Agony and Ecstasy

18
of the action of sense-satisfaction. While analysing the mind and
its factors, there will be some mental satisfaction. That, too, of
course, is a reaction which can be experienced and understood as
regards aim and purpose. If the purpose of analysing and knowing
the nature of desire for satisfaction is to overcome this desire, then
there is merely a substitution of one kind of desire with another kind.
The subsequent desire may be more refined, but that makes it all
the more difficult to recognise it. In this search for knowledge with
the purpose to overcome the blemish of desire, there is still a search
for satisfaction which has the removal of the hindrance of desire for
its aim. And so, a search is its own frustration. The desire to get rid
of desire is an obvious delusion and can never lead to understanding.
A desire to overcome a hindrance is a condemnation thereof, even
without understanding. The long list of 77 descriptive terms has
certainly provided much knowledge, but not a decrease of desire.
It may even have increased the list by another type of desire, the
delusion of desire as something to be got rid of by means of desire.
It is clear that knowledge has not produced understanding.
Lust (kāma) has been named as an urge (chanda). Where does
this urge come from? Physically, it is a mechanical function of the
animal nature in response to a periodical call. It is nature’s way
of evolution and propagation in its struggle for survival through renewal.
Just as the taste of food provides the stimulus not only to
eat but also to grow food and prepare it, so the sexual pleasures associated
with the act of copulation act as a stimulus thereto. Such
stimulus, however, is far from creative, and is frequently the end and
the purpose of the sexual act. The pleasure is the purpose, and its
repetition ensures some sort of continuation. But that would be the
continuation of the ‘self’ and not of the species as intended by nature
in its endeavour for continuation through renewal. The search
for pleasure, which is the desire for satisfaction (kāmacchanda), is
always repetitive; and in that search the act becomes mechanical,
functional and meaningless in itself. In the search for pleasure there