Chapter 5: Wanting More

Parcels at the Door

Kalinda is thirty-one and works as a dental hygienist. Most evenings, after a long day, she lies on the sofa with her phone and browses online shops. She does not need anything in particular. But there is always something: a new jacket, a better pair of headphones, a set of kitchen knives, a lamp that would make her living room look like the rooms in magazines. She adds things to her basket, hesitates, and then, with a small rush of pleasure, presses "buy".

When the parcels arrive, she feels a brief glow of excitement. She opens them, tries the jacket, plugs in the headphones, places the lamp in the corner. For an hour or a day, she is pleased. Then the pleasure fades, and the lamp is just a lamp. Within a week, she is browsing again, looking for the next thing. Her cupboards are full, and so is her credit card statement. She is not happier than she was a year ago. If anything, she feels a vague, restless dissatisfaction that she cannot name.

One evening, she sits among the empty cardboard boxes after unpacking yet another parcel and realizes that she cannot remember what was in the last three. She feels a strange mixture of embarrassment and sadness. "What am I actually looking for?" she asks herself. She does not know. But she knows that whatever it is, she has not found it in the parcels.

Kalinda's restlessness is not unusual. Many people, in many forms, know the feeling of wanting more: more things, more success, more attention, more pleasure, more security. The Buddha called this restless wanting taṇhā, thirst, and he placed it at the heart of his explanation of why we suffer. This chapter explores what he meant, and how we might find a kind of satisfaction that does not depend on always getting more.

The Thirst

In the first chapter, we met the second of the Four Noble Truths: that the main cause of suffering is craving, in Pali taṇhā, a word that literally means thirst. The image is apt. Thirst is not a calm wish. It is an urgent, restless need, a pull that will not leave us alone until it is satisfied, and that returns soon after it is.

In his first teaching, the Buddha described three kinds of this thirst. The first is thirst for pleasant experiences of the senses: tastes, sights, sounds, smells, touches and the pleasures they bring. The second is thirst for becoming: for existence, for being something, for continuing, for achieving, for having an identity and a future. The third is thirst for not becoming: for things to go away, for unpleasant experiences to end, for escape from what we do not want.

We can recognize all three in daily life. Kalinda's evening shopping is thirst for pleasant experiences, and perhaps also for becoming, for being the kind of person with a beautiful home. A person who chases promotion after promotion may be driven by thirst for becoming. A person who drinks heavily to escape painful feelings may be driven by thirst for not becoming. Often, the three are mixed together.

The Buddha's insight was not that wanting is evil, or that pleasure is bad. It was that this particular kind of restless, clinging thirst can never be fully satisfied. Each time we satisfy it, it returns, often stronger. And the effort of constantly chasing, holding and pushing away is itself tiring and painful. This is why he saw craving as the fuel of suffering.

It is worth noticing that craving often lives more in anticipation than in having. Many people find that the most exciting part of a purchase is the moment before buying, the waiting for the parcel, the imagining of how good life will be with the new thing. The having itself is often a little disappointing by comparison. Craving, in this sense, is a kind of promise that the future will finally satisfy us. And because the future never quite keeps that promise, craving keeps making new promises.

The Hungry Ghost

Many Buddhist traditions, especially in later art and storytelling, use a vivid image to describe the condition of endless craving. It is the image of a hungry ghost: a being with an enormous, swollen belly and a tiny mouth, or a neck as thin as a needle. The hungry ghost is always starving, always desperate for food, but can never swallow enough to be satisfied. Whatever it eats only makes it hungrier.

In traditional Buddhist teachings, hungry ghosts are described as one of the realms of existence. But many teachers have also used the image as a description of a state of mind that any of us can fall into. When we are caught in craving, we are like hungry ghosts. We consume and consume, but the hunger never goes away, because what we are consuming cannot fill the emptiness we feel.

The image is sad, but it is also illuminating. It suggests that the problem is not a lack of things to consume. Kalinda has plenty of parcels. The problem is the shape of the hunger itself. A hunger with a tiny mouth and an enormous belly cannot be satisfied by more food. It can only be eased by a change in the hunger.

Many people recognize hungry-ghost moments in their own lives: eating long after they are full, scrolling long after they are bored, buying long after they have enough, seeking praise that never feels like enough. In these moments, it can help to pause and ask: am I actually hungry for this? Or is this a hunger that no amount of this thing will fill?

