Samsara

Samsara literally means "wandering-on." ...“the ever turning wheel of life”

Many people think of it as the Buddhist name for the place where we currently live — the place we leave when we go to nibbana.

Nibbana names the transcendent and singularly ineffable freedom that stands as the final goal of all the Buddha's teachings.

"This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications, the relinquishment of all acquisitions, the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Nibbana."

But in the early Buddhist texts, it's the answer, not to the question, 

"Where are we?" but to the question, "What are we doing?" 

Instead of a place, it's a process:

the tendency to keep creating worlds and then moving into them. 

As one world falls apart, you create another one and go there. At the same time, you bump into other people who are creating their own worlds, too.

The play and creativity in the process can sometimes be enjoyable. In fact, it would be perfectly innocuous if it didn't entail so much suffering. 

The worlds we create keep caving in and killing us.

Moving into a new world requires effort: 

not only the pains and risks of taking birth, but also the hard knocks — mental and physical — that come from going through childhood into adulthood, over and over again. 

The Buddha once asked his monks, 

"Which do you think is greater: the water in the oceans or the tears you've shed while wandering on?" 

His answer: 

the tears. 

Think of that the next time you gaze at the ocean or play in its waves.

In addition to creating suffering for ourselves, the worlds we create feed off the worlds of others, just as theirs feed off ours. In some cases the feeding may be mutually enjoyable and beneficial, but even then the arrangement has to come to an end. 

More typically, it causes harm to at least one side of the relationship, often to both. When you think of all the suffering that goes into keeping just one person clothed, fed, sheltered, and healthy — the suffering both for those who have to pay for these requisites, as well as those who have to labor or die in their production — you see how exploitative even the most rudimentary process of world-building can be.

This is why the Buddha tried to find the way to stop samsara-ing. 

Once he had found it, he encouraged others to follow it, too. Because samsara-ing is something that each of us does, each of us has to stop it him or her self alone. If samsara were a place, it might seem selfish for one person to look for an escape, leaving others behind. 

But when you realize that it's a process, there's nothing selfish about stopping it at all. It's like giving up an addiction or an abusive habit. 

When you learn the skills needed to stop creating your own worlds of suffering, you can share those skills with others so that they can stop creating theirs. At the same time, you'll never have to feed off the worlds of others, so to that extent you're lightening their load as well.

It's true that the Buddha likened the practice for stopping samsara to the act of going from one place to another: from this side of a river to the further shore. But the passages where he makes this comparison often end with a paradox: the further shore has no "here," no "there," no "in between." 

From that perspective, it's obvious that samsara's parameters of space and time were not the pre-existing context in which we wandered. 

They were the result of our wandering.

For someone addicted to world-building, the lack of familiar parameters sounds unsettling. But if you're tired of creating incessant, unnecessary suffering, you might want to give it a try.

After all, you could always resume building if the lack of "here" or "there" turned out to be dull. 

But of those who have learned how to break the habit, no one has ever felt tempted to samsara again. [source]

Samsara (2001)

A spiritual love-story set in the majestic landscape of Ladakh, Himalayas. Samsara is a quest; one man's struggle to find spiritual Enlightenment by renouncing the world. And one woman's struggle to keep her enlightened love and life in the world. But their destiny turns, twists and comes to a surprise ending.

Tashi has been raised as a Buddhist monk since age five. 

When he gets erotic phantasms as an adolescent, his spiritual master decides it's time to taste profane life, sending him on a journey in the real Himalayan world. 

Once he is told his hottest dream was real, Tashi decides to leave the monastery and marries Pema, the daughter of a rich farmer, who was actually engaged with local stone-mason Jamayang. 

The ex-lama soon becomes a rich land-owner himself, and makes a killing from his harvest by bringing it to the city instead of selling at half price to the local merchant Dewa, but half of his next harvest perishes in a fire, yet he comes trough and raises a bright son, Karma. 

After committing infidelity, contemplated for years, and as he later hears from the promiscuous Indian labourer girl, Tashi reconsiders his life..

The raw passion that Tashi's character exudes throughout the movie and the tenderness that is Pema's character moved me.

The ending was one of the best I've seen in a long time....it very interesting and meaningful. 

You are left with the understanding that Tashi really did reverse the Buddha path. 

Buddha was the one normal human being before he realize the need to discover what life is all about, what he discovered was suffering in living one life.

He tried to find the ways to reconcile with all the suffering, not by avoiding the realization that there is going to be suffering and and he must face it in the truest and noble way.

Every human has the feeling of sexual awakening at one point of time, what Tashi did was that he quit the monk-hood, partly because the guiltiness of having such feeling but at the same time desire to discovered the reality for himself. 

He entered into the life and began to discover with all the truth in the world, full with desire, anger, jealously, deception etc... but at the same time he discover love, caring, warmth, and happiness. 

As with all religions, there is a creation of guilt and shame, and through this guilt Tashi tries to avoid all his desires.....which he fails at throughout the movie.  

Enlightenment does not mean that you have to quit all the normal life and being alone in the temple to cut all the desires. 

Enlightenment is acknowledging your lower self, and becoming aware of your higher self.

Buddhism has its origins in Hinduism itself as it is believed that Buddha is a reincarnation of lord Vishnu The Preserver, one of the three main Hindu gods. 

But through the centuries Buddhism slowly developed as an independent religion. 

"Samsara" (the Hindu concept of reincarnation) asks some philosophic questions in a very earthly  respect, so to speak. 

I can relate so much to the ideals of Buddhism; the detachment from earthly life in order to reach enlightenment, the conquering of ourselves, which includes our ego, all of our earthly desires.... are ideals that both you and I will face throughout our lives. 

The middle way is the right way to follow, but how can this way be found? 

Is it through experiencing the earthly life, then renouncing it and then devoting oneself to the life a monk, choosing the spiritual life in search of the almighty truth and the great soul? 

This was the way Buddha has chosen - being a prince himself, having a family, and then renouncing it and devoting himself to the life of a recluse, but of a recluse who has reached the enlightenment and a recluse willing to share the truth with the others.

Everyone chooses one's own path. 

Tashi like myself, and perhaps you, as you're reading this, is a person who asks themselves the questions and like Tashi; is a person who searches for their own right way. 

No matter which way you choose, there will always be anguish.....maybe it is because of the eternal question unanswered...what to choose, or which to choose ....no matter what we choose we will always doubt from time to time that maybe we should have chosen the opposite.

I've always said, "change is good"....but this movie lends two and a half hours for the viewer to decide if changes are for good or evil.

Samsara (2011)

Now here is something special.....prepare yourself for an unparalleled sensory experience. 

Originally shot in 25 countries on six continents, director Ron Fricke calls "a guided mediation on humanity." 

It was a shoot of unprecedented technical, logistical and bureaucratic scope that would take 30 months to complete, including 14 months on location, with a custom-built computerized 65mm camera.

"The goal of the film was to reach past language. nationality, religion and politics and speak to the inner viewer."  — Mark Magidson, Producer

You join in as they search for the elusive current of interconnection that runs through our lives. 

Filmed over a period of almost five years and in twenty-five countries, Samsara transports us to sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial sites, and natural wonders.

What is great about this movie is that there is no dialog to create a perception, instead you the viewer, are encouraged to make your own interpretations by will be inspired by images and music that infuses the ancient with the modern, as you explore the wonders of our world from the mundane to the miraculous, looking into the unfathomable reaches of man’s spirituality and the human experience. 

Samsara illuminates the links between humanity and the rest of nature, showing how our life cycle mirrors the rhythm of the planet, a must see!

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