Eliminating dukkha is the goal of every action we take. From working, to eating to changing the position of our body. These actions are taken because we experience dukkha, find it unbearable and try to effect a change away from it.

That is why we want to eat because we want to live. That is why we want to work. It is because we want to eat because we want live. If we eliminate the first want, then all those other wants that follow would also be eliminated.

Should the want to live be answered with not-wanting?

You say that ‘if that wanting or craving did not arise, it would be because the mind was satisfied with the hunger existing rather than craving “I need food!”’

Being satisfied with the hunger existing doesn’t eliminate the necessity of going through the act of eating. Eliminating craving doesn’t eliminate the physical act of eating. Eliminating craving doesn’t eliminate the physical act of attaining food (i.e. working in a cubicle in exchange for money which is exchanged for food). We still have to act.

Dukkha exists in the mind. However, the acts of living require external physical effort. Does dukkha reduce that physical effort in anyway? Eliminating desire doesn’t reduce the amount of work that goes into living. Agriculture did. Being sick and responding to the desire to be well with not-craving doesn’t shorten the physical process of recovery. Modern medicine does.

Does eliminating dukkha reduce the physical labor (the number of calories needed) for the acts of living?

It is not easy to discuss on the extinguishing of craving, because we don’t know life, except for life immersed in craving. So you can’t really say it’s like….such and such because it isn’t like anything we’ve experienced.

I could argue that extinguishing dukkha does eliminate the necessity of eating or toiling at a cubicle day in and out, but it probably would not sound very appealing because we are attached to the things that money buys and seek the gratification it brings, and we don’t know what it feels like to not want all these things. Wanting is like an itch that needs to be scratched. Scratching the itch is like satisfying the want. we are familiar with these. Accepting and acknowledging the itch without craving the satisfaction of scratching the itch, is something we are not familiar with and can’t easily relate to, but that is the end of craving, to accept the itch the way it is. We are used to craving, and scratching, not with not-craving.

When you don’t eat you feel hunger. For the arahant, that hunger does not create craving which is something that is not easy for worldly beings to relate to, because hunger naturally creates a reaction in the mind that tries to satisfy that hunger. But if that wanting or craving did not arise, it would be because the mind was satisfied with the hunger existing rather than craving “I need food!”

The answer to whether ending craving makes getting up and going to work every day any easier, is yes. We get up and go to work because of wanting/craving. Ending of craving means being content with what is rather than wanting what isn’t. The only reason worldly beings try to do anything, is because we are not satisfied with what is, and we want a certain change in the current situation.

Satisfying desire is different from eliminating dukkha (which is the same as getting enlightened). We can say that beings with cravings have something left undone, something that still needs to be done, and will always have something left unfinished, because craving is a bottomless pit, no matter how many are satisfied, there will always be something unsatisfied. Beings that have eliminated cravings have nothing left to acheive, to them things are already fine as they are.

Satisfying desires is one level of happiness that we are familiar with, and you describe it as a journey. It provides temporary relief from the dukkha that we experience. The Buddha tells us there is something else that we haven’t yet experienced: the permanant extinguishing of wants, and it provides permanant contentment, instead of temporary relief from dissatisfaction.

A legitimate question is what causes an arahant to do anything at all if they have no desire? They are motivated through compassion to help other beings extinguish craving. In one sense you could call that a want, it isn’t a desire in the usual sense of the word, ie: we feel something, find it unbearable and thereby act to change it in a way we find more bearable. That is not what motivates arahants. But they do act in a way to try to help others end dukkha, if that is their goal. If it isn’t that’s also fine.

Being without dukkha, doesn’t make life easier. It doesn’t eliminate the necessity of eating or toiling at a field or an office cubicle to provide sustenance. Elimination of dukkha doesn’t give us agriculture. Elimination of dukkha doesn’t improve the quality of living. It only improves the quality of being.

The wanting of things does cause suffering. It causes insecurity. It causes doubts about self-worth and failure. However, it is in the pursuit of wants that a person finds happiness. Happiness is not the destination but the journey. Happiness doesn’t come from attaining our wants but in the process of achieving those wants. Without dukkha, there is no destination. Without destination, there is no journey, just aimless wandering through life.

Does the end of wanting and the elimination of craving make the getting up, taking a shower, going to work, eating, going to sleep and waking up to do it all over again day after day for all the years of our life any easier?

This is not a judgemental or subjective assertion and does not say you need to give up wanting if you don’t want to. It’s an objective statement: wanting/desire/craving leads to suffering.

Actually the Buddha said “life/the world is dukkha”. Dukkha is the quality of being unable to keep us satisfied, loosely translated as suffering. Why is the world dukkha? It is dukkha because we want/crave things which are subject to change and instability beyond our ability to control. Sometimes cravings are met, and we experience happiness for a while. Ultimately it changes and we experience dukkha.

It is correct that wanting led to the creation of vaccines and microchips, and that has led to an increase in quality of life for man. However vaccines and microchips do not lead to the complete extinguishing of dukkha. If you believe the Buddha, the complete extinguishing of wanting (the cause) leads to the complete extinguishing of dukkha.

I liked your angle… reading your posts feels like getting the advice of the older INFP brother I never had…

here are the thoughts of a canadian infp:
someday i feel completely satisfied of my doings, ideas are flowing well
the other i feel i have no dreams, no inspiration, no motivation

I work at home (lucky…or not?) in the computer business too, never been truly satisfied of the work done, computer stuff always has been some kind of irritant,.. project completion satisfaction are short..
afraid of changing, well mostly because i have NO idea what would passionate me as a job,…most of the time I feel drained. im that bird in a cage !!! cage is the body…. or the context maybe !

love traveling, but the Self is following and the sames feels come back after a while even in the most exotic place…so this aint’ the solution, nice hobby tho…

one of the hardest challenge is to truly express my infp inside world, most of the time, people they just don’t wanna know, look bored or can’t understand…
I know a forum would be a proper place for these writes ! so thanks for the inconvenience.