The image also suggests something compassionate. A hungry ghost is not wicked. It is suffering. When we see someone, including ourselves, caught in endless wanting, the image invites not contempt but understanding. The person who cannot stop buying, eating, drinking or seeking approval is often in pain, trying to fill an emptiness with whatever is nearest. Seeing this with kindness is often the first step toward easing it.

A Bone With No Meat

In a discourse called the Potaliya Sutta, found in the Majjhima Nikāya at number 54, the Buddha uses several striking similes to describe the pleasures that we chase. One of them is especially memorable. Here it is in my own retelling.

Imagine, the Buddha says, a dog weak with hunger, waiting near a butcher's shop. The butcher throws the dog a bone that has been scraped clean of meat, with only a little blood on it. The dog gnaws and gnaws at the bone. Would that bone satisfy the dog's hunger? No, the listeners agree. The dog would only become tired and frustrated. In the same way, the Buddha suggests, the pleasures we chase out of craving can keep us busy and excited, but they do not truly satisfy us.

In the same discourse, he also compares such pleasures to a borrowed ornament, which looks fine for a while but must be returned, and to a dream, which is lovely while it lasts but vanishes on waking. The point of these images is not that pleasures are worthless. It is that, when we look at them honestly, they are brief, borrowed and unable to provide lasting satisfaction. If we build our happiness entirely on them, we will always be gnawing at bones.

This teaching can sound severe, and it was originally given in a context of monastic renunciation. But it contains a truth that many people recognize in ordinary life. The excitement of a new purchase, a new achievement or a new romance is real. But it fades. If we keep chasing that excitement, hoping that the next one will finally satisfy us, we may spend our lives gnawing at bones.

Why the Glow Fades

Modern psychology has studied a pattern that fits closely with the Buddha's observation. Researchers have found that people tend to get used to improvements in their circumstances surprisingly quickly. A new possession, a higher salary or a better home brings a rise in happiness, but over time, the rise usually becomes smaller as people adjust to their new situation and start to see it as normal. The exact strength of this effect varies from person to person and depends on the kind of change, and researchers still debate how complete the adjustment is and why some changes seem to last longer than others. But the general pattern has been found again and again.

This explains Kalinda's experience. The new lamp brought a glow of pleasure. But within days, the lamp became part of the normal background of her life, and the glow faded. To feel the glow again, she needed something new. This is sometimes compared to walking on a moving staircase that goes down: you have to keep climbing just to stay in the same place.

The Buddha did not know modern psychology, but he observed the same pattern in himself and others. He saw that chasing pleasure as the main source of happiness leads to a kind of endless pursuit, in which satisfaction always seems to be just one more step away. His response was not to reject pleasure entirely, which he had tried and found unhelpful, but to look for a deeper kind of well-being that does not depend on constantly getting more.

Understanding why the glow fades can be freeing. It means that our restlessness is not a sign that we have chosen the wrong lamp or the wrong job. It is simply how the mind works when it is driven by craving. The solution is not a better object, but a different relationship with wanting.

Some people find it helpful to deliberately interrupt the pattern now and then, by going without something for a while: a week without buying anything new, a day without checking the phone, a month without a favourite treat. The aim is not punishment, but discovery. Going without for a while often shows us how much of our wanting was habit, and how little we actually missed. It can also make the thing more enjoyable when we return to it, because we notice it again.

Contentment Is a Kind of Wealth

The Dhammapada, a collection of short verses traditionally attributed to the Buddha, contains several lines about craving and contentment. One of them, verse 204, says, in my own translation: "Health is the greatest gain, contentment the greatest wealth, a trusted friend the best of relatives, and nibbāna the highest happiness." Nibbāna, as we saw in the first chapter, is the cooling of craving, like a flame going out.

The phrase "contentment the greatest wealth" is striking. It suggests that wealth is not only a matter of how much we have, but of how we relate to what we have. A person with a great deal who always wants more is, in a sense, poor. A person with a modest life who is content with it is, in a sense, rich.

Another verse, verse 186, puts the other side of this truth sharply. In my own translation: "Not even a rain of coins could satisfy sensual craving." No amount of outward wealth can fill the inner hunger of the hungry ghost.

