Saṃsāra Is Directly Visible

What is saṃsāra?

Well, saṃsāra is usually translated as ‘rebirth’. But the literal meaning of saṃsāra is ‘to wander on’, to keep wandering onwards, to just keep going, keep going. And it is a better translation, it certainly sheds clearer light on the idea of saṃsāra than the word ‘rebirth’. Because rebirth means like, this life, and then the next life, and then in that in-between it’s me sort of passing from one life to the other. But it’s not really that you’re being reborn it’s more like just, you still are. Just here and there and elsewhere. On and on and on. The emphasis is on you, not your birth or births.

The simile the Buddha would give was like a man who went to one village, then from that village later on he went to another one, and then to another one, and then to another one, and then to another one. So it’s still like, the man just going through all these different places. You’re here now, and then somewhere else. Without these memories, without these recognitions, but the same set of aggregates, same point of view, it’s just wandering on. Like, you go to sleep, you wake up another day, then you go to sleep again, you wake up as an animal. I mean I’m overly simplifying it, but I want to illustrate, because sometimes reflecting upon saṃsāra in the Suttas would have an impact on people, in a sense of ‘I better practise’. Because if you talk about ‘rebirths’, it’s sort of out of your hands, it’s just how the universe works. You just come, you’re just reborn here and there. But the birth in itself, it’s not the beginning.

So if you think from that point of view, you realise, for example… If somebody were to offer to you to start this life again—say you go back and become a toddler—without being able to keep all the memories and everything you’ve been through that you know now. That has to be erased. Would you go through the same ordeal again? Just in the life that you already know, let alone a realm that you are not familiar with, or something like that. And actually, when you think about it, usually the appeal is behind ‘oh, I’ll keep my memories and then I can start the same’, like when people think about it. And that’s what they think about rebirth, as if you take things with you and so on, and then you better yourself through rebirth. No, it’s just erasing, but you’re still there. So it’s just, somebody wipes you clean, and then you start again. And knowledge is gone as well, the stuff that you learnt and experienced. So would you want to do it again then? And then, it will make you think twice. Because you might make even worse choices. That pressure of having to choose, having to act, being in the environment. In hindsight it can be pleasant, but when it’s there, it’s never pleasant.

So you realise that saṃsāra is that point of view that you are bound with. Unless you develop wisdom and practise Dhamma correctly, you will be then just repeating it, on and on, just wiping the slate clean here and there and elsewhere. But still going through the same things. On and on and on and on. And that’s what the Buddha meant when he said ‘there is nobody, there is nothing that you haven’t been already’. Beings have been in saṃsāra for so long that they, you, have been everything. You’ve been the mother, and the father, and the killer, and the killed, and every animal, you’ve been everything you’ve been around so long. The tedious repetition that you have no memory of, that’s basically what saṃsāra is. So then you realise, this life is not like, ‘oh now I’m born, saṃsāra’s waiting for me’, no, this is already that wandering on. It’s one of a many wandering on. And the directions you choose based on your actions and choices you make, are the directions you will wander on in later. It’s setting you up for it. That’s why beings are the owners of their actions and the choices you make, the things you do, determine then where you’re heading.

Is saṃsāra then something that encompasses us?

Well, you are not in saṃsāra, saṃsāra is not a universe that you inhabit. Saṃsāra is your experience as a whole. So what you have now is what saṃsāra is. So in the same sense you can recognise certain tedious repetition of, like, day to day things, just extend that into infinity. Extend that into the next life, and the next life, and so on. Day, month, year, hundred years, it’s just repetition. Perpetually repeating because you kind of, you forget, you lapse, you lose the memory of it. And that’s why the Buddha said, even if somebody can remember their previous lives, their previous wanderings-on, the directions they’ve been in, all they will remember is these five aggregates that they have now. So the five aggregates, which is your experience as a whole (matter, feeling, perception, intentions, consciousness) there is nothing outside of that. Saṃsāra is that, it’s the aggregates that are bound with ignorance which keep repeating, basically, infinitely. Until you make the effort to maybe uproot that avijjā.

So the content of one’s experience is that which changes?

Yeah, the content changes while the aggregates remain the same. And that’s the whole point. This village, that village, the point is you are still wandering on. And it’s not like this is metaphorically speaking, ‘saṃsāra is already here’. No, factually, what this life already is, it’s already that wandering on. I mean ask yourself, can you stop your feeling, can you stop your form from deteriorating? Can you prevent perceptions from besetting you? Can you not choose? Can you not be, can you switch off your consciousness? You have no say in any of these aggregates, they’re just flowing already. Coming and going, so to speak, taking directions. So that’s already what saṃsāra is. You don’t need belief, and proof of a next life, because you’re already not in control of these aggregates. And they’re already taking you in directions that, often, you don’t even want to go. And certainly, forcing you to endure things. So, here’s the saṃsāra. You don’t get it more directly than that. So yeah, death is not the end, and birth is not the beginning. It’s just like, rearrangement of the same thing, another way of repeating it. So you don’t need a memory of previous lives, or like, a special insight into future lives to see saṃsāra as wandering on. It’s already something you’re fully engaged with as we speak.

So saṃsāra is something you are subjected to?

Well yeah, you’re doing it, and you can’t just stop it, because that would be another choice within the saṃsāra. Another choice within the aggregate of choice, within the aggregate of saṅkhāra. Can you not choose, can you abstain from choice, without that being another choice? You can’t, so you’re fully within it. You have to do it. Can you not feel? Is that even conceivable? Can you imagine your existence, in the most abstract terms, without the form, without the body enduring there? Impossible, inconceivable. So you’re fully under the weight and control of the aggregates, for which direction you’re only responsible. Like, you can’t control them, you can’t stop them, you can’t tell your aggregates ‘go this way or that way’. But you can only then start making the choices of a wholesome kind as opposed to choices of an unwholesome kind. And in that indirect manner, maybe improve the state of your aggregates and so on.

