“I am at war with my desire; I keep trying to be free of it … but I’m tortured instead,” I said to him, this man I regard so highly.  He said, after an extremely Buddhist pause, “the teaching is not to be rid…

To be free of desire . . . this is my recurring theme, lately. As a yogi and mystic, I’ve obviously dabbled in this concept – more than dabbled, though, haven’t I? Years of celibacy, living alcohol-free, a life lived largely in voluntary solitude…