If you use samādhi to resist your desire without knowing the purpose of doing so, you will not be able to get rid of your desire entirely

Question:  I can see my desire but I feel so weak and am unable to resist and resolve it. How can I lessen my desire and eventually uproot it?

Than Ajahn:  First of all you need to develop mindfulness. If you have mindfulness you can disregard your desire when it arises. When you have desire, you just concentrate on your meditation subject, like reciting a mantra: Buddho, Buddho. If you can keep repeating Buddho, Buddho, eventually your desire will disappear temporarily. This is the first step of engaging with your desire.

The second step is to eliminate it entirely by using vipassanā. You need to have the strength to withstand your desire. You have to teach your mind that following your desire will not bring happiness to you, but it will bring disaster, it will bring suffering because whatever you get, you will lose it and when you lose it you become sad. So it is better not to have it in the first place and to resist the desire by remaining firm and not obeying what the desire wants you to do.

You can use samādhi or mindfulness to help you resisting your desire. You must know that following your desire is a disaster, it is not good for the mind, it can only hurt the mind, this is using vipassanā: to see the harm in following your desire. You have to know this, then you will try to resist it and you can use samādhi to resist it.

If you use samādhi to resist your desire without knowing the purpose of doing so, you will not be able to get rid of your desire entirely. So you have to know that your desire are the cause of your suffering and you must not follow your desire. If you don’t follow your desire eventually your desire will disappear and there will be nothing which cause you to have any suffering.

By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto