We’ve died [countless] deaths and still don’t know why: Buddhist Abhidhamma explained
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| Ocean of Saṃsāra (Bhavacakra) |
[Samsara also has no foreseeable end, like a carousel. Like a whirlpool in the ocean, it will not stop, but it is possible to escape get off.]
Drawing from powerful Buddhist sutras like the Anamatagga Samyutta and deep insights from the Abhidhamma (the "Doctrine in Ultimate Terms" or "Higher Teaching"), let's reveal the hidden causes of our suffering and why we keep returning again and again.
🧘♂️ LEARN:
- What is Samsara and why does it feel endless?
- How our past lives shape our present life
- How to escape the cycle according to the Buddha.
We are on infinite repeat (Groundhog Day)
SUTRA: All the Foliage in a Forest
(Linked Discourses 15.1, Chapter One, "Grass and Sticks")
Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī within Jeta’s Grove, in millionaire’s monastery. There he addressed the meditators, “Meditators!”
“Venerable sir,” they replied.
Then the Buddha told them, “Meditators, this Samsara (Cycle of Rebirth) has no discernible beginning. No first point is to be found of sentient beings wandering and being reborn, clouded by [the smoke of] ignorance and fettered [and being burned] by craving.
“Suppose a person were to strip all the grass, sticks, branches, and leaves in the Black Plum Tree Land, gather them together into a single pile, chop them into pieces, and lay them down, saying:
“‘This is my mother, this is my grandmother...’ The grass, sticks, branches, and leaves of the Black Plum Tree Land would run out before that person’s mothers and grandmothers were all counted. Why? Samsara has no discernible beginning. No first point is to be found of sentient beings wandering and being reborn, clouded by ignorance and fettered by craving.
“For a long time have we all undergone disaster, disappointment, and agony, swelling the cemeteries. It has been more than long enough for one to become disillusioned, dispassionate, and freed from all conditions.”
🙏 The Buddha realized the endlessness of Samsara through his fully awakened wisdom on the night of his great enlightenment (maha bodhi). With the divine eye (dibba cakkhu) he developed, he gained the recollection of countless past lives, his own and others'.
He saw beings being born and dying over vast aeons (kalpas), across uncountable realms (on 31 Planes of Existence, which are divided into three spheres), with no discernible beginning point to the impersonal, impermanent, and impossible-to-satisfy cycle.
The Buddha taught in the Anamatagga Samyuththa, “The beginning of this continued wandering on is not to be discovered.”
This is stated not based on faith but direct knowledge. Samsara is endless because each life is caused by previous karma (deeds), which are willed and carried out due to ignorance and craving and aversion. These in turn arise from previous conditions, in a chain of 12 causal links beginning with ignorance.
Thus, the Buddha clearly saw that there was no ultimate creator, no first cause [or prime mover], only a wheel of conditional existence turning without beginning. More
ABOUT: 💡 From emotional stories and ancient wisdom to rare teachings of the Buddha, this is a journey through time, karma, and consciousness. Whether one is new to Buddhism or a deep practitioner, this video changes how we see our lives.
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- Buddhist Audio books, May 17, 2025; Dhr. Seven (trans. based on Ven. Sujato, suttacentral.net), Wisdom Quarterly
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