A central Buddhist claim is that having desires causes suffering. While this tenet draws from the belief that an acute desire state is more momentarily aversive than a no-desire state, the efficacy of this belief has yet to be comprehensively examined. To empirically investigate this claim, we furnished data from two experience sampling studies across USA/Canadian (N = 101; 3224 observations) and Japanese cultures (N = 237; 8497 observations). We compared states of acute desire with states of no desire regarding momentary happiness. We then tested, in an additional step, whether acute desires at greater conflict with personal goals were associated with even lower levels of momentary happiness. Findings were consistent across studies, with participants experiencing greater momentary happiness when not experiencing a desire compared to experiencing acute desire. Also, the greater the desire conflicted with important goals the lower the momentary happiness. The present findings support a key basis of the Buddhist belief that having desires causes suffering, showing acute desire states on average to be more aversive than no desire states.

佛教徒的主要主张是，欲望会导致痛苦。尽管这一原则源于一种信念，即一种强烈的欲望状态比一种无欲望状态更容易产生厌恶情绪，但这种信念的功效尚待全面研究。为了实证研究这一说法，我们提供了来自美国/加拿大（N  = 101； 3224个观测值）和日本文化（N = 237; 8497个观测值）。我们比较了对瞬间幸福的强烈渴望状态和不渴望状态。然后，我们在另一个步骤中测试了与个人目标更大冲突的强烈愿望是否与更低水平的瞬时幸福感相关。在各个研究中发现的结果是一致的，与没有急性渴望的参与者相比，参与者在没有渴望的时候经历了更大的瞬间幸福。同样，欲望与重要目标的冲突越大，瞬间的幸福感就越低。目前的发现支持了佛教信仰的一个关键基础，即有欲望会导致痛苦，显示出急性的欲望状态比没有欲望的状态更令人厌恶。