---
title: "Chanda, Not Taṇhā: The Wholesome Orientation of Will"
author: 釋慧鏡 (Shi Huijing)
series: "Six Practice Gates, Volume 6 — PRAṆIDHĀNA: Aspiration and the Vow, from Pāli Roots to Samantabhadra · Part II · The Āgama View"
series_short: PRAṆIDHĀNA
volume: 6
paper_id: PRANIDHANA-P04
paper_number: 4
part: Part II · The Āgama View
part_number: 2
date: 2026-06
version: "1.0"
license: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
---

# Chanda, Not Taṇhā

**The Wholesome Orientation of Will**

*中文主題：善法欲，不是渴愛——願所依之意志的朝向*

---

**Author:** 釋慧鏡 (Shi Huijing)
**Date:** June 2026
**License:** CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
**Version:** 1.0
**Series:** PRAṆIDHĀNA — Aspiration and the Vow

---

## Abstract

Each year's turning, the world teaches us to "ignite your desire" and pin our wishes to a vision board. The Dharma does not ask whether one's aspiration is strong enough; it asks one thing: once this "wanting" reaches its object, does it go out, or does it generate the next wanting? This paper argues that the will on which the bodhisattva's vow rests is not craving (*taṇhā*) but wholesome desire (*chanda*); the two differ not in the intensity of the will but in the object toward which desire is turned. Taking as its ground the *Saṃyuktāgama*'s discourse 561 (parallel to *Saṃyutta Nikāya* 51.15)—"in dependence on desire, craving is cut; once craving is cut, that desire too subsides"—the paper argues that wholesome desire is *bounded*: it takes its own cessation as its terminus, the only desire whose aim is desirelessness. Craving, by contrast, is *boundless*: it increases once gratified, propagates itself, and is never exhausted. Through fascicle 21 of the *Yogācārabhūmi*, which sets wholesome desire and the craving for existence (*bhava-taṇhā*) as two poles within a single fascicle, and through the discrimination of two desires in the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra*, the paper establishes that the vow is not the projection of desire onto a future, but the structural arousing that turns the whole of the will toward awakening.

**Keywords:** wholesome desire (*chanda*), craving (*taṇhā*), the hindrance of sensual desire (*kāmacchanda*), the four bases of spiritual power (*iddhipāda*), concentration founded on desire (*chanda-samādhi*), boundedness, the orientation of the will, *Yogācārabhūmi*, *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra*, Self-Determination Theory, the Middle Way

---

## I. The Wanting at the Turn of the Year

Every year's turning, the world teaches one thing: enlarge your desire. The vision board should be papered with the things one wants; the motivational book exhorts one to "light the fire within." Every such formula assumes the same premise—that the magnitude of one's aspiration equals how strongly one wants. The more strongly one wants, the nearer the attainment.

Here the Dharma stops and asks a different question. It does not ask whether your aspiration is strong enough; it asks: *which kind* of wanting is this? For there is a wanting that, once it reaches its object, goes out of itself; and there is another wanting that, the instant it reaches one object, gives rise to the next, and is never exhausted. The first is turned toward the cessation of wanting; the second is turned toward the continuance of the self. The bodhisattva's vow, says the Dharma, rests on the first.

This brings us to the paper's central claim: the will on which the vow rests is not craving but wholesome desire. The difference between the two lies not in the intensity of the will but in the object toward which desire is turned—one toward the cessation of suffering, the other toward the prolongation of the self. To run these two together is the most common misreading among those who come to the Dharma: to suppose that Buddhism asks one to "cut off all wanting," and so to throw out the wholesome force that drives practice together with the craving that ought to be cut.

To make this clear, we must first deal with a difficulty native to the Chinese language. The single graph *yù* (欲, "desire") flattens several entirely different—indeed mutually opposed—things into one. The next section opens that lock of confusion first.

## II. Four Things Under One Word, "Desire" (欲)

In Chinese Buddhist translation the graph *yù* (欲) carries at least four senses, and their directions of practice fall into two opposed pairs.

