Being and Ambiguity

This work contains the answers to all philosophical problems which have hitherto existed and which ever shall exist. Moreover, this work is completely devoid of objective validity of any kind. I hope in the following pages to make clear how I can make both these claims at the same time and, moreover, why I hold them to be ultimately, not two contradictory positions, nor even two harmonious aspects of the situation which compensate for one another, but two different ways of stating one and the same thing.

what is really wanted in desire for specific pleasures is, as we have seen, selfhood, mastery, power, autonomy, ownership, control, eternity, which is likewise impossible. The fulfillment of the desire reinforces the sp splitting of the moment as a habitual structure; it reestablishes the subject-object split in a new form for the next moment. (p5)

What then...is the early Buddhist solution to desire, inasmuch as it all reduces to desire for selfhood and thus inevitable frustration? Neither the elimination of desire, nor the indulgence in desire, but the Middle Way. This means the awareness of desire. and the letting go of desire—not its annihilation, which is impossible, but simply letting it be an entity in its own right, letting it be itself, which is to say, an impermanent, unsatisfactory, nonself, conditioned and co-arising thing, which arises and fades in accord with conditions ons whichvare not in the control of any-single agent.