93. Vissāsabhojana-Jātaka — The Desire That Deceives

From the Shadow of Passion to the Middle Way: Buddhism, Jung, and Apophatic Silence

 

 

Introduction — When Desire Becomes a Trap

 

The 93rd Vissāsabhojana-Jātaka concludes the third level of Jātaka 85–96: From the Poisoned Apple to the Oil of Awareness, devoted to “The Bitter Fruits of Deception and Passion.”

 

At its heart lies an ancient yet enduring question: what happens when consciousness becomes absorbed by what it desires?

 

The Buddhist tale takes us to Benares, where a lion, irresistibly attracted to a doe, becomes vulnerable to the consequences of his own passion. A merchant devises a strategy that leads to the animal’s death. The story reveals the destructive power of attachment, while also raising an ethical ambiguity: recognizing the blindness of desire does not automatically make every means of countering it justifiable.

 

The tale therefore becomes more than a moral fable. It becomes a mirror in which to examine desire, the shadow, and the responsibility attached to our actions.

 

The Cover — Desire, Shadow, and Consequence

 

The cover introduces the viewer to a symbolic landscape of ancient India, where the golden light of sunset meets deep blue-black shadows.

 

The lion, the doe, and the human figures are more than characters in a narrative. Together they form a psychological constellation of attraction, vulnerability, calculation, and limitation.

 

The warm light evokes the fascination of the desired object; the dark shadows suggest what consciousness cannot or will not recognize. Beneath the apparent serenity of the landscape lies a quiet tension: what appears sweet may conceal a bitter outcome.

 

The cover does not offer a simple opposition between good and evil. Instead, it invites us to suspend immediate judgment and enter the complexity of the tale.

 

The MP4 — Four Movements Toward Awareness

 

The illustrated video unfolds in four sequences, gradually transforming the narrative into an inward journey.

 

1. Appearance and Unconscious Trust

 

The first movement introduces the Buddhist setting and the problem of trust without discernment. A gift, which should nourish, can become dangerous when received without awareness.

 

The scene invites us to distinguish openness from the abandonment of judgment. Not everything offered to us is necessarily beneficial, and not every reassuring appearance reveals its true nature.

 

Psychologically, this is the moment when the ego begins to recognize how easily it may confuse the need for security with the truth.

 

2. The Shadow and the Dominion of Passion

 

The second movement brings the lion and the doe to the foreground. The lion’s gaze narrows around the object of attraction, while the surrounding world recedes.

 

From this perspective, passion is not merely an intense feeling. It becomes a force that organizes perception, reduces alternatives, and obscures consequences.

 

Through a Jungian lens, the lion may be interpreted as an image of consciousness captured by an unconscious content. The shadow is not only what we refuse to see in others; it is also what acts within us without being recognized.

 

3. Deception and the Return of Consequences

 

The third movement depicts the merchant’s strategy and the lion’s fate. Apparent sweetness and hidden poison symbolize a contradiction: what attracts us may conceal a danger that desire prevents us from perceiving.

 

The lion’s fall should not be understood merely as punishment. It is also the moment when the blindness of passion becomes visible.

 

Yet the merchant does not represent a morally uncomplicated solution. His strategy is effective, but its effectiveness does not erase the ethical complexity of the means employed. The story invites us to consider not only the consequences of attachment, but also the responsibility of those who intervene against it.

 

The shadow may appear both in uncontrolled passion and in the belief that everything can be mastered through calculation.

 

 4. Understanding and the Passage into Silence

 

In the final sequence, the landscape grows quieter. Water, reflection, and a path disappearing into mist shift attention from the external event to its inner resonance.

 

The story becomes a mirror. The central question is no longer simply who won or lost, but how desire can turn into a form of imprisonment.

 

The Middle Way does not mean suppressing every desire or passively surrendering to passion. It points instead toward the possibility of seeing what is happening without being entirely ruled by it.

 

Light does not triumph over shadow by erasing it. It makes the shadow visible.

 

Jung — Recognizing the Shadow Without Becoming It

 

Carl Gustav Jung’s depth psychology offers a way to read the tale as a drama of consciousness.

 

The lion may symbolize psychic energy captured by attachment; the doe, the object upon which desire becomes concentrated; the merchant, the strategic faculty attempting to intervene in the conflict. These are symbolic correspondences, not rigid equations.

 

The Jungian question concerns the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious: what happens when an inner force becomes so dominant that it prevents us from seeing any other possibility?

 

Recognizing the shadow does not mean justifying every impulse. It means ceasing to attribute exclusively to others what we cannot acknowledge in ourselves. Awareness begins when we can observe desire without mistaking it for the totality of who we are.

 

The Apophatic Dimension — Beyond Possession and Control

 

The apophatic reading opens another space. Silence does not provide a definitive formula for resolving the conflict; instead, it interrupts the claim that we can completely possess the meaning of the story.

 

Desire wants to hold on. Calculation wants to predict. The ego wants to determine with certainty what is good and what is bad.

 

Yet awareness can create a pause between impulse and action, attraction and possession, judgment and understanding.

 

The path disappearing into mist does not represent an escape from responsibility. It suggests a quieter form of freedom: acting with discernment without turning control into another form of attachment.

 

Resonance — From Unconscious Passion to Inner Freedom

 

The 93rd Vissāsabhojana-Jātaka concludes the level devoted to the bitter fruits of deception and passion, opening the threshold of the fourth level: **“The Middle Way and Awareness.”**

 

The journey moves from appearance to virtue, from gratitude to responsibility, and finally toward recognizing the mechanisms that imprison us within what we desire.

 

The conclusion is not a condemnation of desire itself. It is an invitation to understand desire, recognize its power, and refuse to let it determine the entirety of our vision.

 

Perhaps awakening begins here: when we stop asking the world to satisfy every need and learn instead to observe, with clarity and compassion, what moves within us.

 

The path opens. Then, slowly, it disappears into silence.

 

 

Illustrated MP4 video essay

 

*93. Vissāsabhojana-Jātaka — The Desire That Deceives: From the Shadow of Passion to the Middle Way.*

 

Watch the video as both an illustrated tale and an invitation to contemplation: not only to follow the story of the lion and the doe, but to question the relationship between desire, awareness, and inner freedom.

 

**Author and project:** Giuseppe Gugliotta — *Jātaka: Figures, Jung, and Awakening*.