The first is **wholesome desire** (*chanda*, *kuśala-dharma-chanda*): the will *toward wholesome states themselves*—the drive to hear the true Dharma, to practice, to incline toward liberation. This is the engine of the path; it is to be nourished, not cut. The second is the "desire" of the "concentration founded on desire" (*chanda-samādhi*) among the four bases of spiritual power—again *chanda* in the original—the will that fixes the mind single-pointedly on the goal of practice; this too belongs to what is nourished. The third is **craving** (*taṇhā*): the root, in dependent origination and in the truth of the origin of suffering, that drives the round of birth and death—the grasping that "increases once gratified," never satisfied; this is to be cut. The fourth is **the hindrance of sensual desire** (*kāmacchanda*), first of the five hindrances, the sensual attachment that must be purified away before concentration; this too is to be cut.

The first two are to be nourished, the latter two cut. Yet the Chinese writes all four with the one graph 欲. So when a discourse says "free from desire," "cut off desire," "cut off greedy hankering"—phrases that ordinarily refer to purifying the five hindrances on the approach to the four absorptions—a reader who does not discriminate on the spot will easily misread this "desire that ought to be cut" as though *even wholesome desire* were to be cut. Once that happens, the whole of the Dharma reads as a self-contradicting system: on one side "desire is the root," on the other "cut off all desire."

The contradiction is not in the Dharma; it is in the flattened graph 欲. The *Cheng Weishi Lun* (fascicle 5) handles this cleanly. It classifies *yù* as one of the object-specific mental factors, "having longing toward a desired object as its nature, and being the support of diligence as its function."[^1] *Yù* is the *function* of "longing"; it is the support of effort. The treatise states plainly that "wholesome desire can arouse right diligence." That is to say: desire is in itself a *neutral* psychological function; whether it is wholesome or unwholesome depends entirely on what it is turned toward. Turned toward wholesome states, it is the wholesome desire that arouses diligence; turned toward grasping at the five sense-objects, it is craving. One function, opposite orientations.

This is the ground of discrimination the paper means to lay: the difference lies not in the presence or absence of desire, but in the *orientation* of desire.

One further trap of the same kind should be flagged at the outset. The discourses often say, "all dhammas are rooted in desire," but in different discourses this sentence points to opposite things. In the *Madhyamāgama*'s "Discourse on the Root of Dhammas" (fascicle 28), it means the wholesome root of motivation—desire is the beginning of the whole path. But in the *Madhyamāgama*'s "Discourse on the Mass of Suffering" (fascicle 25) and the *Saṃyuktāgama* fascicle 32 line, "because of desire, conditioned by desire" means *craving*, the desire that leads to suffering. The same four characters, opposite valuations. Wherever this paper invokes "rooted in desire" to establish wholesome desire, it takes the "Discourse on the Root of Dhammas," not the "Mass of Suffering" line—a point used directly in the next section.

## III. Why Wholesome Desire Is *Bounded*

Having separated the four senses of 欲, we can now answer directly: *which* kind of desire is wholesome desire? The answer hides in a phrase that looks strange at first—"bounded" (有邊際).

*Saṃyuktāgama* discourse 561 (parallel to SN 51.15, the dialogue with the brahmin Uṇṇābha) is the paper's iron proof. A brahmin asks: a practice aimed at cutting craving—is this not using one desire (the desire to cut craving) to remove another desire? Would not such a practice then be "boundless," never finished? The Venerable Ānanda's reply is the pivot of the whole paper:[^2]

> "Just so: the noble disciple cultivates the base of spiritual power that is concentration founded on desire together with the formations of striving, leaning to seclusion, leaning to dispassion, leaning to relinquishment, leaning to cessation, tending toward release—down to the cutting of craving; and once craving is cut, that desire too subsides."

The key is the last clause: "once craving is cut, that desire too subsides." When craving is cut through, the wholesome desire that was used to cut it stops of itself. It is not pressed down by some other force; it goes out naturally on reaching its object. So when the brahmin presses on—"is this not then boundless?"—the answer he receives is:

> "It is answered: it is not boundless. Thus it is bounded, not boundless."

Wholesome desire is *bounded*. It has a terminus, and that terminus is precisely its own cessation. It is a desire that exhausts itself—having arrived, it goes out.

Set it beside craving and the line is clear. Craving "increases once gratified": gain one thing and one wants the next, with no terminus ever, self-propagating, never exhausted—*this* is what is truly "boundless." Wholesome desire runs the other way: it is turned toward the cessation of desire itself, so once cessation is reached it has no reason to persist. The paper therefore calls wholesome desire "the only desire whose object is desirelessness": it is a desire, yet a desire that goes toward the ending of desire.

