alright so this is something i've been using for a while but i've never quite put it into language and i just now kind of figured out how to say it. so from the position of a good attention mode that is equanimous, if you find yourself feeling an emotion that isn't felicity, you might be able to use this sort of contemplation/investigation to get rid of that emotion.
basically the point is that every single desire is always a desire on behalf of something that doesn't exist. i realized recently that whenever i desire something i'm actually desiring that thing on behalf of "me" as an identity rather than me as a body. and when i desire that good/bad things happen to others or even animals i am also desiring it on behalf of their identity rather than their body. it is always the identity that desires and the identity only has connections/conflicts with other identities, never with physical things. so even if it seems like you are wanting your friend (as a body) to be happy or your friend/yourself (as a body) not to die, your desire is actually focused on their body but on their identity.
imaginary identities have imaginary connections, your identity identifies other identities as either friends or foes and bases its interests for things to happen to them on that connection. there is absolutely no desire for things to happen to physical things. even if you are desiring something physical, like food, you are desiring that thing for the identity rather than the body. this may take a careful observation of your own desire to recognize.
so anyway, there it is, if you are feeling desire you are feeling it for something that has only a psychological existence, but there is the delusion that you are desiring on behalf something actual. just to emphasize, there is desire for actual things. maybe there is sort of an inherent non-affective altruism that can be freely directed at other bodies, but the feeling of desire always has an interest in an identity rather than in a physical body.
man, after writing that there is so much conceptual stuff clicking into place for me. fear and desire are always based on positive interests for one's own imagined identity and aggression/nurture are always based on positive/negative interests for other's identities as imagined by your identity!
maybe everyone else always understood this, but i never got it until i put it into my own words here.
