Balancing Desire

I recently shared that a dream of mine came true. I became a monk….for a weekend.

I joined a small group at a monastery in the mountains of New York and, nestled amongst the rolling snow-covered peaks, we shared mindful strategies to balance the desires in daily modern living.

See, we’re living in one of the most beautiful times in history. It’s a time where since you can learn anything with the click of a button, you can truly be anything you want to be. It’s a time of beautiful abundance, where, as more and more people rise above poverty, we can all have our basic needs met. When our basic needs are met, we can focus less on surviving and more on thriving. We can all activate our genius and live out the greatest version of ourselves. We can all live self-actualized.

But in this world of abundance, it’s also a time where we can go crazy buying so much stuff that we lose sight of our greater purpose in life.

I’ve desired experiencing the life of a monk for a long time. On summer break in college, I once sat cross-legged by a tree in the woods for an hour outside my mother’s suburban home. I had just read how Siddhartha sat by the trunk of a tree for forty days and so I wanted to see what that was like. I lasted an hour, not nearly the forty days as planned, but still learned quite a bit. This dot in my life continues to forge my present spiritual path.

As I sat in stillness, I experienced what some may call oneness.I felt invisible in my connection to nature around me. Miraculously, a deer came within ten feet and ate the grass nearby as a fly paced back and forth on my arm. Outside, I remained still. Inside, my voice screamed with child-like excitement: “There’s a deer just feet away from you and it doesn’t even notice you! How beautiful is this!!!” I’ve had similar transcendental  meditative experiences like that throughout my life (ask me another time about the crabs on the lava rock in Hawaii) and each time I walk away desiring the life of a monk. Now, granted, these thoughts last for all of five minutes, but they are profound nonetheless. I dreamed of spending days on end tuning inward to my consciousness and tuning outward to nature at the same time, pondering the delicious gigantic existential questions that we all at some point in our lives try to answer.

I never entered monkhood because a.) it felt too selfish to me to avoid my responsibilities b.) I’ve never been good at being told what to do and monasteries are surprisingly rigid and c.) I find meaning in life through experiencing the world's palate. I thirst for travel and hunger for human interaction and I enjoy sensual pleasures that heighten the human experience whether that’s a hike through nature or the feel of drag racing a hot-rod.

At the monastery, I pondered something that’s been hard for me to figure out my entire life. I’ve always found it difficult to balance desire with non-attachment in a world where we have so much beauty to experience.

Some say the only way to practice non-attachment is to own nothing at all, much like the nude Jains in India or the communal living of modern-day priests.

No Objects Owned + Eating Simple Foods like Rice and Drinking Water = Bliss Via Non-Attachment

Other schools of thought make it seem that the only way to practice non-attachment is to not let your possessions own you, as in it’s okay to have possessions but don’t let the possessions own you.

Possessions + Mindful Ownership + Ability to Let Go of Attachments = Bliss Via Non-Attachment

I subscribe to one or the other depending on what time of the day it is.

I once lived off of macaroni and cheese for a whole year and now eat clean green organic foods and micro-roasted coffee. I’m attached to the organic foods I continue to desire and cannot fathom going back to gas station coffee.

I once rented a fancy BMW when in San Francisco and drove to Big Sur with the sunroof open in awe of the majesty of Big Sur and the incredible cornering ability of the BMW. I continue to drive an old used Honda Civic because it does the job of a car without the weight of debt, but I’d be lying to you if I said I don’t think of that BMW every so often. But now that admiration for the BMW has been replaced with a small obsession with Tesla, but I digress.

I once spent years living out of tiny apartments or rooms the size of a closet. For many years, I could easily fit everything I owned into my car. Now, my two-bedroom apartment is full of my wife’s gorgeous gemstones and we have the space to spread out. The only way I’m moving back to a smaller place is if it’s on the shores of San Diego and the beach is my backyard.

—

As I continue throughout my day and go through my many things, I’ll separate them into two corners. One corner will possess the few things I actually need to help me walk down my path on purpose. The other corner will house the many things that don’t. But rest assured knowing that my coffee will be in the first corner.

What about you? As you experience the beautiful majesty that is all around us, how do you balance what you desire with that which you need to walk down your path on purpose?

Well, thank you so much for joining me here today and like always, I want to hear from you. Your stories are the fuel for my life’s work. Send me your note at [email protected].