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Samsara: can one **really** be 'liberated' from it?
anataman
Who needs a title?Where am I? Veteran
in Philosophy
This is probably just a rhetorical query to a state of mind, that remains inexpressible, but welcome any feedback...
'='
0
Comments
Suffering has causes. Eliminate the causes, eliminate the suffering. What's so hard about that? We all know (on some level) that we can reduce suffering, frustration, anxiety and many other mental ills. Even if we aren't convinced that "complete" eradication of suffering is possible, we know that suffering can be lessened. The results of our practice give us greater and greater confidence in the Buddhist teachings, until we become convinced that complete cessation is possible. It can't really be proven; we have to see and understand for ourselves.
It gets confusing when we start throwing words like "Samsara" around, which people can take different ways, leading away from present-moment truths/concerns... and into metaphysical debates about rebirth and the ineffable. Well I say "F the Ineffable"!
Exactly 'what's so hard about that'
Let me define samsara as: just a continuous flow
When you consider and bring into the equation cause and effect, the OP may be better understood.
Samsara describes the process whereby suffering arises, again and again (being "reborn") because of causes and conditions. When the cycle is broken... suffering doesn't arise. It's basic cause and effect.
But when everything around you is based on cause, condition and effect, how can you be liberated from it - it's a catch 22?
Or is it?
@anataman No one gets liberated from cause and effect; the point is to remove the conditions that would lead (through cause and effect, or "causality") to suffering. The Noble Eightfold Path itself uses causality to change the conditions. That's why we need to learn about Karma, and what are "skillful" and "unskillful" thoughts, speech and actions.
If you think 2+2=5 that's due to your ignorance. Get taught that 2+2=4, and you will no longer get the wrong result when you add them. The way math actually works hasn't changed, but conditions have... so that you don't get the wrong answer (suffering).
It sounds to me like you are spinning your wheels unnecessarily; trying too hard to understand rationally what must be experienced directly.
No I am not in a spinning class.
I am however in samsara, which I suppose you could view as a spinning class.
But, I am saying this - no matter what effort is put in, no matter what you know and understand as the basis of our experience, it is this that causes and conditions that which is the basis of this...
These are just a few silly thoughts btw - don't get hung up on them, or feel the need to respond - my hangups are mine to contend with... but if they can be resolved with help - it would be greatly appreciated.
Mettha
You're not making much sense @anataman. Conditions can change. Yes? That's not even getting into Buddhism yet.
Samsara means a cycle of suffering that is exactly predicated on "conditions"... ones that, if changed, will mean that suffering ceases to arise. Maybe that's where your confusion is coming from? You talk about Samsara as if it's a place or realm that you're stuck in and can't be separated from, and that's not at all the case.
Perhaps I have not clarified myself. I know samsara is not a realm or place, it is about wandering in a place that keeps repeating itself, and I'm tired of it...
@anataman Even that doesn't clarify, because wandering and place are both metaphors. Plain, simple, honest language will win out every time (when it's available).
SAMSARA in plain English: Persistent Conditions that lead to the Arising (birth/rebirth) of Suffering.
Change the conditions, change the results.
Does that help? Are we anywhere near the same page yet?
by seeing 'everything' is anicca (impermenant), dukka (suffering), anatta (not me, mine or myself)
You can't quite get liberated from Samsara without compromising your humanity (what makes you human). If you are able to stand poised in the midst of dukkha, it probably doesn' t matter. Nirvana in Samsara is more important.
These types of situations are why having a teacher is so incredibly invaluable. I wish everyone could have one with which to bring these difficult, sticky situations. They always know how to answer them while the rest of us mostly fail miserably. That's what they do. The rest of us are wandering just as much as you, so we aren't really capable of determining exactly what the dilemma is, much less prescribing something that might help.
If you believe in the very core of Buddhism, yes, one can be liberated. Others have, thus all of us can. That doesn't mean it's easy though. It really is as simple as a few phrases make it. But how far we are removed from being able to experience the simplicity determines just how stuck we are. You aren't, I don't think, as stuck as you think you are, but when we've convinced ourselves otherwise, we are indeed, stuck.