Fascicle 21 of the *Yogācārabhūmi* gives this mechanism its most complete structural definition:[^3]

> "What is wholesome desire? It is that a certain person, having heard the true Dharma from a buddha or from a disciple, gains pure faith… and toward wholesome states gives rise to such a desire—this is called wholesome desire."

Wholesome desire does not arise out of nowhere; it has a clear chain of arising: hearing the true Dharma, gaining pure faith, and through pure faith giving rise to a will toward wholesome states. Its object is plainly "wholesome states" themselves, not any worldly fruit. The treatise continues: it is exactly this wholesome desire, as a kind of "augmenting force," that drives a person through the whole process of going forth and taking the full precepts:

> "It is precisely by the augmenting force of this superior wholesome desire that, through the formal act of the fourfold motion, one receives the full precepts… and this is called right going-forth."

Note the grammar here: wholesome desire is not an obstacle to be "transcended"; it is the *engine*. Without this augmenting force, one cannot take even the first step of receiving the precepts. This answers the misreading of the introduction—the path is not "no wanting"; the path *runs upon a certain kind of wanting*.

Joined to the four bases of spiritual power, the structural home of the vow within the Āgamas now comes into view. The first of the four bases is "the base of spiritual power that is concentration founded on desire together with the formations of striving," and the direction on which it rests is described by the discourse in a precise string of terms: "leaning to seclusion, leaning to dispassion, leaning to relinquishment, leaning to cessation, tending toward release."[^4] The string means: this desire (*chanda*) is turned toward renunciation, toward dispassion, toward cessation.

Here the structure of the vow stands fully revealed: the vow is "desire, turned toward desirelessness." It is an outpouring of will whose direction is the very cessation of that outpouring. This is not a contradiction; it is the one feature that distinguishes wholesome desire from every worldly desire—it is the only desire that takes its own ending as its destination.

## IV. Interdisciplinary Bridges: The Orientation of the Will

The problem of wholesome desire is, at bottom, an ancient and universal one: can the will be divided by *kind*? Or only by *degree*? Several lines in the history of Western thought intersect this question head-on, and each is worth setting alongside.

**Self-Determination Theory (Deci and Ryan).** Contemporary psychology's Self-Determination Theory is the nearest mirror to wholesome desire. It distinguishes "autonomous / intrinsic motivation" from "controlled / extrinsic motivation," holding that motivations differ in *kind*, not in *quantity*—acting out of interest and identified value (intrinsic) and acting for external reward or punishment (extrinsic) are two different things, not more or less of one thing. This corresponds exactly to the present paper: the difference between wholesome desire and craving is precisely a difference of kind, not of intensity. The self-sustaining, value-aligned character of intrinsic motivation is indeed close to wholesome desire.

But the mirror stops reflecting at one point. Self-Determination Theory finally lands on a "flourishing of the self"—the satisfaction of three basic needs, competence, autonomy, and relatedness; its terminus is a more complete, more autonomous self. Its framework has no category for "a desire that would dissolve the wanter itself." Wholesome desire goes precisely in that direction: it is *bounded*, finally exhausting itself together with the wanter, turned toward no-self. Self-Determination Theory can account for a better self, but has no place to seat a desire for "the cessation of the self." This is exactly the step in which the Āgama structure of the vow goes further.

**The misreading "Buddhism is the cutting-off of all desire."** This is a red line that must be drawn through directly. Grant one step: the cutting of craving is indeed the path—on this the Dharma is never vague. But to infer from it that "Buddhism cuts off all wanting" is wildly wrong. The whole evidence of this section refutes it: the first of the four bases of spiritual power is desire; the "Discourse on the Root of Dhammas" says "all dhammas are rooted in desire"; the very first step of receiving the precepts is driven by the augmenting force of wholesome desire. Wholesome desire tells us that wholesome desire is the engine of the path, not its enemy. The path is never "wanting no more"; it is "wanting rightly"—running upon a wanting turned in the right direction. To cut off wholesome desire along with the rest is to dismantle the engine and still expect to take the road.

