Wanting from Fullness

Dear Rosies,

There is a way of wanting that feels open and spacious, desire that leads with curiosity, pleasure, even delight. And there is another kind of wanting that feels tight and graspy, like you will finally be able to relax once you have the thing you are reaching for.

You can feel the difference in your own body.

Think of something you want. A goal. A person. A change you hope to make. Then, for a moment, forget about the thing itself and notice the quality of the wanting.

Does it feel expansive? Or does it feel like pressure?

Desirelessness can be Freedom or Apathy

Many wisdom traditions across the ages have treated desire itself as the problem. They reasoned: if wanting creates suffering, then perhaps the answer is to want less. The Stoics called this freedom from being ruled by your desires. Buddhist and yogic traditions explored similar territory through practices of releasing attachment. I have found that there is SOME freedom here, in the sense that learning not to be controlled by every impulse can create a more centered life.

Yet it has a certain apathy to it.

Do we actually become people who need less because we are at peace, or because we have learned to shut down what we want?

Desire as Life's Expression

Classical tantra traditions offer a different possibility, that desire is one of the ways life moves through us. The same creative force that brings the world into being also moves as longing, curiosity, attraction, and imagination.

So the inquiry on desire moves from "How do I stop wanting?" to "Where is the wanting coming from?"

Nothing Completes Me

The wanting that begins with the feeling that something is missing or that something outside us will finally make us whole, will complete us, even getting them only brings temporary relief. The mind quickly finds the next thing to fix, improve, or acquire. The new body, next achievement, perfect partner: sought with the expectation of peace that never comes.

This is one reason so much of modern wellness can become exhausting. Beneath many promises of optimization is the quiet message that you are not quite enough yet. There is always another protocol, another deficiency to address, another version of yourself waiting to be created. 

Tantra offers another starting point: fullness. Fullness as in the recognition that your deepest worth is not waiting for something outside you to arrive.

From that place, desire becomes cleaner. You can still want the meal, the trip, the strong body, the relationship, the finished book. But you're no longer asking any of those things to rescue you from yourself. You do them because you genuinely want them as an intrinsic good.

The tantrics had a word for the feeling of wonder that arises when we meet life this way: camatkāra (cha-mot-ka-ra) —the sudden recognition of beauty, the spontaneous "oh" that happens before the mind begins evaluating. This is what desire feels like when it is no longer trying to fill a hole.

When Desire is Shut Down

And if disappointment has taught you to stop wanting, be gentle with that. The layers we build to protect ourselves can soften, and beneath them the spark of desire is still alive.

So allow yourself to desire fully, it has energy and life force. Want with your whole heart. So much power is there. So much love.

The possibility of disappointment is lighter than the slow dimming that comes from refusing to be moved by anything at all. The risk of wanting is far less costly than living without the sparkle.

To your most enjoyable embodiment,