Buddhism: Managing Desires and Emotions

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BUDDHISM
System04122
2/1/2019

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Desire is sense of hoping for an object or a person. Every living being have desires. It is a
very natural emotion which human beings cannot control or is very difficult to control. Desires
such as to become successful, sexual desires, desire of hate and so on, desires are actually
thought to be very normal but according to Buddhism desires are not good as Buddhism feels
that desire is the root cause of suffering (Esposito, 2009). According to Buddha desires often
leads to attachments which is followed by loss and sufferings. There are certain ways in
Buddhism that can help in managing human desires. This essay is a study of how Buddhism is
practiced and how Buddhism helps in managing desires.
Desire is an emotion. Desire is something which can control one’s mind totally and can
destroy a Person’s life. To have a better understanding of how one can control desires through
Buddhism it is important to know what Buddhism is. Buddha is the founder of Buddhism.
Buddha also means “the Awakened one”. Buddhism is a path of spirituality and practice
development which leads to nature of reality. Buddhist practices such as meditation and the art of
person changing and developing the qualities of kindness, wisdom and awareness. Buddhism is a
tradition which has been there from thousands of years and has been an incomparable path for
the others who wish to follow. Buddhism does not include any god and thus it is not considered
normal by the people. Buddhism is practiced in a very practical and straightforward way.
Buddhism is something that all the people can practice irrespective of the race religion, cast,
sexuality or gender.
Buddhist believes that all the living beings have a right to live. Buddhist does not believe
in killing animals for food nor can they accept food that has been killed for them. Buddhist
monks are not allowed to ask for certain foods. They have to accept whatever is being given to
them. The reason for accepting what has been given allows the Buddhist accept charity and helps
in overcoming greed. This way Buddhist learns some motivating factors. Firstly the practice of
loving and kindness like accepting food from people teaches them to overcome ill- will and the
practice of wisdom helps in overcoming delusion (Stephenson, 2010; BBC, 2009)
Buddhist monks have a daily routine which everyone has to follow if practicing
Buddhism. The monks wake up at 4:00 am and start with meditating which lasts for an hour
followed by chanting. After this at 6:00 am the monks walk barefoot around the neighborhood
where local people offer them food. At 8:00 am they all return to the temple sit together and eat

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food and pray for world peace. After that before 12 noon the monks are allowed to have food
which is the last meal of the day until the sunrise. At 1:00pm they attend classes of Buddhist
teachings which is followed by a two hour meditation and prayer at 6:00pm. At last the monks
retire to do homework at 8:00pm. Also all the people who have to follow Buddhism need to
follow certain code of conduct, which includes relation with the opposite sex. Women are not
allowed to touch monk. Monk usually ear various colors of robe like brown and saffron as such
there are no rules for what they wear.
Buddhism has a lot of branches which are: Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism,
Pure Land Buddhism, Nichiren Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Thai Forest Tradition and Vajrayana
Buddhism. There are some core believes of Buddhism which are: Buddhism believes that
human existence is a suffering, craving is the reason for suffering and when craving ends
suffering end too and that there is a path to follow to end suffering (Stallings & Berry, 2011).
Jealousy and envy are similar kind of emotions which spoils relationships with people.
Jealousy is when a person possesses something that he/ she believe or thinks belongs to them. It
often comes out in the form of insecurity, sense of betrayal and possessiveness. According to
psychology jealousy is a natural emotion but can be destructive if gets out of control (Lederman,
& Bjaaland, 2009). Envy is something which you feel when somebody is better than you or is
more successful then you. The main reason behind envy is either lack of confidence or due to
inferiority complex. Well envy is something which can be linked to greed and desire (Schmidt,
2009). The first step to recover from jealousy and envy is the practice of Mindfulness and Metta.
Mindfulness is a full body and mind awareness (Trevor, 2000). There are two steps of
mindfulness, mindfulness of body and mindfulness of feelings which pay full attention to the
emotional sensations in body. Buddhism says that when a person goes through such feelings like
envy and jealousy they should take full ownership of it. This kind of self-recognition habits helps
to release jealousy and envy (News18, 2015).
Metta is a practice of loving kindness, to practice Buddhism one should practice kindness
and love for his/ her own self. Deep inside a person can have a feeling of jealousy or insecurity
but Metta helps a person to learn to forgiveness and kindness. Metta builds self-trust and
confidence in people. After a certain point of time a person is able to practice Metta more easily
and people are able to teach other people too even to the one they envy (Avramides, 2018)