AS HUMAN BEINGS, we are preoccupied with passion, desire, clinging. In fact, the human realm is known in Buddhism as “the realm of passion.”
Buddhist psychology includes extensive discussions of the emotions and their impact on our lives. We experience the world not just through our body and mind, but also through our emotions. Being a central emotion, passion colors all that we do and everything in our world. Since the experience of passion is so prominent in human life, we need to figure out how to work with it.
Passion ranges from simple attraction to obsessive desire. Underlying it is an ongoing feeling of lack or incompleteness that leads to a desperate need to fill an inner emptiness. We’re consumed by unfulfilled desire and live with a continual undertone of restlessness, loneliness, and longing. We never really feel complete, so we keep looking for something or someone to make us feel better. We look for entertainment, for new or exciting experiences to keep us occupied. We’re always looking for ways to make ourselves feel comfortable.
Amitabha Buddha represents the transmutation of passion or grasping into discriminating-awareness wisdom.
Desire has a pathetic and needy undertone, a clingy quality. We perk up at heart emojis and monitor our social media “likes.” We so long to be recognized, to be popular, to be beautiful and desirable, and we’re so easily crushed when we’re ignored or rejected. No matter what, we never seem to be pretty enough, popular enough, or in any way truly secure.
Passion is overwhelming.