**Aristotle: *boulēsis* and *epithumia*.** In classical philosophy the cleanest mirror comes from Aristotle. He distinguishes *boulēsis* (rational wish, directed toward what is judged good) from *epithumia* (sensual appetite, directed toward pleasure). The crux of this distinction is structurally identical to wholesome desire: both are "wantings," and the difference lies in the object wanted—one toward the good that reason endorses, one toward sensual pleasure. Aristotle thus denied long ago the premise that "the will can only be divided by degree"; the will must first be asked what it is turned toward. This is the same insight as the paper's "not the presence or absence of desire, but the orientation of desire."

Yet this mirror's far edge is the same as Self-Determination Theory's: Aristotle's *boulēsis* terminates in human *eudaimonia* (flourishing, the good life), and so it still rests on a self to be realized and fulfilled. It has no category—and needs none—for "taking its own cessation as terminus." Wholesome desire's unique *boundedness*—turned toward desirelessness, toward the dissolution of the wanter—finds no corresponding place in Greek ethics.

Put the three mirrors together and a conclusion follows: Western thought agrees with the Dharma's seeing on the step "the will is divided by kind, not by degree," and indeed arrived there first. But on the step "there is a desire whose destination is its own exhaustion," they all halt. Their wills finally serve a self to be fulfilled; the will of wholesome desire is finally turned toward the cessation of that self. The vow rests on the latter.

(To avoid repetition: the question of the *order* of the will—a higher-order volition affirming a lower-order one, i.e. the Frankfurtian second-order desire—belongs to another axis, treated in an earlier paper of this series; the axis of the present paper is the *object / orientation* of desire. The two are distinct and not restated here.)

## V. Corrections of the Middle Way

With the positive claim laid, several edges that easily slip away must be marked.

**❌ Wholesome desire is not the misreading "cut off all desire."** Section IV handled this directly; here it is gathered into a single line of discipline: any reading of the Dharma as "even the motive force of practice is to be cut away" has already gone astray. What is to be cut is craving and the hindrance of sensual desire; what is to be nourished is wholesome desire and the desire of the bases of power. The reason "ignite your desire" in the introduction differs from the bodhisattva's vow is not that the bodhisattva's vow "wants less," but that it wants a *different object*—it is turned toward the cessation of suffering and the liberation of beings, not toward the prolongation of the self's desire.

**⚠️ The four senses of 欲 must not be conflated.** Throughout, wherever a discourse line of the type "free from desire," "cut off desire," "cut off greedy hankering" appears (usually in the context of purifying the five hindrances, the preliminary to the four absorptions), one must discriminate on the spot: the desire here is the hindrance of sensual desire (*kāmacchanda*), not wholesome desire. Without this discrimination, the graph 欲 within the paper contradicts itself—the previous page says desire is the root of the path, the next says desire is to be cut away. What the reader should meet is not a contradiction, but two opposite things under one Chinese graph.

**⚠️ The double sense of "rooted in desire" must not be conflated.** Section II flagged it: for the wholesome sense, this paper cites the *Madhyamāgama*'s "Discourse on the Root of Dhammas" (fascicle 28); that discourse—"all dhammas are rooted in desire, mindfulness is their overseer, wisdom is their sovereign, and nibbāna is their consummation"—is a positive frame placing desire at the beginning of the whole path and nibbāna at its end.[^5] The "because of desire, conditioned by desire" line of the *Madhyamāgama*'s "Mass of Suffering" (fascicle 25) and *Saṃyuktāgama* fascicle 32 points instead to craving leading to suffering—the opposite direction—and may not be invoked to establish wholesome desire. The same four characters, opposite in sense: this homograph is itself a miniature of the paper's thesis.

**⚠️ "Formations of striving," "formations of cessation," "exhaustion of formations" are renderings of one term.** The "formations of striving" in the four bases' "base of spiritual power that is concentration founded on desire together with the formations of striving" corresponds to the original *padhāna-saṅkhāra* ("formation of striving"). The same term is rendered "formations of striving" in the *Madhyamāgama* and *Saṃyuktāgama*, "formations of cessation" in the *Dīrghāgama*, and "exhaustion of formations" in the *Ekottarāgama* (in the context of the concentration of mastery). This is the usage of different translators, not three different dharmas. The reader must not read these three renderings as three things.

