Contemplative Christianity, Desire, and Addiction - Mind & Life Institute

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Dialogue 27|Session 10

Overview

Based on texts from 12th-century Beguines (contemplative laywomen) and 4th through 7th-century desert ascetics (early monastics), Farley offers an early Christian interpretation of desire and craving. Contemplative Christianity recognizes healthy and diseased forms of desire. In its unhealthy form, desire becomes a kind of craving, somewhat cognate to addiction. The ego, tormented by anxiety and craving, encounters the world as a (meretricious) promise of relief and happiness. Strategies to use the world to satisfy desire objectify others and tend toward self-destructive forms of relief. Negative mental habits (anger, vainglory, anxiety, lust) take root in the mind, not as passing emotions but as enslaving constituent structures, often hidden from consciousness. In contrast, healthy desire displaces both the object and structure of craving. Desire is no longer oriented toward ego centric satisfactions but turns toward absolute, unconditional love [agape]. Agape is simultaneously other than the self (God) and the deepest truth of the non egocentric “self.” Non-egocentric desire for agape disenchants the ego and opens awareness to the nondiscursive dimension of mind. This opening places mind on its “throne of peace” (non-attachment) and reorients to others as subjects of sympathetic joy and compassionate concern. Desire to participate in agape is a powerful antidote to craving. Healing of diseased desire is sought through watching the mind, meditation, contemplation, and compassionate practices. Remembering the luminous love that is one’s deeper identity counters the addict’s self-loathing, contributing to recovery.

Dialogue 27
11 sessions
October 31, 2013
Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India
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Speakers

Tenzin Gyatso, the14th Dalai Lama, is the leader of Tibetan Buddhism and a spiritual leader revered worldwide. He was born on July 6, 1935, in a small village called Taktser in northeastern Tibet. Born to a peasant family, he was recognized at the age of two, in accordance with Tibetan tradition, as the reincarnation of his predecessor, the 13th Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lamas are manifestations of the Buddha of Compassion, who choose to reincarnate for the purpose of serving human beings. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1989, he is universally respected as a spokesman for the compassionate and peaceful resolution of human conflict. He has traveled extensively, speaking on subjects including universal responsibility, love, compassion and kindness. Less well known is his intense personal interest in the sciences; he has said that if he were not a monk, he would have liked to be an engineer. As a youth in Lhasa it was he who was called on to fix broken machinery in the Potala Palace, be it a clock or a car. He has a vigorous interest in learning the newest developments in science, and brings to bear both a voice for the humanistic implications of the findings, and a high degree of intuitive methodological sophistication.

Dalai Lama Website dialogues

Wendy Farley, PhD, is a professor in the depart- ment of religion at Emory University. Her teaching and research interests include women theologians, religious dialogue, classical texts, contemporary ethical issues, and contemplative practices. Her books consider the problem of evil by focusing on su!ering rather than sin, and abandoning the forensic model of God in favor of one that emphasizes compassion as a dominant metaphor for the divine. Her other works take up the relationships between ethical and philosophical issues in religion, and draw attention to contemplative practices, folk traditions, and inter-religious dialogue to reflect on su!ering and transformation. Her research interests also address the meaning of Christian faith and tradition for women, queers, and others that the church has had di"culty recognizing as part of its community.

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