Exodus 20:17 · World English Bible
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”
Desire is the catalyst that blocks light's pleasure in the body, and every clause here names one more thing craving reaches for outside the self. To covet is to leak the inner life outward, hunting in a neighbor's yard for what only the kingdom within supplies.
From the Esoteric reading below.
The same verse, read by 3 traditions.
ESOTERIC
Desire is the catalyst that blocks light's pleasure in the body, and every clause here names one more thing craving reaches for outside the self. To covet is to leak the inner life outward, hunting in a neighbor's yard for what only the kingdom within supplies. The ox is the raw power of the flesh, the ego and carnal mind, a force meant to be governed rather than fed. The ass is the stubborn lower nature that will not turn inward. The wife is the emotional nature pulled off center by wanting.
When craving fastens onto flesh, ego, and emotion, the self drains away through them and never goes in.
Ox: the raw power of the flesh, the ego and carnal mind that must be governed, not fed Ass: the stubborn lower nature that refuses to turn inward Wife: the emotional, feeling nature, pulled off its center whenever it is coveted
BUDDHISM
Abhijjhā: Covetous longing
The mind leaning across the fence toward what belongs to another. Thou shalt not covet names this exact reach, the eye that slides to a neighbor's house and lets the heart follow it in. The command guards not the hand but the wanting behind it, where the trouble first stirs.
Taṇhā: Craving
The thirst that multiplies the more it drinks. House, wife, servant, ox, ass, the list runs long because craving never stops at one thing; each item answered only points to the next. A fire does not quiet when you feed it, it reaches for more fuel.
Issā: Envy
The sour ache at another's good fortune. To covet the neighbor's is to let his blessing become your wound, his full field turning your own into a lack. Envy poisons the one who holds it while leaving its target untouched.
Lobha: Greed
The pull to draw more toward oneself. Any thing that is thy neighbour's shows greed with no natural stopping point, always able to name one more object to want. The grasping mind treats the whole world as a shelf to be swept into its own arms.
Santuṭṭhi: Contentment
The quiet of a heart that rests in what it has. Behind the long fence of "thou shalt not" stands the open field of enough, where a neighbor's ox stirs no hunger at all. A person content with their own portion has already stepped free of the whole list.
SUFISM
This command reaches past the hands into the wanting itself, naming the ache that eyes another person's life and calls its own life poor by comparison. Envy is the disease, a low fever that spoils every good already given by fixing its stare on the fence and what lies beyond it. Nothing is stolen, yet the heart is already robbed.
The cure is grateful looking, counting what is actually in one's own hands until the ache loosens its grip. God is present as the giver behind every good, the source who apportioned each life and asks the heart to trust the measure.
Esoteric lens
What are you chasing that would not satisfy you even once you had it?
Wanting is where suffering gets in. Not pleasure itself, but the restless reaching that can never be finished.
The worst poverty is not having little, it is never having enough. There is a kind of wealth that is simply knowing where to stop.
It is not the person with little who is poor, it is the one who wants more. Seneca keeps pointing out that the hunger moves the finish line every time you reach it.
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Esoteric
Buddhism
Sufism