The Buddha said yes. I doubt he was lying to us.
You can't change the rules but you can change your attitude.
David Brazier says about the enlightened ones: "To stand on the other shore is not so much to go to a different world as to see this world from a different standpoint. The bodhisattva is not saying 'This world is terrible: let me help you escape from it.' He or she is saying 'Come and look at it this way and you will have quite a different and much more satisfactory experience.'"
Don't get tired about what you can't change, but is there something you could do to change it?
Nagarjuna said there is no samsara or nirvana, and that they have the same nature. The difference is merely a cognitive shift. Dzogchen sometimes explains it that we are all looking at the same sky with the same sun, yet some are in a position where there are no clouds covering the sun. Samsara is just cloudy, Nirvana is a clear view of the sun. Same sky.
I would consider reading Capriles to learn about the base-of-all and distinguishing it from Samsara and Nirvana. Read 'Buddhism and Dzogchen' vol 1, and then 'Beyond Being, Beyond Mind, Beyond History' vol II, together (when also reading their footnotes and not just the main text) it paints a wonderfully clear picture between the three, and what exactly is nirvana and how it is similar and different to the base-of-all and samsara. It provides a very practical "meta-phenomenological" account of nirvana, which really seems inline with the style in which the Buddha liked to teach.
I agree. Suffering and samsara starts with the mind, so guess where it ends?
Ah yes! We choose to suffer or to not suffer. Easily said, but the cognitive shift requires action. when we take the action, suffering is turned to joy, loss turned into gain. As has been said before, life is wonderful, even when it hurts.
@anataman, you/we touched on this yesterday, when you indicated another member was 'irritating you', and I pointed out to you that if there is irritation, it's you who is allowing it.
you responded, 'yes i know, I'm working on it'....
Well, with the greatest of sincere respect - you need to work on it more, and more consciously. Continuously.
Because words mean little, if the Actions don't follow.
Own your actions:
It's not about wandering in a place that keeps repeating itself, and I'm tired of it...
it's "I am wandering in a place I keep repeating...."
If you REALLY want to be liberated from it, focus: you will note that the jailhouse door which keeps you imprisoned, doesn't actually even have a lock.
Indeed.
As usual . . . for all of us. This work is not making noise and then wondering why there is no silence . . . It is finding peace, calm equanimity by all means possible.
Samsara, the hell realms, nirvana, same place. It is the change of perception, the attitude to phenomena that comes through conscious attention. You know that. You have always known it. How does the shift happen? You know the answer to that too and it is not open to question.
Practice.
Nirvana is sometimes referred to as the unconditioned.
Nope.
The way you end Samsara is to stop being born. If you're not born, you won't be ignorant and won't suffer.
It's true. Samsara is a realm of our own making. It's not something "out there" that harshes our calm. It's us, ours, all ours. It isn't something that happens to us, it's something we create (in a manner of speaking) If it it were something external, something external would suffice to end suffering. As it turns out, only our own individual practuice can end samsara
LOL @ the 'really cool stuff'.... Thanks Chaz....
Yes @Chaz, she did
@federica
Thanks for helping to pulling me out of a cycle...
This is for you
x
Hi,
Let´s define samsra as our usual world where we life, work, suffer and laugh.
We should think, if we want to escape, where to escape to.
Some think we can escape to the beyond, because they belief in a here and a beyond.
If you know buddhist genesis, you will say we go back home, where we started from
and never return any more.
In Buddhism it is possible to enter brahmaic planes even being alive. The members of
other religions have to wait util they are dead.
It really does work, after experiencing it by myself.
anando
I trust you left a note for the milkman, when you came away?
I don't see why it isn't at least theoretically possible to be liberated from samsara. For starters, I think it's much better to think about phenomena in Buddhism as activities, events, or processes rather than things or places (a la process philosophy).