And, again, not in six lifetimes, in this life as well. If a person starts practising sense restraint, their mind will naturally develop more patience. More calmness. More self-composure, more self-restraint and strength. And that’s already something that will make this wandering on in this life much more endurable. Much more agreeable as well. Is being impatient suffering? Is being impatient pleasant or unpleasant? It’s very unpleasant. When you want something and you can’t get it, or you don’t want something but you can’t get rid of it, you have to endure it. You’re not patient. But is that patience given? Or do you develop it? Either by circumstances forcing it upon you and you have no choice about it, or actually if you start making effort in the direction of developing patience. That’s just one example.

So by making choices of a wholesome kind in this life, by not pursuing sensuality carelessly, without any restraint, without any regard for others, not being immoral, not being non-virtuous, not being harmful to others, by making that effort to keep yourself in check, you’re actually developing patience. Which means the endurance of this saṃsāra, this wandering on, you will be able to tolerate it more. The pressure as well. Because you learnt it, you developed that tolerance. And that’s the thing, tolerance needs to be developed, it’s not a god-given quality. If you invest effort in it, it will grow, if you don’t, it will shrink. And then, you will be even more pulled by the aggregates, by the desires, by the feelings. And then your wandering on will be even faster, more hectic, more destructive, like an animal. And that’s why when rearrangement of this form occurs, but your mind was the mind of an animal pretty much, that’s the form you’re going to be assuming.

That’s what the Buddha said, if somebody behaves like an animal in this life, that’s the realm they’re headed to. If you behave even worse, that’s the realm. Again, this is a figure of speech, not “the realm” as in this place that waits for you. It’s just, your wandering on, when it has this, like, wiping of the slate clean and restarting it, that will be the form, that will be the means of engagement that it assumes, because that’s what the mind has been cultivating. Because that’s what the body is by the way, it’s a means of engagement with the world and the sense objects. So what you chose to engage with, the way you chose to engage with your body, that’s basically where your mind is heading. So next time you might get a body that’s more suitable for the level of engagement that you want and expect. So if your mind was engaging with sense objects on the level of animal passion and madness and thirst, you’re going to get a body that’s much more suited to that. That’s why dogs have a smell five hundred times stronger than humans, because that’s how many times they are more pulled by the sense objects than humans. Five hundred times. You might smell something nice, but it will not make you lose your mind. Well, a dog will lose its mind.

But if you don’t make the effort and you start giving in to losing your mind on account of sense objects, yeah, you’re going to get senses then that will support that, what you want basically, what you keep choosing. Or if you develop choices that will abstain from sense objects, then you don’t need sense organs. So when the ‘rearrangement’ happens, so to speak, you’re going to get much less in terms of sense organs. So like, in the Suttas when the Buddha would describe the ‘celestial’ type of bodies that are much more refined, you wouldn’t even call them bodies from our point of view of what a body is.

But again, future life, previous life, doesn’t matter. What matters is to recognise the nature of aimless wandering on. And any aim you might have within that wandering on, is fundamentally aimless. So even if you have some great purpose in this life, a mundane purpose, not the purpose of enlightenment, it’s a mundane purpose which means it’s not really changing the state of that aimless wandering on. So your aim is only relative, and when the time comes for things to rearrange, they will, and that aim will make no difference. In other words, you cannot prevent form from deforming, getting sick, and dying, it’s just inconceivable. So you’re on borrowed time, every time.

If you want to have a simplified example of what would correspond to ‘rebirth’, it’s not about being born again, or dying, it’s really about losing the memory. And that’s why beings are bound to constant pointless repetition of the same things, because they have no recollection that they’ve already done this billions of times. Because if you did, you wouldn’t want to do it any more. You would really want to leave that state of affairs. Imagine now somebody comes and wipes your memory. Just the memory, so your body’s still intact, you’re still alive, but completely, utterly, your memory, recognition, anything and everything you know, including yourself, is gone. So for you, if you were to wake up from that state, like somebody who can see externally would see ‘yeah, it’s still the same person, same body’. But from your point of view, the body, everything, it would be a new thing. But it’s not a new thing, is it. But it’s a new thing from that internal point of view, because you have no memory of it. And that’s exactly what rebirth is. It’s just losing the memory of recognising that it’s not, the aggregates are not on you, they never were. You’re just going to keep going and going. Ignorance in regard to it has no beginning.

So that’s why you should be concerned about death and dying, because everything you learn, even the wisdom you got (unless it was of a substantial kind) will most likely not play much part. Then all you can do—and that’s why the Buddha would say like, if people wanted to have a ‘better’ rebirth—you focus on doing wholesome things. Because as I explained, simply by cultivating certain habits in the mind, when your memory is ‘wiped clean’, you’re going to start using the body from the point of view of the habits you cultivated before. So you don’t have explicit memory of the habits, but the inclinations are there. And inclinations in this life, yeah you’re responsible for them, but as inclinations they’re probably because you’ve been choosing those things many times before. So it doesn’t mean that you can now just carelessly give in to inclinations, just means the presence of inclinations is due to previous habits. Which then also means you could reshape them. If your inclinations are bad, double down on doing good things in this life so you develop good inclinations. So then in the next life, those inclinations will be what inclines you and directs you, without that wisdom, without that memory to recall on. So that’s really what that ‘rebirth’ within saṃsāra is. Making you start again without knowing that you’re starting again. It’s like the best trick.