[CevepBiageCefm]

Hi londonabroad,

Could you put some spacing in #16 please, I get visual migraine with large blocks of computer text.

You also need to give a link to the Wikipedia page that you've referenced.

From "Handbook for Mankind" by Buddhadasa Bhikku:



Getting and being represent a form of desire, namely the desire not to let the thing that one is in the process of getting or being disappear or slip away. Suffering arises from desire to have and desire to be, in short, from desire; and desire arises from failure to realize that all things are inherently undesirable.

The false idea that things are desirable is present as an instinct right from babyhood and is the cause of desire. Consequent on the desire there come about results of one sort or another, which may or may not accord with the desire. If the desired result is obtained, there will arise a still greater desire. If the desired result is not obtained, there is bound to follow a struggling and striving until one way or another it is obtained.

Keeping this up results in the vicious circle: action (karma), result, action, result, which is known as the Wheel of Samsara. Now this word samsara is not to be taken as referring to an endless cycle of one physical existence after another. In point of fact it refers to a vicious circle of three events: desire; action in keeping with the desire; effect resulting from that action; inability to stop desiring, having to desire once more; action; once again another effect; further augmenting of desire ... and so on endlessly.

Buddha called this the "Wheel" of samsara because it is endless cycling on, a rolling on. It is because of this very circle that we are obliged to endure suffering and torment. To succeed in breaking loose from this vicious circle is to attain freedom from all forms of suffering, in other words Nirvana.

http://www.buddhanet.net/budasa6.htm As I've said before many times, there's no need for me to speculate about after death and take a position about rebirth because its totally irrelevant to my life and practice here and now.

From "Now is the Knowing" by Ajahn Sumedho:

The realization of samsara is the condition of Nibbana. As we recognize the cycles of habit and are no longer deluded by them or their qualities, we realize Nibbana.

The Buddha-knowing is of just two things: the conditioned and the unconditioned. It is an immediate recognition of how things are right now, without grasping or attachment.

At this moment we can be aware of the conditions of the mind, feelings in the body, what we’re seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling and thinking, and also of the emptiness of the mind. The conditioned and the unconditioned are what we can realize.

So the Buddha’s teaching is a very direct teaching. Our practice is not ‘to become enlightened’, but to be in the knowing, now.

http://www.buddhanet.net/nowknow2.htm