[Buddha-l] Desire

[curt]

Ngawang Dorje wrote:
>
> But, I have been wondering that if Arahant or the Buddha do not have 
> any desire, wouldn't they be just sitting there doing nothing? This is 
> because they do not have any
> desire to eat, move, teach, stand up or to do anything at all.
>  
>
Here is something along the lines of what Prof. Hayes (and others) have 
already said, but from a different vantage point (that of the Bhagavad 
Gita, or at least one interpretation of it):

"You are shrinking from the results of your works, you desire other 
results and turn from your right path in this life because it does not 
lead you to them. But this idea of works and their result, desire of 
result as the motive, the work as a means for the satisfaction of 
desire, is the bondage of the ignorant who know not what works are, nor 
their true source, nor their real operation, nor their high utility. My 
Yoga, says the divine Teacher [Krishna] to Arjuna, will free you from 
all bondage of the soul to it's works."

Sri Aurobindo "Bhagavad Gita and It's Message", footnote to chapter II 
line 39.

A little later on the Gita itself says (same chapter - lines 47 and 49):

"Thou hast the right to action, but only to action, never to its fruit; 
let not the fruits of thy works be thy motive, neither let there be any 
attachment to inactivity..... Poor and wretched souls are they who make 
the fruit of their works the object of their thoughts and activities."

In the movie "Darshan" (which is wonderful) these two lines from the 
Bhagavadi Gita feature rather prominently in it - or at least they 
jumped right out at me.

- Curt

P.S. On the movie "Darshan": 
http://www.amritapuri.org/children/interview/kounen.php and also: 
http://www.jankounen.com/