Contentment, in the Buddhist sense, is not the same as complacency or laziness. A content person can still work, learn, grow and help others. Contentment means not being constantly driven by the feeling that something is missing. It means being able to enjoy what is here, now, without needing more in order to feel whole.

Contentment also does not mean pretending that we have no needs. People need food, shelter, safety, health and human connection, and the lack of these is real suffering. The Buddha himself taught that a person should earn a living honestly and care for their family. Contentment is about the restless wanting that goes beyond our real needs and keeps us always reaching.

There is also a social side to craving. Much of what we want is shaped by what others have and by messages that tell us what we should want. Advertising, in many forms, is designed to create a feeling of something missing, and then to offer a product that will fill it. Being aware of this does not make us immune, but it helps us notice when a want has been planted in us rather than grown from our own needs and values.

Wanting Without Clinging

It is important to distinguish between craving and other kinds of wanting. The Buddhist teachings do not ask us to become people without any desires. The path itself involves effort, aspiration and the wish for one's own and others' well-being.

A wish to learn a new skill, to help a friend, to create something beautiful, to look after one's health or to make the world a little kinder is not craving in the sense of this chapter. Such wishes can be held calmly, without restless clinging. We can work toward them and enjoy them without being driven by the sense that we will never be satisfied.

Even ordinary pleasures can be enjoyed without craving. A good meal, a warm bath, a beautiful piece of music, a walk in the sun: these can be received with gratitude and enjoyed fully, without the grasping that wants them to last forever or the restlessness that immediately looks for the next one. The difference lies in the grip, not in the pleasure itself.

One simple test is to ask: when this pleasure ends, can I let it go easily? If we can enjoy something and then release it, without feeling deprived or immediately needing more, we are probably enjoying it without craving. If its ending leaves us restless and empty, craving may be at work.

Another sign of craving is that it narrows our attention. When we crave something, it fills our mind, and we stop noticing other things: the people around us, the beauty of the moment, our own deeper needs. When we enjoy something without craving, our attention stays wide. We can enjoy the meal and also the conversation, the music and also the company, the new coat and also the cold, bright morning in which we wear it.

Sometimes the simplest way to notice the difference is to watch our hands. When we enjoy something without craving, we tend to hold it gently, put it down easily and turn our attention outward. When craving is at work, we reach quickly, hold on and reach again. Watching how we pick up the next biscuit, the next message or the next purchase can tell us a great deal about what kind of wanting is in charge.

Four Lives and Their Thirst

Henri is fifty-five and has spent his career working his way up, step by step, in a large company. Every promotion brought a rush of pride, and every rush faded within months. Now he is close to the top, and he finds himself wanting the one remaining position above him with a desperation that frightens him. One night, he cannot sleep and sits in the kitchen asking himself why. He realizes that no position has ever satisfied him for long, and that this one will be no different. He decides to stop chasing the promotion. Instead, he spends more time mentoring younger colleagues, something that has always given him a quieter, longer-lasting satisfaction.

Neha is fourteen and checks her social media account dozens of times a day, watching her number of followers and likes. When a post does well, she feels a thrill. When it does badly, she feels crushed. The thrill never lasts, and she always wants more. Her older brother, who went through something similar, helps her notice the pattern. Together, they agree that she will turn off notifications and check her account only twice a day. At first, she feels anxious and restless. After a few weeks, she notices that she enjoys her days more and that the thrill and the crush have both become smaller. She starts spending more time drawing, which she loves.

Augusto is sixty-eight and collects old vinyl records. For years, his collection gave him great joy. But recently, he has noticed that he spends more time searching online for rare records than actually listening to the ones he has. Each new find brings excitement, but he rarely plays it more than once. He decides to stop buying for six months and to listen, every evening, to one record from his collection, from beginning to end, with full attention. He rediscovers albums he had forgotten. He says that he has started enjoying the records he owns instead of the records he wants.

Kalinda, from the beginning of this chapter, decides to try a small experiment. For one month, she will not buy anything that is not on a list she writes on Sunday evenings. When she feels the urge to browse at night, she will instead notice the urge, take a few breaths and ask herself what she is really feeling. Often, she discovers, the answer is tiredness or loneliness. She starts calling a friend on some evenings, and taking a bath on others. At the end of the month, she has saved money and feels calmer. She still buys things she likes, but less often, and she enjoys them more.

