I'm not well-versed in buddhist writings yet but I think that desire and attachment get short shrift in western interpretations of it precisely because of our addiction to dichotomous "all-or-nothing" thinking, which I'm fairly certain buddhism is trying to dismantle entirely. it seems to me that what buddhism wants to do away with is the acquisitive ego, the part of us that says "mine mine mine mine mine," but it isn't that clear to me that every kind of desire and attachment must go out the window with it.

see I think there is a way to enjoy sensory experience and desire without making the mistake of thinking that you own any of it. the psychoanalytic model of desire is way to parsimonious for me; I don't think it has anything to do with trying to make up for some lack in the self. I think there is a way to think desire within the limits of buddhism and other self-deconstructive discourses.

but I'm a heretic no matter where I go. we've discussed this before I think.

I think it depends upon where that desire leads. if you think you are desiring that which will finally complete yourself and let you live to the fullest, then yeah you are a romantic westerner. if on the other hand you just want to experience everything that you possibly can, then I don't think you are normatively western except insofar as hedonism is a western phenomenon.

oh who knows. I don't think there is anything wrong with enjoying desire as long as no one gets hurt. that was my mistake.

I'd say that if you are 100% sure you are never going to get that final object of desire then you are way ahead of most westerners. in fact you are well on the way to becoming truly postmodern to the extent that what you enjoy is the desire and the longing, rather than its fulfillment and end.

see I think I prefer your position to that of complete detachment, so long as I don't hold any illusions as to whether I'm going to get what I'm looking for. I'm very interested in the search itself much like I prefer driving to reaching my destination.

no I think you are right, and I am not sure that it is zen itself that emphasizes letting go of all desire or if it is western interpretations of it that read it that way. see my reply to daisy, above. I think a buddhist desire would be the kind of nietzschean desire that gives rather than takes, and out of a fullness of feeling rather than because of some lack.

I need to read more primary buddhist texts instead of these western interpretations of them. we have a very difficult time articulating non-duality especially when we are trying to square buddhism with our own traditions. I think maybe the western appropriation of buddhism gets a number of things quite simply wrong.

but what do I know.

interesting. well mostly I'm reading about zen itself, and all the primary texts I have so far are zen texts. I might work my way backwards from there, but I've never seen a religious system with so much damned literature! judaism isn't even as prolix.

so far I've listened to a d.t. suzuki text that sounded exactly to me like it was trying to make up for what it perceived as failed attempts to articulate non-duality, and I've read a number of western interpretations of zen that, if the suzuki is accurate, are still caught in western metaphysics to the detriment of being able to conceive of a oneness that is not a totality of sameness but a kind of consistent fabric of non-identical yet non-self-sufficient singularities. the appeal of buddhism for many postmodern thinkers consists in this, I think.

I've read a couple of shunryu suzuki texts and about half of a dogen text as well. it is not always clear to me just what they are saying about desire and attachment but it does seem like they are all addressing a paradox of the unity of non-identical and non-self-identical beings.

personally I've never bought the simplistic version of buddhism that reads that desire is the cause of all suffering and that eliminating suffering requires eliminating desire. I think it is much more complex than that and that one has to think of different models of desire and different models of beings between which desire passes. not to mention the question of whether one's goal should be to reduce one's own suffering or the suffering of others.