What Is Craving in Buddhism? Understanding Desire, Attachment, and the Cause of Discontentedness
- David Roylance
- 4 days ago
- 13 min read
Updated: 2 hours ago
What is craving in Buddhism, and why does the mind become dissatisfied even after getting what it wants?
Why can we acquire a possession, enter a relationship, achieve a goal, or experience something pleasurable—and then, sometime later, find ourselves wanting something else?
The Buddha discovered that one of the primary problems of the unEnlightened human mind is craving.
The mind constantly craves, desires, and attaches itself to possessions, relationships, wealth, fame, occupations, experiences, and countless other “things.” Yet, even when the mind obtains what it wants, the pleasant feelings do not remain.
Then, the mind searches for something else.
This endless cycle of wanting is not occurring because the world has failed to provide us with enough. The problem is within the mind itself.
The Teachings of The Buddha guide a Practitioner to understand craving, identify craving within their own mind, and gradually eliminate the cravings/desires/attachments that cause the mind to experience discontentedness.
Summary
Craving in Buddhism is the mind's longing for something with strong eagerness. The unEnlightened mind craves, desires, and attaches to people, possessions, experiences, and circumstances, expecting impermanent conditions to provide lasting satisfaction. The Four Noble Truths explain that craving is the cause of discontentedness and that the elimination of craving leads to the elimination of discontentedness. Through The Eight Fold Path, Breathing Mindfulness Meditation, generosity, and learning to identify one's own cravings, a Practitioner can gradually train the mind to let go and progress toward the attainment of Enlightenment.
What Is Craving in Buddhism?
A craving, desire, or attachment is: “a mental longing for something with a strong eagerness.”
Craving describes how the mind pulls in the direction of the objects of its affection.
The unEnlightened mind continuously develops cravings, desires, attachments, expectations, and wants. It thinks that obtaining something outside of itself will provide satisfaction, fulfillment, happiness, or contentedness.
But this creates a significant problem.
The object the mind wants is impermanent.
The feelings produced by obtaining the object are also impermanent.
Therefore, the satisfaction does not last.
The mind gets what it wants, experiences pleasant feelings for a period of time, those feelings change, and then the mind searches for the next object of its affection.
This is the never-ending cycle of craving.
Craving, Desire, and Attachment
Throughout these Teachings, several words are used to describe this activity of the mind: craving, desire, attachment, wants, expectations, grasping, holding, and clinging.
They describe the mind yearning or longing for something with strong eagerness and how it holds onto the objects of its affection seeking lasting fulfillment.
The important point is that the craving is not the object itself.
A house is not craving.
A car is not craving.
A relationship is not craving.
An occupation is not craving.
Money is not craving.
The craving exists within the mind and in the way the mind relates to these things.
Merely possessing something does not mean there is craving or attachment. The question a Practitioner needs to investigate is:
If this possession, relationship, situation, or experience changed or disappeared, would the mind become discontent?
If the mind is mentally longing for the object with strong eagerness and becomes discontent when it cannot have it, keep it, or control it, then craving/desire/attachment is present.
Craving and The Second Noble Truth
The relationship between craving and discontentedness is central to The Four Noble Truths.
The Buddha explains that the cause of discontentedness is craving/desire/attachment. Elimination of discontentedness involves the fading away and elimination of craving—the giving up and letting go of it—and that the way leading to the elimination of discontentedness is The Eight Fold Path.
The Second Noble Truth:
Discontentedness is caused by our own cravings/desires/attachments because the mind wants everything to be permanent when everything in the world is impermanent.
This relationship between craving and impermanence is important to understand.
Why Does Craving Cause Discontentedness?
Imagine someone purchases a brand-new automobile.
The mind experiences excitement and happiness.
But the automobile changes.
It gets older.
It gets scratched.
It eventually needs repairs.
Someday, it will no longer exist.
If the mind is attached to the automobile remaining exactly as it is, the mind is attempting to make an impermanent condition permanent.
That cannot be accomplished.
For example, if two individuals purchase a new sports car and it is scratched, one person might react with anger and hostility. Another person might recognize the impermanent nature of the car and calmly determine how to repair it.
The scratch is the same. The difference is the condition of the mind.
The external event itself is not ultimately causing the discontentedness. The unEnlightened mind experiences discontentedness because it has craving/desire/attachment and wants things to remain a certain way. When the mind encounters impermanence, it becomes discontent.
The same principle applies to relationships, possessions, occupations, status, experiences, and the countless conditions we encounter throughout life.
Craving and Impermanence
Everything in our lives changes.
Relationships change.
Possessions change.
Occupations change.