Henri, Neha, Augusto and Kalinda each discovered the shape of their thirst: for promotion, for attention, for new records, for new things. In each case, satisfying the thirst brought a brief glow that faded. And in each case, noticing the thirst, rather than simply obeying it, opened the way to a quieter and more lasting satisfaction.

Practical Steps

First, notice the thirst. When you feel a strong urge for something, pause and name it: "This is wanting." Notice what it feels like in your body.

Second, ask what you are really hungry for. Behind many cravings is another need: rest, connection, comfort, meaning. Ask yourself what the craving might be standing in for.

Third, wait before obeying. When you feel an urge to buy, eat, scroll or chase something, wait a few minutes or a day. Often the urge passes on its own.

Fourth, enjoy what you already have. Choose one thing you own or one part of your life, and give it your full appreciation today, as Augusto did with his records.

Fifth, practise contentment. At the end of each day, write down three things that were enough: a meal, a conversation, a moment of rest.

Sixth, distinguish needs from cravings. If you lack something you truly need, such as safety or health, seek it with care. The aim is to loosen the restless wanting that goes beyond real needs.

A Short Practice: Watching a Want

This practice takes about ten minutes, and it can be done whenever a strong craving arises.

When you notice an urge, such as a desire to buy something, eat something, check your phone or have a drink, stop. Sit down if you can. Instead of acting on the urge, turn your attention toward it.

Notice where you feel the urge in your body. It may be a tightness in the chest, a restlessness in the hands, a sense of pulling forward or a hollowness in the stomach. Describe it to yourself silently: "Tight. Pulling. Restless."

Notice the thoughts that come with the urge. They may say things like, "I need this," "This will make me feel better," "Just this once." Let them be there without believing or obeying them.

Now breathe slowly and watch the urge. Notice whether it stays the same, grows stronger or begins to weaken. Many people discover that urges come in waves: they rise, peak and then, if not fed, slowly fall.

After a few minutes, ask yourself gently: what am I really looking for right now? Listen for the answer. It might be rest, comfort, company, excitement or relief from a difficult feeling.

Finally, decide what to do. You may still choose to satisfy the urge, and that is your choice. Or you may choose to meet the deeper need in another way. Either way, you will have chosen, rather than simply obeyed. Over time, this practice can loosen the grip of craving.

Questions People Often Ask

"Is it wrong to enjoy shopping or nice things?" Not at all. Buying things we need and enjoying beautiful objects are normal parts of life. The Buddhist teaching is concerned with craving, the restless wanting that is never satisfied. If you can enjoy things without being driven by constant dissatisfaction, there is nothing wrong with them. The question is not what you buy, but how much you are ruled by the wanting.

"What if my cravings feel out of control?" If you find that cravings for things such as alcohol, drugs, gambling, food or shopping are causing serious harm to your health, finances or relationships, and you cannot control them on your own, please seek help. Talk with a doctor or a qualified professional, or contact a support service that helps people in your situation. There is no shame in asking for help, and many people recover with support.

"If I stop chasing things, won't I lose my motivation?" Many people worry about this. But motivation that comes from craving is often anxious and exhausting. Motivation that comes from care, interest and values can be steadier and more sustainable. Henri, for example, did not lose his motivation when he stopped chasing promotion. He found a different kind of motivation in mentoring, which gave him more satisfaction.

Chapter Summary

The Buddha called the restless wanting that drives clinging taṇhā, thirst, and described three kinds: thirst for pleasant experiences, thirst for becoming and thirst for not becoming. Such thirst can never be fully satisfied, and chasing it is itself tiring. Later Buddhist traditions use the image of the hungry ghost, with a huge belly and a tiny mouth, to describe this endless hunger.

In the Potaliya Sutta (Majjhima Nikāya 54), the Buddha compared such pleasures to a bone with no meat, a borrowed ornament and a dream. Modern research has found that people tend to get used to improvements quickly, so the glow of new things fades. The Dhammapada calls contentment the greatest wealth (verse 204) and says that even a rain of coins cannot satisfy craving (verse 186). Contentment is not laziness, and wanting is not always craving; the difference lies in the grip.

In the next chapter, we look at one of the most surprising Buddhist ideas of all: that there may be no fixed self at the centre of all this wanting.