Enough-ing and Stephen & Ondrea Levine

Here's something that I thought might be of interest. It's from from
Stephen Levine's book "A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It
Were Your Last." Stephen worked with hospice patients for many years
and wrote a number of excellent books from the Buddhist perspective,
including "Who Dies?" and "Turning Toward The Mystery." "Turning"
has become one of my all-time favorite books since I discovered it last
October.
I never have met Stephen and his wife Ondrea, although they taught
meditation in the Bay Area for many years. These days I gather they're
living in seclusion, and I recently heard that Ondrea's cancer has
returned and Stephen's not in the best of health himself. Many of the
thousands of people they've helped over the years are rallying to their
assistance.
I learned about their situation here.

In the chapter about how so many in hospice lament about how they
feel their lives have been a failure, there was this (slightedly edited)
quote:
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One fellow with cancer spoke how... right on the other side of his
feelings of 'not-enoughness' was a remarkable insight: he saw the
value of not being able to satisfy his desires. It caused him to discover,
like the Buddha, the cause of all his suffering. It was not only the
impossibility of satisfying every desire, much less keeping it that
way; it was not because of not getting this or that or losing it the next day.

The cause of suffering was desire itself.

He saw that it was not in the attained object of desire that satisfaction resided, but in the absence of desire. He mentioned that when he received something he wanted, he noticed a momentary spiking of pleasure and the experience we call 'satisfaction.' But to his surprise, the satisfaction did not come from the 'having that something,' but because the light of his innate nature was for a moment no longer obstructed by a mind full of desire.

HERE'S THE SENTENCE MOST INTERESTING TO ME:
It was the absence of desire that offered that feeling of satisfaction, of
temporary completeness, not the getting of the thing desired.

The very nature of desire is one of dissatisfaction with any moment in
which the object of desire is not present. Desire lives more in the future than in the present. It has a quality of longing rather than being. He saw that the mind was doomed to feel something of a failure if it did not comprehend that it is unfulfilled desire itself which, like a hungry ghost, always calls out for more.

This recognition of the painful nature of desire did not make him
desireless, but allowed him to treat desire with new respect. He said
that he did not even care if his 'lotus ever bloomed' (metaphor used
earlier for enlightenment) now that he had found it. This reminded me that
one of my teachers used to say, once you have turned towards the
light, it doesn't really matter how far away it seems as long as you
keep your eye on it.
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Ramon:
Okay, so at first glance the phrase "The cause of suffering is desire itself"
may not seem a new thought. But put in the context above it aquired for
me a real depth. Looking at the context again:

The momentary desirelessness triggered by receiving the object of desire and not the actual object received was the source of his feeling of fulfillment.
Which of course turned me towards cultivating desirelessness directly ("I am enough, I have enough, I have experienced enough, I have done enough, I have lived enough, etc.) which I now call 'Enough-ing." In other words, the momentary desirelessness triggered by receiving the object of desire and not the object received was the source of his feeling of fulfillment. Which of course turned me towards cultivating desirelessness directly ("I am enough, I have enough, I have experienced enough, I have done enough, I have lived enough, etc.) which I now call 'Enough-ing."

Of course Enough-ing is also the antidote for that most common
illness in our First World consumer culture called "Affluenza." There's a
documentary of that title, along with its sequel "Escape from
Affluenza," which we've shown on our Monday night series.

Wishing you and all beings ENOUGH already!