Desire and Suffering

If Maya farmers are exploited, it is not simply at the level of wages or prices, but more profoundly at the level of desiring, maintaining their existential investment integral to the normative operation of the broccoli trade. (815)

This quote from “Broccoli and Desires” really stuck with me, and through my existential lens, this question organically came up — does one’s desire inevitably lead to another’s suffering?

Last summer I had the opportunity to go to Lamas, Peru to study from a local indigenous community called Kichwa-Lamistas on their traditional ecological knowledge specifically their sustainable farming practices.

Traditional farming practices in the Amazonian region is sustainable and regenerative. The traditional cultivation of their soil called the black earth dates back to 8500 years ago in pre-Columbian times. This soil is extremely fertile, sustainable and it sequesters carbon. It is believed that this soil made possible the emergence of the first complex civilizations of all the Americas.

Indigenous communities of Kichwa-Lamistas still maintain their traditional farming practices, rituals and ceremonies to some extent and during my time there, I participated in a planting ceremony. The planting ceremony was for the plantation of peanuts, beans and corn, three of the most staple crops in the area. However, we only participated in the plantation of beans and corn because the plantation of peanuts require days of fasting. The initiation of the planting ceremony includes drinking of a fermented corn beverage named chicha in ceramic bowl, to pray to the spirits of the sky, the spirits of the forest and the spirit of the soil, asking for blessings for a good harvest, and then we break the ceramic bowl and bury it into the soil.

To them, agriculture is spiritual.

In my opinion and from my personal experiences, the sustainability of these traditional ecological practices precisely comes from this spirituality of agriculture, or the spirituality of their worldview, the worldview that embraces kinship amongst all lives, whether it is human, animals, plants, or all other lives.

In this worldview of oneness, one’s consciousness is connected to universal consciousness, and one’s desire is harmonious with the wellbeing of the system, much like cells in an organ. If one’s consciousness is cut off from the universal consciousness, one’s desire become incongruent with the wellbeing of the system, much like cancer cells. In this case, one’s desire can likely cause the suffering of another.