The way it's presented in Theravada, samsara, literally 'wandering on,' is the potential for the arising of human [mental] suffering, while nibbana, literally 'extinguishing,' is the cessation of that potential. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu puts it, "Samsara is a process of creating places, even whole worlds, (this is called becoming) and then wandering through them (this is called birth). Nirvana is the end of this process (emphasis mine)." Nirvana is "realized only when the mind stops defining itself in terms of place ... it's realized through unestablished consciousness."
This may be a bit of nonsense, but in one of the ways I like to look at it, the conventional viewpoint explains things through subject, verb, and object whereas the ultimate viewpoint explains things through verb alone. In essence, things are being viewed from the perspective of activities and processes as they arise, persist, and cease rather than things existing from their own side.
This, I think, is incredibly difficult to see, but perhaps what happens here is that once self-identity view (sakkaya-ditthi) is removed, the duality of subject and object is also removed, thereby revealing the level of mere conditional phenomena, i.e., dependent co-arising in action. This mental process is 'seen,' ignorance [of the four noble truths] is replaced by 'knowledge and vision of things as they are' (yatha-bhuta-nana-dassana), and nibbana, then, would be the 'letting go' of what isn't self through the dispassion (viraga) invoked in seeing the inconstant (anicca) and stressful (dukkha__) nature of clinging to false refuges that are neither fixed nor stable (anatta). Nibbana isn't the unconditioned as much as it's the _un_conditioned.
As with all conditional things, since ignorance itself isn't self-sustaining, it persists for only as long as the conditions for its existence persist:
Thus, by seeing deeply into dependent co-arising [which is synonymous with Nagarjuna's emptiness (shunyata)], we remove the veil of ignorance from our metaphorical eyes and open ourselves to the deathless (_amata) when the mind ceases clinging to self-vew, or as Dogen says in the Genjokoan, "No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly."
(Incidentally, this kind of reminds me of something I read recently in Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy. While discussing Heraclitus' doctrine of perpetual flux [which is similar to the Theravadin samsara], he goes to discuss how:
Compare that with what the Buddha says in SN 12.35:
In short, I'd say the answer is yes, it's possible one can be liberated from samsara through dispassion and the letting go of whatever isn't theirs and thus removing the mental causes and conditions for the continuation of this particular psycho-physical process.
Mark Epstein explains the Wheel of Life or Wheel of Samsara as a metaphoric model of our psyche, in his textual words, as a model of the "neurotic mind."
If we look at the different representations of the Wheels of Life in Tibetan iconography, we find that even in the lowest realms, there is always the figure of a Buddha sitting in quiet contemplation.
So if we think of Samsara and Nirvana as mental states rather than places separated from our reality, the idea would be that it is possible to bring Nirvana into Samsara by a shift in our perception. "Release from suffering is won through a change in perception, not through a migration to some kind of heavenly abode," Epstein says.
What we consider our dukkha of the moment brings with it the key to our liberation, if only we can change perspective and watch it from another standpoint.
I find this view of Samsara is empowering because it gives us the opportunity to do something about our dukkha. It places us in a proactive position, rather than making us feel powerless in the face of difficult circumstances.
Howard Cutler says that "The ability to shift perspective can be one of the most powerful and effective tools we have to help us cope with life's daily problems."
Nirvana is one step away from Samsara, as it is.
Exactly so. Very good post IMO @dharmamum. We are all weakly, half hearted Buddhists compared to our idealised self but to whatever degree is possible we can make efforts. Practice is an effort, eventually it becomes effortless in one sense.
In essence everything is about space. The space to be kind. The space to sit. The space in our jabbering, the space in our reactive nature, the space in our busy but futile hankering and so on.
Buddhism is moving us to simplicity, to ease, to acceptance, to truth and justice and the Amer . . . wait a minute that is Superman . . .
The space to stop.
One day you may realize that everything you know and everything that you thought was you only exists in your mind
Samsara: can one really be 'liberated' from it?
