“Meditation gives you contentment.”
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Question from Malaysia: Can meditation reduce desires including desire to eat or desire for other sensual pleasure?
Than Ajahn: Yes, meditation can reduce desire but it’s a temporary reduction. It’s not a permanent reduction. As soon as you stop meditating, the desire will come back strong. If you want to reduce your desire, then you should do a lot of meditation. The more meditation you do, the more contentment you have.
Meditation gives you contentment. Your mind is not hungry for anything. So, you don’t have any desire to have anything. But when your mind is not content and not calm, your mind will have desire for things. Meditation is one way to decrease your desire.
However, you cannot get rid of your desire with meditation. You need insight. You need the wisdom that the Buddha has taught us. You should teach the mind to see that having desires are actually bad for you because sooner or later, it will make you unhappy. Because the things that you desire for are not permanent.
All things don’t remain the same all the time. Sooner or later, the things that make us happy will change. When they change, they could only make us unhappy. And we cannot control these changes. We cannot prevent them from changing. If we can see this, then we will not want to have any desire for anything.
Youtube: “Dhamma in English, Dec 18, 2018.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
Latest Dhamma talks on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
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