not  literally being mindfull of each succeeding
present (indivisible)  moment.
==
Hi Joy,
 
 I've read Bergson but haven't come across his explanation of  duration. I 
will look it up. You are right. I don't think it is "literally  being 
mindful of each succeeding present (indivisible) moment". My take is  that it is 
saying if we could stop time, here is what it would look  like. It is an 
artificial construct placed over the quicksand of reality. But,  useful to me.

> ====
Jack> As I said, there is a difference  between tanha (desire) and chanda
> (intention).

Desire is too  large and general.
"The origin of Tanha (craving, unwholesome desire, wish,  thirst),
extends beyond the desire for material objects or sense pleasures.  It
also includes the desire for life (or death, in the case of  someone
wishing to commit suicide), the desire for fame (or infamy,  its
opposite), the desire for sleep, the desire for mental or  emotional
states (e.g., happiness, joy, rapture, love) if they are not  present
and one would like them to be. If we experience, say depression  or
sorrow, we can desire its opposite. The origin of Tanha  is
far-reaching and covers all craving, irrespective of its  intensity."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%E1%B9%87h%C4%81

Unwholesome  desire is probably a useful addition in order to not lose
the context.  Tanha includes the desire for life or death. Does it
include the desire for  moksa or nirvana? Depending on how one sees
life, death and nirvana, it's  not impossible that for some views of
nirvana there may be an overlap  between death and nirvana. In which
case the desire for nirvana could be  unwholesome. E.g. someone who
sees nirvana as oblivion, sheer nothingness  and death as well. Or for
Mahayana Buddhists.
====
I don't know enough Pali to be have been able to read the use of tanha  in 
context of the teachings. I would be curious to see if it is ever used  
positively, i.e., as wholesome. I understand it to be always used in an  
unwholesome sense. Desire for liberation implies to me an  unwholesome grasping 
that degrades our thinking. An example is  a person I talked to that was very 
unhappy while measuring his progress along  the path with the ideal of 
complete liberation.
====
Joy:na very much as on a par with Pascal's  concupiscence.

As for intention (chanda), wikipedia, which I merely use  for practical
reasons here, gives the following definition:
"In Pali  texts, Chanda is a sincere wish, wholesome desire or zeal – a
mental factor  that does not involve unwholesome greed lobha, Kama, and
Tanha  ."

It's purely on definition level that the two mental factors  are
differentiated, tanha being unwholesome, and chanda  wholesome.What
these definitions seem to say is that if the desired good  is
wholesome, the desire is wholesome (chanda) and if the desired good  is
unwholesome the desire is unwholesome (tanha).

But logically  there is a deeper level on which desire is simply
desire. When it finds an  object, then the intention is the motivation
to act on that desire. I can't  see how intention can be
separated/isolated from the desire that initiates  it. Even for
sitting, I don't see the intention or resolution to sit, chant  etc. as
separated from the desire that motivates those actions. I do see  that
somehow systematically following a procedure is to link one's  desire
and intention to it in such a way that one's desire and  intention
could be hidden by the procedure. But they are still active or  hiding
in the adhesion to the procedure.
=====
For me, tanha is wishing reality as it is at that moment to be  different, 
wishing that which we cannot change to be different. Chanda is  accepting 
reality at that moment. The intention in that sense is  different.


jack