Our circumstances change.
When the mind expects an impermanent condition to remain permanent, it creates the conditions for its own discontentedness.
For example, when a relationship ends, the mind may experience sadness, anger, frustration, irritation, boredom, loneliness, or other painful feelings. The mind wanted the relationship to continue in the way it desired. When circumstances changed, the mind encountered impermanence.
The problem is not that we had a relationship or that the relationship has ended.
The cause of the problem (i.e. discontentedness) is mental attachment to the relationship being a certain way (i.e. permanent).
It is possible to have relationships, possessions, and other aspects of a household life while practicing non-attachment. The goal is not to remove everything from our lives. The goal is to train the mind so that it does not mentally hold these things so tightly wanting and expecting them to be permanent.
The Never-Ending Search for Happiness
Craving also creates a cycle in which the mind continually searches outside itself for pleasant feelings.
A child thinks:
If I could just have a bicycle, I would be happy.
The bicycle is obtained and happiness arises.
But eventually, that happiness fades.
Then perhaps the mind wants a motorcycle.
Later, an automobile.
Later, a luxury automobile.
The particular object can change throughout life, but the mental process remains the same.
The mind thinks: “When I get this, then I will be satisfied.”
Yet conditioned happiness is impermanent.
The mind is attempting to create lasting inner satisfaction from an impermanent external condition. Eventually the pleasant feeling fades, and craving looks for the next object.
This is why simply satisfying craving will not always eliminate craving.
The mind learns to crave again.
Needs Versus Wants
Understanding craving does not mean refusing to meet the genuine needs of human life.
There is a distinction between a need and a craving or desire.
A need is something required and helpful to sustain life.
Craving is mental longing for something with strong eagerness.
Transportation may be a genuine need.
But the mind may transform that need into:
“I need a newer car.”
Then:
“I need a more expensive car.”
Then:
“I need a luxury car.”
The basic need did not necessarily change.
The craving did.
The Teachings of The Buddha encourage us to learn to distinguish between what we need and what the mind simply wants.
Does Eliminating Craving Mean Giving Up Everything?
No.
Eliminating craving/desire/attachment does not mean that a Practitioner must eliminate possessions, relationships, family, occupation, or the ordinary necessities of life.
The training is directed toward the mind.
A Practitioner can have possessions and relationships while learning non-craving, non-desire, and non-attachment.
A Practitioner does not need to eliminate possessions and relationships. Instead, the mind is trained not to pull toward these objects believing they are necessary for lasting inner satisfaction or fulfillment.
Likewise, a Household Practitioner is not required to give up their partner, family, car, occupation, clothing, or other ordinary aspects of life. The challenge is learning not to drive the mind endlessly toward fulfilling its wants.
Can You Have Goals Without Craving?
Yes.
This is an important distinction.
The Teachings of The Buddha do not require a Practitioner to stop progressing in life.
Things commonly associated with craving can also be pursued as healthy goals without craving, leading to beneficial outcomes. This is described as “walking the middle way” through interests, goals, and objectives.
The difference is how the mind relates to the goal.
You can pursue something as an interest, goal, or objective without mentally demanding that you obtain it in order to become content.
A goal can provide direction.
A goal, objective, or interest is something an individual gradually works toward through wise decision-making without basing the mind's inner feelings on whether that goal, objective, or interest is ultimately achieved.
If you are happy when you accomplish a goal and sad when you do not, that is not a goal. It is a craving/desire/attachment masquerading as a goal, objective, or interest.
With a “true” goal the mind can remain peaceful and joyful whether a goal is obtained or not. The mind will be completely fulfilled, content, and satisfied gradually working toward goals without basing its inner feelings on the goal.
Craving tells the mind: “I must have this in order to be satisfied.”
When the mind makes its peacefulness and contentedness dependent upon achieving an impermanent result, discontentedness will eventually follow. Sometimes the goal will be achieved and sometimes it will not. Even when it is achieved, the pleasant feeling associated with the achievement is impermanent.
A Practitioner can therefore pursue interests, goals, and objectives while remaining peaceful and content whether the desired result occurs or not.
Craving as One of The Three Poisons
Craving is also identified as one of The Three Poisons:
Craving, Anger, and Ignorance.
These are also described as The Three Unwholesome Roots and The Three Fires.
Craving refers to desire, attachment, grasping, and searching outside oneself for contentedness and satisfaction.
Anger includes hostility, aggression, hatred, ill will, and aversion.
Ignorance is described as unknowing of true reality—not understanding the world through The Natural Laws of Existence.
These poisons are interconnected.
For example, the mind wants a person to behave in a particular way.