One naming matter must be honestly disclosed. The four-character compound "wholesome desire" (善法欲) is not a high-frequency fixed label that appears directly in the canon. The paper uses it as its core term by way of a synthesis: it takes the wholesome sense of *chanda*, joins it to the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra*'s phrase "desire amid wholesome states" and the *Cheng Weishi Lun*'s judgment that "wholesome desire can arouse right diligence," and condenses these into this convenient designation. This is faithful, sparse disclosure—it is a conceptual synthesis, not the ready-made term of any single discourse. The paper nonetheless takes it as its core term because it most accurately frames the class of desire that is "turned toward wholesome states, to be nourished and not cut."

## VI. Conclusion: The Only Desire That Aims at Its Own Cessation

Gathering the whole, the matter can be stated in three layers.

First, as to discrimination: the Chinese graph 欲 flattens four things of opposite direction—wholesome desire and the desire of the bases of power are to be nourished, craving and the hindrance of sensual desire are to be cut. What the vow rests on is the kind to be nourished. The difference, from first to last, lies not in the intensity of desire but in the orientation of desire—the plainest and the most decisive sentence of the paper.

Second, as to structure: wholesome desire is a *bounded* desire. The "once craving is cut, that desire too subsides" of *Saṃyuktāgama* 561 tells us that it takes its own cessation as terminus, the only desire whose object is desirelessness. The "leaning to seclusion, leaning to dispassion, tending toward release" of the first base's "concentration founded on desire" nails the structure down: the vow is desire turned toward desirelessness. Fascicle 21 of the *Yogācārabhūmi* shows further that this desire is not an obstacle to be transcended but the augmenting force that drives the whole course—the path runs upon a right kind of wanting, not upon "no wanting."

Third, as to discrimination of poles: the same fascicle of the *Yogācārabhūmi* sets wholesome desire and the craving for existence side by side as two poles—one function of "desire / longing," opposite objects. One who craves existence also performs wholesome deeds, yet because "all of it is for the craving of existence" (craving a superior future existence, craving wealth and treasure) such a one falls. The *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra*'s discrimination of two desires says it to the end: what the Buddha cuts is the craving-structure of "wanting to gain what is not yet gained, wanting more once gained"; what the Buddha does not cut—what is not even diminished—is "the desire conjoined with wisdom," the desire of which "because beings are not yet exhausted, the desire to liberate does not cease." The treatise also says "all dhammas have desire as their root," and from this "first sets up the vow."[^6] The vow is not the projection of desire, not the extending of the self into the future to demand that the cosmos comply; the vow is the structural arousing that turns the whole of the will toward awakening, and the wholesome desire it rests on is precisely that one desire which, on reaching its object, goes out together with itself.

A signpost is left. Once wholesome desire crystallizes into "first setting up the vow," that orientation is no longer merely a motive force but a *determined direction* with a fixed bearing—it has set, from a "wanting," into a "vow." This crystallization from wholesome desire to the vow's force is opened out in a later part of this volume. And the problem of orientation itself—a vow is always turned toward something, so what would a vow turned toward "no longer turning" be?—will be the starting point of the next paper: from the petitionary vow that seeks rebirth in a good destination, to the non-petitionary vow turned toward nibbāna, the spectrum of the vow has further yet to travel. This paper first sets the ground firm: the will the vow rests on is not craving, it is wholesome desire.

## Footnotes

[^1]: *Cheng Weishi Lun*, fascicle 5 (composed by Dharmapāla and others; translated by Xuanzang, Tang; Taishō vol. 31, No. 1585, p. 28a–b). "Having longing toward a desired object as its nature, and being the support of diligence as its function" is the definition of the mental factor of desire. "Object-specific" denotes mental factors that arise only toward particular objects (each cognizing its own object), distinct from the omnipresent mental factors that accompany every moment of mind; desire is a neutral object-specific factor—taking a wholesome object it is wholesome desire, taking a defiled object it is conjoined with craving. The treatise further says, "or it is said that wholesome desire can arouse right diligence," taking "wholesome desire" precisely as the support of effort.

