SAMSARIC CYCLE – HUMAN EXISTENCE

Thich Nu Tinh Quang
 

         Buddhism is a religious and philosophical doctrine; however, Buddhism doesn't fit neatly into either category of religion or philosophy. When people asked Buddha what he was teaching, he said he teaches "the way things are." He said, do not believe his teachings by your faith, but instead you should examine for yourself to see if they are true or not.

         As Buddha Shakyamuni claimed, his teaching is a way to self-improvement and self-knowledge. Also Buddhism is a religion in which almost nothing is said about the existence of a higher intelligence — God/Brahmā, as well as the existence of an immortal human soul. The paragraph of Tevijja suttra following was the dialogue between the Buddha and Brahman Vasettha:

   ‘…Well then, Vaseṭṭha, what about the early sages of those Brahmins learned in the Three Vedas, the makers of the mantras, the expounders of the mantras, whose ancient verses are chanted, pronounced and collected by the Brahmins of today, and sung and spoken about — such as Atthaka, Vāmaka, Vāmadeva, Vessāmitta, Yamataggi, Angirasa, Bhāradvāja, Vāsettha, Kassapa, Bhagu  did they ever say: “We know and see when, how and where Brahmā appears”?’ ‘No, Reverend Gotama.’

         ‘So, Vāseṭṭha, not one of these Brahmins learned in the Three Vedas has seen Brahmā face to face, nor has one of their teachers, or teacher’s teachers, nor even the ancestor seven generations back of one of their teachers. Nor could any of the early sages say: “We know and see when, how and where Brahmā appears.” So what these Brahmins learned in the Three Vedas are saying is: “We teach this path to union with Brahmā that we do not know or see, this is the only straight path...leading to union with Brahmā.” What do you think, Vāseṭṭha? Such being the case, does not what these Brahmins declare turn out to be ill-founded?’ ‘Yes indeed, Reverend Gotama.’

            ‘Well, Vāseṭṭha, when these Brahmins learned in the Three Vedas teach a path that they do not know or see, saying: “This is the only straight path ...”, this cannot possibly be right. Just as a file of blind men go on, clinging to each other, and the first one sees nothing, the middle one sees nothing, and the last one sees nothing,  so it is with the talk of these Brahmins learned in the Three Vedas: the first one sees nothing, the middle one sees nothing, the last one sees nothing. The talk of these Brahmins learned in the Three Vedas turns out to be laughable, mere words, empty and vain.

            ‘Then, Vāseṭṭha, it is like this: not one of these Brahmins ... has seen Brahmā face to face, nor has one of their teachers ...’ ‘Yes indeed, Reverend Gotama.’

            ‘That is right, Vāseṭṭha. When these Brahmins learned in the Three Vedas teach a path that they do not know and see, this cannot possibly be right…”[1] Thus through this teaching, the Buddha wanted to remind Buddhists having a clearly attitude about the vision of the meaning of life in present to which they need to follow.

However, in Buddhist theory, the human existence is filled with suffering. Suffering is a consequence of the emergence of human desires. According to the opinion of majority of Buddhists, it is freedom from suffering which is a sense of human existence. The Assu Sutta of Pali Canon provides a great explanation of our existence in Saṃsāra: "From an inconstruable (sic) beginning come transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. What do you think, monks: Which is greater, the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time - crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing - or the water in the four great oceans?

"As we understand the Dhamma taught to us by the Blessed One, this is the greater: the tears we have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time - crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing -not the water in the four great oceans.

"Excellent, monks, Excellent. It is excellent that you thus understand the Dhamma taught by me.

"This is the greater: the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — not the water in the four great oceans.

"Long have you (repeatedly) experienced the death of a mother? The tears you have shed over the death of a mother while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — are greater than the water in the four great oceans.

"Long have you (repeatedly) experienced the death of a father... the death of a brother... the death of a sister... the death of a son... the death of a daughter... loss with regard to relatives... loss with regard to wealth... loss with regard to disease. The tears you have shed over loss with regard to disease while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing - are greater than the water in the four great oceans. "Why is that? From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. Long have you thus experienced stress, experienced pain, experienced loss, swelling the cemeteries — enough to become disenchanted with all fabricated things, enough to become dispassionate, enough to be released."[2] 

According  the teachings above, we can see that samsara means suffering - the endless suffering, and unlimited wandering that Buddhism is keep on rubbing up and down in circles of the six realms: Gods (devas), human (manusya), demi-gods (asuras), hell (naraka), ghosts (petas) and animals (tiryag). And the Buddha was the first to capture the confidence of reincarnation and figure out how to end it. He taught that the only way to end our suffering journey of rebirth is enlightenment. The only one who can stop the samsara cycles of suffering is the person who was crossing his path, and deeply understood his pains.

The basis of the Buddha’s teaching concerning human existence and methods to get rid of being sufferings from samsara can be found in the first Dharma which is called the Four Noble Truths. “The Four Noble Truths (‘catvāri āryasatyāni’ from Sanskrit) represent formulations fully comparable to the formulations of a doctor who diagnoses a patient and prescribes him or her treatment.”[3] This metaphor is not accidental because the Buddha actually saw himself as a doctor of living beings - called to heal them from the suffering of samsara and prescribe treatment and leading to recovery, which is nirvana.

And indeed, the first truth ('The Noble Truth of Suffering') is a statement of the disease and suffering; the second truth ('The Noble Truth of the cause of suffering') indicates the cause of the disease (what in modern medicine is referred to as the etiology and pathogenesis); the third truth ('The Noble Truth of the cessation of suffering') is a forecast  indication of the possibility of healing; and, finally, the fourth truth (The Noble Truth of the Way)  is a course of treatment prescribed to a patient. Thus, from beginning of its existence, Buddhism was conceived as a kind of project of a conversion from being a suffering and ontologically unfortunate person to being free and perfect creature.