That is craving.
The person does not behave according to the mind's expectations.
The mind becomes angry.
The mind may then blame the other person because it does not understand that its own craving/desire/attachment produced the discontented state.
Craving can therefore become the condition from which anger and further confusion develop. Our own cravings cause the mind to experience anger and hatred.
How Can You Identify Your Own Cravings?
Understanding craving intellectually is not enough.
A Practitioner needs to learn how to identify craving within their own mind.
The Ability to Identify Your Own Cravings through Analysis of The Mind
One useful method is to treat discontentedness like a red warning light on the dashboard of a car.
When the mind becomes shaken, unstable, unsteady, or uncalm, something needs investigation.
Instead of immediately blaming another person, situation, or event, look inward.
Ask:
What did the mind want?
What did the mind expect?
What was the mind trying to hold?
What did the mind want to be different?
What was the mental longing with strong eagerness?
The discontentedness is the warning light.
The craving/desire/attachment is what needs to be discovered and eliminated.
A Practical Example: Attachment to a Mobile Phone
Imagine that you cannot find your mobile phone.
The mind becomes irritated.
Then frustrated.
Perhaps fearful or angry.
Instead of blaming the situation, a Practitioner can recognize the discontentedness as the “red light.”
Why did the missing phone disturb the mind?
The mind had developed an attachment to “always” having the phone nearby.
Once the craving has been identified, the Practitioner can actively train the mind not to hold the phone so tightly—for example, gradually spending periods of time away from it and learning to remain peaceful and calm without having it nearby.
The objective is not necessarily to eliminate the phone.
The objective is to eliminate the “mental” attachment to the phone.
This same method can be applied to other cravings.
How Do We Eliminate Craving?
Breathing Mindfulness Meditation
Breathing Mindfulness Meditation trains the mind to develop awareness and to let go.
Through consistent practice, the Practitioner becomes more capable of noticing thoughts and feelings as they arise, cutting them off, and letting them go rather than allowing the mind to become consumed by them.
Breathing Mindfulness Meditation trains the mind to eliminate the unwholesome root of craving/desire/attachment.
The mind “cutting off and letting go” several times during a consistent meditation practice trains it to “let go” in daily life. An internal mechanism can be established within the mind to be able to easily let go.
Generosity
Generosity also trains the mind to let go.
Instead of continually acquiring, holding, accumulating, and protecting the objects of our affection, generosity trains the mind in the opposite direction.
The antidote to craving is cultivating generosity, selflessness, detachment, and contentment. A Practitioner can give, serve others, and practice charity without craving recognition or compensation.
Breathing Mindfulness Meditation and generosity work together to gradually train the mind to “let go.”
Analysis of The Mind
Meditation and generosity provide generalized training to let go, but a Practitioner will also need to identify specific cravings.
Practice: What to Do When Discontentedness Arises
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This transforms daily life into part of your practice. Your practice is not limited to meditation but instead, every moment the mind needs to have well-established awareness (Right Mindfulness) to notice feelings of discontentedness as they begin to arise as a bodily sensation and then be able to cut them off and let them go.
Craving and The Eight Fold Path
The solution to discontentedness is not based on one isolated practice.
The Fourth Noble Truth identifies The Eight Fold Path as the way leading to the elimination of discontentedness:
Right View
Right Intention
Right Speech
Right Action
Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration
The Eight Fold Path provides the complete path of training.
Right Mindfulness helps the Practitioner develop awareness of the bodily sensations, feelings, condition of the mind and mental objects—this is The Four Foundations of Mindfulness.
Right Effort supports eliminating unwholesome qualities while cultivating wholesome qualities.
Breathing Mindfulness Meditation develops awareness of mind and concentration with the ability to let go.
Generosity directly trains the mind away from clinging and attachment so that it can let go.
And through understanding The Four Noble Truths, a Practitioner establishes Right View concerning the cause and elimination of discontentedness.
Is Wanting Enlightenment a Craving?
It can become one but it does not have to be a craving.
A Practitioner ultimately needs to extinguish all craving. Even the craving to attain Enlightenment will need to eventually be extinguished, with Enlightenment instead pursued as an interest, goal, or objective.
The principle remains the same: When there is craving, there is no Enlightenment.
Therefore, a Practitioner can diligently pursue The Path to Enlightenment through wise decision-making without mentally grasping at Enlightenment as another object that must be acquired to provide satisfaction.
Through gradual training and gradual practice to experience gradual progress, a Practitioner can make consistent wise decisions toward the objective of the attainment of Enlightenment rather than chasing after it.
