However, whilst managing his body in this manner, the Buddha applied the science of meditation and stripped the mind of all aspects of greed, hated, and delusion. He uprooted the “asava” (ignorance, delusion, belief in self, and sensuality), and fully perceived the empty nature of the underlying psychic fabric of the mind. A body sustained through its minimal daily requirements was all the Buddha required – as no further karma was created via the operating of the desire mechanism. Desire (burning), by its very nature, is never ending, and can never be realistically fulfilled regardless of what experiences of comfort and material goods are amassed. Desire, by its very nature, always assumes that there is more to be obtained.
