Taking Refuge in Samsara

It's what happens with almost every choice.

" Please grant me blessings to realize there is no satisfaction in enjoying samsaric pleasures, and that their shortcoming is, they cannot be trusted; may I strive intently for the bliss of liberation. Bless me to cultivate this wish." - from A Short Meditation on the Graduated Path to Enlightenment, from Katleen McDonald's book, How To Meditate.

This is one of the four thoughts that turn the mind to dharma: samsara. Just what is samsara though? Samsara literally means cycles of existence, and it refers to the imprisonment in the cycle of rebirth because one is imprisoned by the three unwholesome roots of ignorance of one's true nature, desires or passions, and hatred. I have heard them as ignorance, passion and anger. A great way to remember them is by IPA, which is also an acronym for a currently popular beer style, India Pale Ale. Both samsara and nirvana are in the mind. So samsaric pleasures are those that we pursue because we want the feeling it gives us.

But this is far more than hedonism. This is about trusting. We trust in pleasures, be they physical or emotional, because we believe that we will get something out of it. It is our source of security. If we feel safe, we believe we are. If we feel happy, we believe we have joy. Yet in the state of samsara, those pleasure do little more than add negative karma because they don't eliminate the three negative roots, they reinforce them.

And that's what struck me the other day as I was reciting this verse while driving. We trust our samsaric pleasures because we expect something in return. We drink alcohol because we expect the buzz. It happens. Somewhere though we cross the line, and oops! The result turns into a hangover after the buzz. The question is, why did we want the buzz? What was ity signifying to us? A reward? Relaxation from emotional stress? The gloat of ego because it's a $50 bottle and we can afford it or have the discimination to taste it's subtleties? All of those are samsaric choices, and so it goes for all the choices we make.

Until we learn to make better choices that are for our benefit. Let me give you an example. The other day I was talking with a local colleague, and we were discussing the candidates for a local political office. One was a merchant in our town, and as we talked I expressed the opinion that I didn't feel this person would be a viable candidate. Rumors of the negative sort swirl around that person, and I wished their business well, but thought they should make the business a solid go before jumping into the political arena. My colleague on the other hand wished that person's business to fail. My colleague made the choice to state the words based on his feelings about this person. It gave him some sort of glee, or hope that this person they disliked would fail, and that would make them happy. Sometimes we judge ourselves better by the failures of others. But are we? However, the point is that all sorts of little pleasures occur in this line of thinking, and the Buddha's teachings are that we as practitioners wish for every one to achieve happiness.

Not for their demise, and not for us to elevate our ego's because we can now deem the other person a failure. Everyone around us are trying to be happy. They too are stuck in samsara, and are reaping the results of karma, and so may not know what circumstances they are actually in (ignorance). As we practitioners continue to study the dharma, we learn how to become aware of the ignorance and the remedy for it. And that applies to the passions and hatred/anger as well. We learn to deal with the habituations we develop in our minds and our thinking patterns.

What happens along the way is what closes out this little saying. We experience the bliss of liberation from the samsaric cycle. The bliss that cannot be altered, because bliss is part of the natural state we all have that we have buried, that we exchange for the momentary false hopes of samsara and pleasures that can't be trusted. We can enjoy them, as it taught, but we misplace our trust then. A better choice is to place our trust in what is unchangeable, which cannot be taken away.

It is a wish to cultivate. Not just a wish, but something we work on, be aware of. It is not unlike cultivating soil to grow plants. If we start becoming aware of the choices we make and why, we have begun that process. To cultivate means we need to turn the soil, and eliminate weeds, and plant seeds. Then water may need to be addeed, or compost, and weeds removed on a regualr basis. These are the actions of discipline, of studying, reflecting, meditating. Aside from the meditating, windshield time is a great time for practicing. My commute is usually about 10 miles. And I still get a lot of practicing in. All through the day I can cultivate, and lately I have returned to the habit of reading dharma before I go to sleep. Then I get up, and every morning I recite the very verse I opend this post with. And it's having effects of the choices I make.

So what would you like to trust? A temporary buzz, or permanent bliss?