[^2]: *Saṃyuktāgama*, fascicle 21, discourse 561 (translated by Guṇabhadra, Liu-Song; Taishō vol. 2, No. 99, p. 147a–b). This discourse is the Venerable Ānanda's reply to the brahmin's question "in dependence on what is craving cut?"; it establishes wholesome desire as the support for cutting craving with "in dependence on desire, craving is cut," and establishes its self-cessating, *bounded* character with "once craving is cut, that desire too subsides." The Pāli parallel is *Saṃyutta Nikāya* 51.15, the *Uṇṇābha-brāhmaṇa Sutta* (S v 271), cited at PTS reference-level, with no original text embedded. This volume's "the Āgama View" is true with respect to the conceptual root of the vow and the Chinese canonical witnesses; it does not claim a Pāli word-for-word base text. This source policy is stated at the head of the volume.

[^3]: *Yogācārabhūmi*, fascicle 21 (spoken by Maitreya; translated by Xuanzang, Tang; Taishō vol. 30, No. 1579, p. 397a). The definition of wholesome desire ("having heard the true Dharma… gains pure faith… toward wholesome states gives rise to such a desire") and the clause "it is precisely by the augmenting force of this superior wholesome desire… that this is called right going-forth" both stand in fascicle 21's "twelve gates of the lesser conditions," where wholesome desire is the third gate, and its "augmenting force" drives right going-forth and the subsequent gates. "Augmenting force" (*adhipati*) denotes a strong, predominant driving condition, the motive cause among the requisites of the path. The same fascicle also takes "craving for existence" (p. 398a–b) as one of the marks of the absence of [bodhisattva] lineage, forming with wholesome desire the two poles within one fascicle; see §VI.

[^4]: The "leaning to seclusion, leaning to dispassion, leaning to relinquishment, leaning to cessation, tending toward release" of the "base of spiritual power that is concentration founded on desire together with the formations of striving" is found in *Saṃyuktāgama*, fascicle 21, discourse 561 (same source as note 2). The meditative / spiritual-power (*iddhi*) face of the four bases is not unfolded here, and is reserved for a neighboring study; only the "desire—orientation—desirelessness" structural face of the vow is taken here, distinguished from the volume on concentration's "concentration—face" treatment by cite-by-reference, and not restated.

[^5]: *Madhyamāgama*, fascicle 28, "Discourse on the Root of Dhammas" (discourse 113; translated by Gautama Saṅghadeva, Eastern Jin; Taishō vol. 1, No. 26, p. 602c). "All dhammas are rooted in desire… mindfulness is their overseer… wisdom is their sovereign… nibbāna is their consummation" places desire at the beginning of the whole path and nibbāna at its end; this "desire" is wholesome desire (Pāli parallel *Aṅguttara Nikāya* 8.83 / 10.58, *mūlaka-pariyāya*). The same four characters "rooted in desire" in the *Madhyamāgama*'s "Mass of Suffering" (fascicle 25) and the *Saṃyuktāgama* fascicle 32 line refer instead to craving leading to suffering—the opposite direction—and may not be conflated in citation.

[^6]: *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra* (attributed to Nāgārjuna; translated by Kumārajīva, Later Qin; Taishō vol. 25, No. 1509). "Wanting to gain what is not yet gained, wanting more once gained" and "the desire conjoined with wisdom" / "the desire to liberate does not cease" — the discrimination of two desires — are at p. 249b–c; "all dhammas have desire as their root" and "first sets up the vow" are at p. 140a. The treatise-author distinguishes two desires in the same place: what the Buddha cuts is the grasping craving-structure; what the Buddha does not cut, what is not even diminished, is the wholesome desire conjoined with wisdom. The crystallization of wholesome desire into "first setting up the vow" (i.e. *praṇidhāna*) as the full force of the vow is reserved for a later part of this volume (the "vow as perfection" line); this paper only sets its beginning.

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## References

### I. Primary Buddhist Sources

- *Saṃyuktāgama*, translated by Guṇabhadra (Liu-Song), Taishō vol. 2, No. 99.
- *Madhyamāgama*, translated by Gautama Saṅghadeva (Eastern Jin), Taishō vol. 1, No. 26.
- *Dīrghāgama*, translated by Buddhayaśas and Zhu Fonian (Later Qin), Taishō vol. 1, No. 1.
- *Yogācārabhūmi*, spoken by Maitreya, translated by Xuanzang (Tang), Taishō vol. 30, No. 1579.
- *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra*, attributed to Nāgārjuna, translated by Kumārajīva (Later Qin), Taishō vol. 25, No. 1509.
- *Cheng Weishi Lun*, composed by Dharmapāla and others, translated by Xuanzang (Tang), Taishō vol. 31, No. 1585.

