Related to this (?) is the notion that ‘wanting’ and ‘liking’ are separate systems. For instance, from a random paper:
Incentive salience or ‘wanting’, a form of motivation, is generated by large and robust neural systems that include mesolimbic dopamine. By comparison, ‘liking’, or the actual pleasurable impact of reward consumption, is mediated by smaller and fragile neural systems, and is not dependent on dopamine. The incentive-sensitization theory posits the essence of drug addiction to be excessive amplification specifically of psychological ‘wanting’, especially triggered by cues, without necessarily an amplification of ‘liking’. This is due to long-lasting changes in dopamine-related motivation systems of susceptible individuals, called neural sensitization.
In this perspective, a philosophy can say that ‘wanting’ is psychologically unhealthy while ‘liking’ is fine. I’m not sure if this is what Buddhists actually believe, but it is how I’ve interpreted notions like “desire leads to suffering”, “letting go”, “ego death”, etc.
There’s that, but I think it would also be misleading to say that (all) Buddhists consider desire/wanting to be bad! (Though to be clear, it does seem like some of them do.)
I also sometimes wonder whether it would help to distinguish more cleanly and explicitly between caring and clinging as different dimensions of experience. I, at least, have found it clarifying (who knows if it’s exegetically accurate) to think of the Buddha as centrally advocating that you let go of clinging, as understood above; and of many contemporary Buddhist practices and ideas as oriented towards this goal. That is, the aim is not, centrally, to care less about anything (though sometimes that’s appropriate too). Rather, the aim (or at least, one aim) is to care differently — without a certain kind of internal, experiential contraction. To untie a certain kind of knot; to let go of a certain type of denial/resistance towards what is or could be; and in doing so, to step more fully into the real world, and into a kind of sanity.
Related to this (?) is the notion that ‘wanting’ and ‘liking’ are separate systems. For instance, from a random paper:
In this perspective, a philosophy can say that ‘wanting’ is psychologically unhealthy while ‘liking’ is fine. I’m not sure if this is what Buddhists actually believe, but it is how I’ve interpreted notions like “desire leads to suffering”, “letting go”, “ego death”, etc.
There’s that, but I think it would also be misleading to say that (all) Buddhists consider desire/wanting to be bad! (Though to be clear, it does seem like some of them do.)
I liked this article’s take on the issue.