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Samsara literally means "wandering-on." Many people think of it as the Buddhist name for the place where we currently live — the place we leave when we go to nibbana. But in the early Buddhist texts, it's the answer, not to the question, "Where are we?" but to the question, "What are we doing?" Instead of a place, it's a process: the tendency to keep creating worlds and then moving into them. As one world falls apart, you create another one and go there. At the same time, you bump into other people who are creating their own worlds, too.
The play and creativity in the process can sometimes be enjoyable. In fact, it would be perfectly innocuous if it didn't entail so much suffering. The worlds we create keep caving in and killing us. Moving into a new world requires effort: not only the pains and risks of taking birth, but also the hard knocks — mental and physical — that come from going through childhood into adulthood, over and over again. The Buddha once asked his monks, "Which do you think is greater: the water in the oceans or the tears you've shed while wandering on?" His answer: the tears. Think of that the next time you gaze at the ocean or play in its waves.
In addition to creating suffering for ourselves, the worlds we create feed off the worlds of others, just as theirs feed off ours. In some cases the feeding may be mutually enjoyable and beneficial, but even then the arrangement has to come to an end. More typically, it causes harm to at least one side of the relationship, often to both. When you think of all the suffering that goes into keeping just one person clothed, fed, sheltered, and healthy — the suffering both for those who have to pay for these requisites, as well as those who have to labor or die in their production — you see how exploitative even the most rudimentary process of world-building can be.
This is why the Buddha tried to find the way to stop samsara-ing. Once he had found it, he encouraged others to follow it, too. Because samsara-ing is something that each of us does, each of us has to stop it him or her self alone. If samsara were a place, it might seem selfish for one person to look for an escape, leaving others behind. But when you realize that it's a process, there's nothing selfish about stopping it at all. It's like giving up an addiction or an abusive habit. When you learn the skills needed to stop creating your own worlds of suffering, you can share those skills with others so that they can stop creating theirs. At the same time, you'll never have to feed off the worlds of others, so to that extent you're lightening their load as well.
It's true that the Buddha likened the practice for stopping samsara to the act of going from one place to another: from this side of a river to the further shore. But the passages where he makes this comparison often end with a paradox: the further shore has no "here," no "there," no "in between." From that perspective, it's obvious that samsara's parameters of space and time were not the pre-existing context in which we wandered. They were the result of our wandering.
For someone addicted to world-building, the lack of familiar parameters sounds unsettling. But if you're tired of creating incessant, unnecessary suffering, you might want to give it a try. After all, you could always resume building if the lack of "here" or "there" turned out to be dull. But of those who have learned how to break the habit, no one has ever felt tempted to samsara again.
By Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Jefferson City, MO. Aetna Rokunar 24mm lens - cheap lens - extremely soft wide open - and I love it.
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thanks flickr!
(view on black)
so I went out and took some pics today, and I got so muddy! haha
but I got saome amazing pics out of it, like this one.
This one seriously puts me in awe for soom reason.... agree? or no?
PS. Does anyone understand HOW this photo is "Cinematic"??? my teacher called it that but won't tell me what he means!!! ):
35 students from each of the Perspectives campuses gathered at the Perspectives Auburn Gresham campus on 8131 S. May St., on October 2, to engage in an all day “I Am for Peace Design Thinking” workshop to answer the following question: "If you were the mayor of Chicago, how would you use the 26 principles of A Disciplined life to create a more peaceful Chicago?"
The end goal was to select five teams to share their design prototype at the “I Am for Peace” world premiere on October 24th. For more information about the premiere and to purchase tickets, visit www.pcsedu.org/peacepremiere.
The design challenge was facilitated by Perspectives teachers. They helped the students work through the phases of design thinking: 1) Define; 2) Explore; 3) Reflect; 4) Imagine; 5) Play; and 6) Transform, to come up with solutions to the question reference above.
The students were divided into seven teams of five. Together they developed one idea and prepared it for a final presentation. To help them think about their ideas on reducing and ending violence in Chicago, the students met with a panel of community leaders dedicated to keeping Chicago safe, including Father Phelger, John Horan, Anton Seals, Cedric Whittaker, and Diana Chaney. Each panelist discussed their work to make Chicago a more peaceful city and answered questions from the students ranging from topics of the cost of keeping Chicago safe to addressing mental health issues.
From this initial workshop, five teams were selected to develop their design prototype even further and to prepare it for a final presentation at the world premiere of the “I Am for Peace” documentary film.
Photo credit: David Terry
TUNE Mobile Connect is the series for digital marketers, mobile strategists, builders of mobile, and the mobile obsessed that want to connect and talk about mobile.
On October 6th, we hosted our fall event with cocktails and learnings from women who are thriving in an atmosphere of rapid change. We gathered leaders from the ad tech, agency and brand worlds to bring you a full perspective on the mobile industry and how they're involved in its momentum.
TUNE's Product Manager Tara Burgess moderated a discussion between Lauren Moores, VP of Strategy @ Dstillery, Alexandra Ivacheff, Business Development Director @ Fetch and Jennifer Newheiser, Senior Marketing Manager @ Rover.com.
Cynic: what an idealist calls a realist
— Humphrey Appleby
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