### II. Modern Scholarship

- Deci, Edward L., and Richard M. Ryan. *Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior.* New York: Plenum, 1985.
- Aristotle. *Nicomachean Ethics.* (On the distinction of *boulēsis* and *epithumia*; see also *De Anima* III.)
- *The Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary.* Ed. T. W. Rhys Davids and William Stede. Pali Text Society, 1921–1925.

### III. Sūtra & Śāstra Index

| Short title | Full title | Taishō / PTS no. | Author / Translator |
|------|------|-----------------|---------|
| Saṃyuktāgama | Saṃyuktāgama | T0099 (vol. 2) | Guṇabhadra |
| Madhyamāgama | Madhyamāgama | T0026 (vol. 1) | Gautama Saṅghadeva |
| Dīrghāgama | Dīrghāgama | T0001 (vol. 1) | Buddhayaśas & Zhu Fonian |
| Yogācārabhūmi | Yogācārabhūmi | T1579 (vol. 30) | Maitreya / Xuanzang |
| Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra | Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra | T1509 (vol. 25) | Nāgārjuna / Kumārajīva |
| Cheng Weishi Lun | Cheng Weishi Lun | T1585 (vol. 31) | Dharmapāla et al. / Xuanzang |
| SN 51.15 | Uṇṇābha-brāhmaṇa Sutta | S v 271 (PTS) | — |
| AN 8.83 | Mūlaka-pariyāya | A IV (PTS) | — |

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## Cross-References to Other Papers in the Series

- **Carrying forward P03** (*Adhiṭṭhāna and the Resolve of the Bodhisatta*, the sealing paper of Part I): this paper takes up the Pāli grounding of Part I's sealing paper and opens Part II. P01 §2.4 only set the boundary "vow ≠ craving"; the mental-factor mechanism of its wholesome desire (*chanda*) versus craving (*taṇhā*) is formally taken up and unfolded here.
- **Signpost to P05** (*The Directed and the Undirected*, the sealing paper of Part II): the signpost of this paper's conclusion—once wholesome desire crystallizes into the force of the vow, the "petitionary → non-petitionary" spectrum of *paṇidhi* (the determined outpouring), from seeking rebirth in a good destination to turning toward nibbāna, is handled by the next paper.
- **Signpost to Part III** (the vow as perfection): the crystallization of wholesome desire into the vow's force, drawn here in §VI from the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra*'s "all dhammas have desire as their root, first set up the vow," and the *pāramitā* standing of its full *praṇidhāna* force, are reserved for Part III.
- **Neighboring SAMĀDHI** (the volume on concentration): the meditative / spiritual-power face of the four bases (*iddhi*, marks of concentration, one-pointedness of mind) is the territory of the concentration volume; this paper takes only the "desire—orientation—desirelessness" structural face of the vow, handling the meditative face by cite-by-reference and not restating it.

Relation to the *Eightfold Suite of Pointing at the Moon*: this paper's claim "the vow is not the projection of desire" shares a source with the wisdom series of the suite in its treatment of "non-attainment"—the self-empty face of wholesome desire's "having desirelessness as its object" is reserved for this volume's Part VII and the convergence with the *Prajñā* papers.

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*Paper:* PRANIDHANA-P04 · Chanda, Not Taṇhā · **PRAṆIDHĀNA · Part II · The Āgama View**
*Author:* 釋慧鏡 (Shi Huijing) · *Project:* 指月 / Pointing-at-the-Moon · *Series:* The Six Practice Gates （六行門）
*License:* CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
*CBETA collation:* All citations verified against the CBETA edition (Saṃyuktāgama T0099; Madhyamāgama T0026; Dīrghāgama T0001; Yogācārabhūmi T1579; Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra T1509; Cheng Weishi Lun T1585). Pāli parallels (SN 51.15; AN 8.83 / 10.58) cited at PTS reference-level only; no Pāli text reproduced (source policy).
*Repository:* https://github.com/pointing-at-the-moon/six-practice-gates

*The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon; the worth of the Dharma lies in the Dharma itself, not in the standing of the one who speaks it.*