Claim 2 of 5 · Case 14 · Buddhism
Buddhism distinguishes craving from wholesome desire, so its real diagnosis is misdirected desire rather than desire itself, which is close to Augustine’s and a point of contact rather than a contradiction.
One claim from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
The popular slogan says Buddhism teaches that desire causes suffering and must be eliminated, which invites the puzzle that one must want to stop wanting. The doctrine is more careful than the slogan. The second Noble Truth names tanha, craving or thirst, not desire as such, and the tradition distinguishes it from chanda, a wholesome desire that drives the path and falls away when the goal is reached; the raft of the teaching is used to cross and then set down. That is a coherent position, original to the tradition rather than a concession, and it should be stated as such. What it shows is interesting rather than damaging: if good desire is told from craving by the object and manner of desiring, then the deepest problem is not desire but misdirected desire. That is close to Augustine’s account of disordered love, and it is a place where a Christian and a Buddhist can begin in agreement before asking where rightly ordered desire finally points, to cessation or to a person.
Backed by 2 pieces of evidence
Buddhist texts distinguish tanha from chanda
This is the competing explanation in its strongest form. Buddhism is not naive about the puzzle. But admitting a good desire is exactly the concession worth noticing: if some desire is good, then desire as such is not the enemy.
The raft parable, Alagaddupama Sutta (MN 22)
This is the deepest form of the Buddhist position: the desire driving practice is temporary scaffolding, used and then set down, not something the path aims to destroy. The question a Christian brings is about where the scaffolding leads, not about the scaffolding.