Part 2b - The suffering of wandering in samsara because of ego-grasping

Now because there is such grasping and fixation, as we wander here in samsara, as if in a dream, as for telling the details of how we are sinking in the river of suffering:

E ma!
From the limits of cyclic existence, so difficult to discern,
So painful is the weariness of the path of samsara
That anyone born there has no happiness at all.

This unbearable fruition is produced by unvirtuous actions.
It is dreamlike self-projection wrongly understood,
The natures experienced by individuals of the six realms
Are confused appearances of what does not exist.
Therefore they give rise to measureless sufferings.
Listen while I summarize what has been taught about them.

The Scripture on Discernment (lung rnam a’byed, vinaya-vibhanga) says:

As if in a filthy swamp of foul and disgusting stench
Beings of the six realms possess no happiness.
As if in a blazing pit where it is never cool
Those within samsara never have any joy.

In that way beings transmigrate from the desire realm to the realm of form. From the realms of form and the formless, they transmigrate into existence in the realm of desire. From the realm of the formless, they transmigrate to the realm of form. In those three realms and wherever samsaric beings are born within the six realms of beings, there is only suffering, and they have no chance of happiness. For a little while, as explained in the scriptures of the objects of mindfulness etc., they may remember how those who have realization urge them to put aside the mind of joy in samsara and practice the Dharma of liberation. If they do not make an effort to do this, generally they continue to wander in samsara.

The Letter to a Student says:

Whoever dwells in the ever-changing round of samsara,
Happily thinking that this is just a residence,
Will certainly willy-nilly, many hundreds of times,
Wander everywhere with like and dissimilar beings.