Let us consider the Four Noble Truths in detail. So what is the Noble truth of Suffering, and what is suffering (dukkha) in context of Buddhism? According to Francis Story, the Buddha himself formulated the First Noble Truth in a following way: “What, Bhikkhus, is the Noble Truth of Suffering? Birth is suffering; decay is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering. To be separated from the pleasant is suffering; to be in contact with the unpleasant is also suffering. In short, the five aggregates of Existence connected with attachment are all suffering”[4] (What are those ‘five aggregates’ (pañcaskandhī) will be discussed later in this chapter).

Buddhism, in a much greater extent and vision than other religions, emphasizes the connection of life with suffering. Moreover; in Buddhism, suffering is a fundamental characteristic of being as such. This suffering is not the result of a fall into sin and the loss of the original paradise. Like being itself, suffering invariably accompanies every manifestation of life. Of course, the Buddhists did not deny the fact that in life there are good moments, associated with pleasure, but by itself this pleasure (sukha) is not the opposite of suffering, but is included in suffering, being its aspect.

The point is no mundane states of mind that has the ability to completely satisfy for us. We are in constant dissatisfaction, a constant frustration. We can experience a strong physical or even spiritual (for instance, aesthetic) pleasure and we can even cry out: Stop a moment! But the moment does not stop, the pleasure ends, and we suffer because it ended and we seek to re-experience it, but in vain, and we suffer even more. Or, on the contrary: we are committed to something as perhaps devoting our entire life to this. And now we have reached the goal, but we comprehend a bitter disappointment: the fruit was not as sweet as we imagined, and life loses its meaning, because the goal is achieved, and there is nothing more to seek for. And finally, all of us are waiting for death, which makes all of our fun and enjoyment finite and transient.

In other words, suffering is born from the desire, and the endless desire comes from misconceptions about ‘me’ while going for it that we cannot define clear about how it is.

In “Dukkha, The Fear of Life”, Peter Duggan has written about sufferings he clearly recognized as following:

“The Buddha called it Dukkha

That deep presiding feeling
That when you take a real, good look
Its truth you’ll be revealing
John Sherman calls it ‘Fear of Life’
But the words they mean the same
There’s an angst that lives in all of us
It’s part of the human game

So everyone is running

They just don’t want to know
They’ll search for any pleasure
They’re seeking that warm glow
That hides behind the minds dull din
Though few folk - see it there
Till they discover one fine day
That joy is everywhere
They’ll go and watch the races
Get involved in some grand sport

Get drunk or go and take some drug 

To anything they’ll resort

 They’ll laugh a lot; pretend they’re happy

 Yet look into their eyes

Then you’ll know they’re playing games

Not many folk are wise 

Within us lies the answer 

It’s always there to see

There’s just one thing that one can do

Look in and find the ‘me’

As we question each new day 

Who is it that is real? 

Then the joy will bubble up 

So wonderful you’ll feel”

Furthermore, not only do we suffer (in the sense of active tormenting), but we always find ourselves in a situation of a passive enduring. It seems that man himself is an architect of his own happiness, but in reality being enmeshed in a tangle of cause and effect relationships and connections; he is not really forges, but he is himself being under the hammer of causality on the anvil of effects.

Speaking of suffering, Buddhism is not limited by human destiny; animals also suffer. Everywhere in nature, the life of one species is dependent on another species, everywhere the life of one being is bought at the cost of another, and everywhere reigns struggle for survival. Sufferings of the inhabitants of the hells are untold, and prets (hungry ghosts) are suffering from never satisfied drives. Even deities (Vedic Brahma, Indra, Varuna and other gods) also suffer. They have to fight with the demons, Asuras, and they are guided by the fear of death because they also are born and die even though their life span is huge. In short, “there is no form of life, which would not be a subject of suffering. Suffering is absolute, and pleasure is relative.”[5]

Sometimes we lost what we concern, we are separated from those we love, and our bodies change as we are old, we feel helpless or vulnerable, or our life just seems unfortunate. These are all aspects of suffering - one of the main teachings of the Buddha. Dukkha is suffering, discontent, dissatisfaction, changing...

Dukkha mentions experience sometimes it is conscious, sometimes not consciously-depth fact that everything is impermanent, ungraspable, and not really knowable. On some level, we all understand this. All the things we have, we know we do not really have. All that we see, then we are completely invisible. This is the nature of things, but we think the opposite. We think that we can know, and have our lives our love, our identity, and even our property even though we cannot. The gap between reality and the basic approach to the life of man is suffering - an experience of fundamental anxiety or frustration.

According to Buddha’s teaching, we live are trapped in the cycle of reincarnation exists. In the cycle, we wander aimlessly and experience unbearable suffering-day and night, year after year, life after life, because we are grasping the desires to be the self. To heal this sick state of mind, first we have to find the cause of it, and then we apply the methods to cultivate body and mind to restore the original health which is enlightenment. Here is a statement of the disease; here is the diagnosis of a Buddhist physician. But what is the cause of the disease?

-------------------------------

[1] DN13 Tevijja Sutta: The Threefold Knowledge /the Way to Brahma, translated by T. W. Rhys Davids.

[2] SN.Assu Sutta: Tears/translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[3] The Four Noble Truths By Bhikkhu Bodhi

[4] Francis Story, ‘The Foundations of Buddhist Philosophy’

[5] The Four Noble Truths - By Bhikkhu Bodhi