The craving/desire/attachment is not Enlightenment but instead, how the mind relates to it. If it is chasing after it, there is a craving. If the Practitioner can gradually pursue Enlightenment through wise decisions, there is no craving.
The determining factor is the mental activity involved in how the mind relates to the progression of Enlightenment. Neither chasing after Enlightenment nor being complacent will produce Enlightenment. But gradually pursuing it through wise decisions is the middle way and is how to attain Enlightenment.
Craving and Rebirth
Craving is the “fuel” that causes rebirth.
If craving remains at the time of death, rebirth follows. Therefore, completely resolving the problem of craving also resolves the continuation of rebirth.
For this reason, eliminating craving is not merely about becoming a little calmer during daily life. The elimination of craving will result in the elimination of discontentedness. The mind will then be permanently peaceful, calm, serene, and content with joy.
Complete elimination of craving is directly connected with the attainment of Enlightenment and freedom from future rebirth.
Learning to Be “Satisfied With What Is”
The unEnlightened mind constantly attempts to make the world conform to its expectations.
People should behave this way.
Relationships should remain this way.
Possessions should stay this way.
Life should unfold this way.
But everything is impermanent.
Through training, the mind can gradually stop demanding permanence from an impermanent world.
The Practitioner learns to recognize what has happened, understand the conditions as they actually exist, and respond wisely rather than reacting through craving, anger, frustration, irritation, or annoyance.
The mind can be trained to be: “satisfied with what is.”
This does not mean that we do nothing.
If something needs to be repaired, repair it.
If a challenge needs to be addressed, address it.
If a goal is beneficial, pursue it.
But do these things without making the mind's peacefulness and contentedness dependent upon an impermanent result.
The Goal: Freedom From Craving
Craving is not eliminated merely by getting what we want.
Getting what we want often simply gives the mind another opportunity to want something else.
The solution is to train the mind.
Learn to recognize craving.
Understand impermanence.
Practice Breathing Mindfulness Meditation.
Practice generosity.
Apply Right Effort.
Develop Right Mindfulness.
Analyze the mind whenever discontentedness arises.
Identify the craving that caused it.
Then gradually train the mind to let it go.
This practice is not about escaping life.
It is about learning how to live within the world without allowing the mind to endlessly pull toward and hold onto impermanent conditions.
As craving/desire/attachment is gradually eliminated, the mind will become increasingly peaceful, calm, serene, and content with joy.
When all craving is extinguished, the cause of discontentedness has been extinguished.
And when there is no craving, the mind no longer needs to chase the world looking for contentedness.
It has learned to let go and can continue to make wise decisions while skillfully pursuing its goals, objectives, and interests without discontentedness.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is craving in Buddhism?
Craving/desire/attachment is a mental longing for something with a strong eagerness. It is how the mind pulls toward objects of its affection believing they will provide satisfaction or fulfillment.
Is every goal a craving?
No, a true goal is not a craving. There is a difference between craving and pursuing goals, objectives, and interests. The important distinction is whether the mind is mentally longing for the result with strong eagerness and making its contentedness dependent upon obtaining it.
Is all craving/desire bad in Buddhism?
There is no wholesome craving/desire/attachment. However, a Practitioner can have healthy goals, objectives, interests, and genuine needs without craving. The distinction is whether the mind is longing for the result with strong eagerness and making its contentedness dependent upon obtaining it. Note: The Teachings of The Buddha are not about what is bad or good but instead, helping a Practitioner to cultivate wisdom through direct experience to be able to see the truth for themselves.
Do I have to give up my possessions to eliminate attachment?
No. The object is not the craving. The mind's relationship with the object is what needs to be trained. A Practitioner can have possessions, relationships, and an occupation while practicing non-attachment.
How can I tell if I am attached to something?
Observe what happens when you cannot have it, control it, or keep it the way you want. If the mind becomes discontent and there is mental longing with strong eagerness, investigate the craving/desire/attachment within the mind.
What practices help eliminate craving?
Breathing Mindfulness Meditation and generosity are practices that train the mind to “let go.” A Practitioner also needs to develop the ability to identify specific cravings through analysis of the mind and actively work to eliminate them.
Can craving be completely eliminated?
Yes. A Practitioner pursuing Enlightenment needs to eliminate all cravings/desires/attachments to attain it. The complete elimination of craving will result in the complete elimination of discontentedness and attainment of the Enlightened mind.
David Roylance is a dedicated Practitioner, Teacher, and published author who has taught The Teachings of The Buddha since 2005. Based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, he guides Household and Ordained Practitioners worldwide through courses, retreats, and special events on The Path to Enlightenment.
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