recognizing cravings as arisings (2:32)

We tend to assign a specialness to our personal desires and cravings, singling them out from the stream of arisings - thoughts, perceptions, imaginings, etc. - and fixating on them, as though we owe them special consideration, or as though doing so is a service to ourselves. The Buddha taught that suffering is desire. In this video I propose an approach to follow that teaching: equalizing desires with the other arisings, seeing the arising of our desire as no more or less deserving of our attention than the arising of a bird flying by, hearing a car horn honk, etc.

Easier said than done of course. One method is to empower awareness & recognition: create & sustain a broad field of awareness (e.g. through meditative practice), and then within that field, to recognize the arising of desires, recognize the flurries of mental and physical activity that surround such arisings, and to gradually soften our attachments to them, so that they can arise, be, and pass away naturally in the flow of awareness, rather than looping and lingering and burrowing in our minds.

https://youtu.be/JVRXfGydWMU