Buddhism

Saṃsāra And Nirvana – The Ultimate Duality

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WakeUpWorld  May 2 2014

SamsaraThe more I learn about Buddhism, the more I appreciate the many teachings of Buddha and the subsequent learned people who followed him, and the more I hear people speaking on such lessons – whether they realize it or not.

Truth resonates like that. To find resonating truth in the time of the Kali Yuga – the Fourth Age of Deception – I try to find correlation of information among many subjects, and Buddhism both reveals truth and also correlates with truths from other cultures and also others systems; those of science, psychology and the esoteric.

I will attempt to summarize one of the most profound teachings of Buddhism that can require an immense amount of absorption (another term for meditation or contemplation) to integrate – that there is Saṃsāra and Nirvana. Understanding this duality can lead to a greater understanding, being the ultimate contrast of Buddhism.

First though, here are some teachings as a base to this idea.

Saṃsāra and Nirvana

Saṃsāra literally means “continuous movement” and is commonly translated as “cyclic existence” or “cycle of existence”. In Buddhism, Saṃsāra refers to the continual repetitive cycle of birth and death that is created by our fixating on the self and experiences, specifically, the process of cycling through rebirth after rebirth within the six realms of existence. In the Buddhist view, one can only be liberated from Saṃsāra through Nirvana. Continue reading →

Life Is But A Dream

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SacredScribe  December 18 2013

“In every moment we are absolutely perfect because our true nature is indestructible. Our true nature cannot be conditioned by anything.” – Anam Thubten

Sometimes it can be really challenging for the mind to grasp that this life we are living is just a dream.

It tends to cling onto it so desperately, so seriously, so fearfully, and yet, as Anam Thubten writes, ‘our true nature cannot be conditioned by anything.’

Have you ever looked at photos of the earth taken from space?

I’m always instantly reminded of the indestructible perfection of Existence itself, unconditioned…pure…and stunningly beautiful.

When we can view our life from this perspective where we are able to back up far enough to be able to witness the absolute glory of non-interference, total ‘is-ness,’ and staggering symmetry, we begin to see how our projections and beliefs condition our experience of everything.

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Encountering Our Firewalls

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Myss Daily Practice

BuddhaThe other day I spoke with a woman who told me that she was concerned that she was doing something wrong on her spiritual path. She came to this conclusion because she remained confused about what she should do with her life, and that confusion continually added to her emotional and mental stress. Surely, she surmised, she must have taken a wrong turn somewhere along her spiritual path, otherwise she would not be in such a crisis. Right?

Earlier I had spoken with a man after a lecture who reported that he, like this woman, had obviously lost his way on his spiritual journey. He said that he began “dabbling” in spirituality a few years ago after his divorce. Finding himself in an emotionally vulnerable situation – aka: he was alone for the first time in years – he believed that spirituality was his way through loneliness. But in spite of all the books on spirituality that he had read and all the workshops he had attended, he declared with a bit of anger that he was still lonely. So, what was he doing wrong? Was he reading the wrong books? Was he going to the wrong workshops? What’s with this spiritual stuff and why isn’t it working, he wondered.

I could provide any number of additional examples of stories from people whose life situations reflect more or less the same confusion about their spiritual path: I’m still unhappy/confused/angry/broke/etc., so did I take a wrong turn on my spiritual path? Most of the stories have a few points in common. First, people assume that something is going wrong “in the heavens” so far as they are concerned because the problems that they want solved or dissolved just won’t go away. Do they need different prayers? Or maybe more candles would help?

Sometimes people begin to despair that they’ve been duped; that is, the problem solving solutions, chants, and mantras they invested in are just not working – or at least not as effectively as they had counted on. One young man actually said, “You know, maybe I should have tried Buddhism. I like that idea about seeing life as a bunch of nothing, ya know? Cuz that makes sense to me.” I thought, “I could see how you and nothingness would get along just fine.”

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