Part 5: Reflections on saṃsāra

One day, as he, who knew what should be done and what should not be done, was meditating on the worth and worthlessness of existence, the inclination toward disgust with existence appeared.

“Saṃsāra is like a boundless ocean, terrifying from the pain of the fall into the whirl-pool of the lacs of birth-nuclei.^[1] Out upon it! Oh! Oh! in this existence people are deluded by objects seen for a moment, destroyed in a moment like magic, like dream-illusion. Youth is unsteady like the end of a flag stirred by the wind. Life is uncertain like a drop of water resting on the tip of kuśa-grass. Of that life the months spent in the womb-resembling a house in hell pass like a palyopama^[2] because of excessive pain. When a man is born, how large a part of his life passes in childhood when he is as dependent as if he were stupid and blind! How great a portion of life passes in youth as vainly as if he were intoxicated because be sips the strong liquor of love for the objects, of the senses? In old age, when a man’s body is without power to acquire the three objects of existence, the rest of his life passes in vain, as if he were asleep. Even when he knows this, a man struggles for existence alone, eager for the enjoyment of sense-objects, like a sick man struggling voluntarily for disease. If a man would strive for salvation, as he strives for Sense-objects in youth, what then would be lacking?

A man, alas! surrounds himself by self-made snares of karma, like a spider with webs made from its own saliva.^[3] In existence a human birth is attained with difficulty as a result of merit, like the entrance of the yoke-pin into the yoke in the ocean.^[4] In it also the birth of a man in the Ārya-countries is gained, and the attainment of a high family, and the attendance in a teacher’s house for study. Whoever has acquired all this and does not strive for emancipation remains hungry when a meal is prepared. Both high and low conditions of existence being at their disposal here, generally foolish people seek a low level, like water. Carrying the thought, ‘At the right time I shall promote the welfare of my soul,’ a man is reached by the messengers of Yama who come to meet him like robbers in a forest. Though he has avoided sin, a man is overpowered and led away by Death, even while those whom he would cherish look on, like a poor man without protection. Then, led to hell, he experiences endless pain. Men’s karma follows them into another birth, like a debt.

One’s own idea, ‘She is my mother; he is my father; he is my brother;he is my son,’ is wrong. Not even the body is one’s own. There is nothing but a halt in one place of those who have come here from different places, like that of birds in a tree. Then people go elsewhere to different places, like travelers who have slept in one place at night departing at dawn. Who, pray, is a relative and who an enemy of people coming and going in this world like buckets on a water-wheel? Therefore, the household must be abandoned. It must be abandoned first, and one must strive only for the soul’s welfare. For destruction of the soul’s welfare is folly. Spiritual welfare, characterized by emancipation, shining with the mūla- and uttara-guṇas^[5] like the sun’s rays, gives pure, endless happiness.”

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

There are 84 lacs of species of birth-nuclei. Pravac. 968 ff., p. 287 f.

[2]:

See I, n. 50.

[3]:

The spider does not spin its web from saliva, but from a secretion from abdominal glands.

[4]:

I have not found any parallel for this rather unusual simile, but the yoke-pin seems to represent the soul.

[5]:

See I, n. 19.