I'll let you know when I die. Oh, wait.......................
That's what the whole practice is all about: hardwiring ourselves for happiness (or a decent degree of inner balance, you choose your type of Nirvana) which requires discipline and patience.
"By bringing about a certain inner discipline, we can undergo a transformation of our attitude, our entire outlook and approach to living" (the Dalai Lama)
Nirvana is one step away from Samsara, as it is.
Heck yeah.
First one must be able to sense there are different perspectives to shift TO. This was a tough one for me. The perspective I had was THE perspective. The one way things are. Um, right?
It was a revelation and a relief to realize I didn't have to believe or trust my own perspective(s), that perhaps a more realistic, comprehensive and beautiful perspective was just waiting quietly to be shifted into.
Yes, @Hamsaka, it takes some effort, practice and experience to realize there are other perspectives beside the one that you have at a given moment and which you think is unique.
"Identify and cultivate positive mental states; identify and eliminate negative mental states," says the Dalai Lama. Nirvana and Samsara are a repetitive loop of your own making. Only you can choose to break that pattern.
You create your own hell or your own heaven by the thoughts you choose to repeat to yourself.
We're all lost socks in the laundromat of oblivion...
Its a conundrum. The ' person ' who would be liberated from Samsara is the creator of Samsara...
We need to stop chasing, and let things be....
II agree
by
1) listening/reading to Buddha's Teaching (dhamma), thinking over it (yoniso manasikara) and practice discipline (indriya samvaraya) with the knowledge gain through it
then
we see 'we can liberated'
2) then we have practice to be liberated
1) is the earlier practice (practice we do) is to see 'we can liberated'
2) is the latter practice, trying to get liberate
aim should be to have 1)
then there will be less and less problem
and
even such miner problems can be solved using the wisdom gain at 1)
@dharmamom said:
__**You create your own hell or your own heaven by the thoughts you choose to repeat to yourself.
Samsara are a repetitive loop of your own making.
Only you can choose to break that pattern.**_
_
true,
to brake 'samsara' we have to develop our 'wisdom'
we need the knowledge to know what to do to get the wisdom
Hmmm.
I had an interesting experience today during meditation, the shift in perception was not something I had expected; suffice it to say that perhaps we can be liberated after all. Keep meditating on dharma, friends... ...
I saw this written on another forum (I do cruise them from time to time, just to see what other lesser mortals are getting their knickers in a twist about
....)
And caught this:
There is no dimmer switch, only an on and off position. ...
.....
Until the switch is flipped you are no closer or further from anything.
The free can flip the switch at will, the free can be light or dark at will as is required.
>
The light is always there, the switch turns the dark on or off, the self on or off, the thought on or off.
...
Finding the switch is your only priority. You will find it when you no longer wonder where it is or what it is.
>
Now, while it seems that the poster may have a nuance of the 'crackpot' about him (it could be a 'her' but...I dunno, I jut don't see it myself), the above, actually does make some sense. I have edited out a couple of the comments he made (slightly crackpot/enigmatic and a repetitive one it was pointless to include) but in essence...
It actually makes some sense.
Whaddyathink...?
That's interesting, because not that long ago when I was talking to my teacher about my meditation practice, I made a similar analogy. So, it makes perfect sense to me.
I told him my practice was like sitting in a dark room, and once in a while, a light would come on. But in the brief second it took me to realize the light was on, whatever turned on the light, shut it off again and ran away laughing. Now, at least I know the switch is there, but I'm not at a point where I can even find it much less reliably use it!
Hmmm
True enough.
Refuge or confidence in the Buddha being awake and having provided a means is switching from I don't believe nirvana and liberation exists to the confidence in those who have made the switch.
Exactly so.
:wave:
If feels to me more like one of those old-fashioned dynamo systems they used to have for bicycle lights. So the more you practice ( pedal ) the brighter the lights get...?
exhausting though... and you can't even really free-wheel downhill.....
Free wheeling would be like after you've had a good retreat...