Disenchantment with Samsara (rebirth)

Ven. Soma Thera (accesstoinsight.org, 2005), Words Leading to Disenchantment and Samsara edited by Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Why would anyone want to become disenchanted with rebirth? The way to freedom and release is letting go, but we (the heart/mind) will not let go until we clearly see how samsara is disappointing, unfulfilling, painful, and futile.

To see its true nature is to become disillusioned, disenchanted, which enables us to finally let go and be free -- to experience the bliss of enlightenment, nirvana, awakening into total freedom.

It is for this reason that one would well want to hear words leading to disenchantment, seeing things as they really are. Far from depressing, it is wonderful, awe-inspiring, and blissful. The Truth is beautiful. It is the illusion that is miserable.

Words Leading to Disenchantment

"Truly it will be not long before this body lies in the earth, bereft of consciousness, like a useless piece of wood, which is thrown away."

Usually, uninstructed worldly-minded people avoid thinking of death and do not like any pointed reference made to it by others. Such unreflecting, uninstructed people often shut their minds deliberately to the fact that death is waiting for us.

They also usually reject the possibility of a future life. Occupying themselves only with things of this life, they immerse themselves in the ephemeral joys of the five strands of sense desire. To make such people think seriously about what is perhaps the most decisive event in life, they have to reckon with an event that will determine their future lives in no uncertain way — the Buddha said:

"Every householder and everyone who has gone forth [as a monastic] should constantly reflect, 'I am subject to death.'"

The uninstructed worldly-minded person sees others dying all around but through intoxication with the pride of life, we act as if we were immortal.

We see the victims of disease all around, but due to intoxication with the pride of health, we act as if we were immune from sickness.

Enjoying the first flush of life, our springtime, we see many an old person in the last stages of decrepitude. But owing to our pride of youth, becoming intoxicated with it, we act as if we might never grow old.

And we see many people losing their wealth and becoming destitute suddenly, but through being intoxicated with the pride of power or position in life, we do not pity them, do not sympathize with them, and do not think that we too might be overtaken by similar misfortunes.

So intoxicated by these and many other intoxicants, we behave like some person beside himself, heedless to right and wrong, the skillful and unskillful (the karmicaly lprofitable and costly), heedless of this world and the world(s) to come, enjoying fleeting pleasures, like a crab in a cooking pot while the water is heating up before it has gotten deadly hot.

Even in our dreams we do not suspect that harm/misfortune might befall us, but when we actually do suspect, we lose control of ourselves, weep, and bewail our lot.

Recollection and reflection on death, if rightly practiced by a person, opens our eyes to the individual essence of every form of being (becoming), its true nature, and removes the poison of pride, which makes us heedless.

We see things according to the words of the Buddha: "Uncertain is life, certain is death; it is necessary that I should die; at the close of my life, there is death. Life is indeed unsure, but death is sure. Death is sure."

One who thinks often of death becomes ardent in the fulfillment of one's duties. Therefore, it is said, "The meditator who is given to the practice of contemplating death becomes diligent."

Visnusarman says, "In the wise [person] who thinks again and again of death, the terrible penalty, all activity becomes lax like leather bindings soaked with rain." Elsewhere Ven. Soma Thera translated this verse as:

In him who ever and again

Reflects on death's hard hand of pain

The drive for gross material gain

Grows limp like hide soaked through with rain.

So in those who seek immortality, all kinds of endeavor and exertion to acquire worldly power and possessions become slack through the perception of death. But they do all that has to be done for attaining the deathless state (nirvana).

In the teaching of the Buddha the contemplation on death is intended to turn the mind away from the accumulation of mundane power and treasure and to increase the energy of the aspirant for highest freedom.

Even at the moment of death one has to do one's duty well. Reflection on death quickens the mind and makes it develop unremitting ardor for the extinction of ill.

Such reflection can never make one negligent of actions leading to freedom from craving. Who thinks often of death thinks thus:

"Now is the time to endeavor to realize the goal. Who knows that Death will not come till tomorrow? What covenant have I with Death and his hosts to keep them at bay?"

Those who frequently entertain the thought of death become convinced of the impermanence of all formations and the futility of emotion in the face of death. Here it is good to remember how the Buddha acted as a bodhisatta and as a Buddha when death assailed him as well as those near and dear to him.

In his bodhisatta days, long before he became the Enlightened One, he developed the mindfulness on death and urged the members of his household, too, to develop it. And when his son died suddenly bitten by a snake while he was working in the field, he did not wail or lament.

He thought that the destructible had been destroyed, and Death had claimed what was his, and reflecting thus he went on working.

Then seeing a neighbor passing by, he sent a message to his wife, which she understood, and she and the rest of the household came to the field, and all of them together made a pyre just in that field and burned the remains of one who was dear to all of them without any one of them shedding a single tear (Jataka III, 164-168).

When the Buddha was told of the passing away of Venerable Sariputta Thera, who was considered the Commander of the Army of Righteousness, the Blessed One said this to Ven. Ananda Thera, who was upset, "Tell me, Ananda, did Sariputta take the aggregate of virtue along with him and become extinct?

"Or did he take the aggregate of concentration along with him and become extinct? Or did he take along with him the aggregate of wisdom and become extinct? Or did he take along with him the aggregate of freedom and become extinct? Or did he take along with him the aggregate of knowledge and insight of freedom and become extinct?"

"No venerable sir."

"Have I not indeed told you before that with all that is dear, pleasing, involved are change, separation, and variation?"

The Buddha shows that it is not possible to stop the breaking up of what is born, produced, and put together, and what has the nature of breaking up, and compares Ven. Sariputta Thera to one of the greater branches of the mighty tree of the community of monastics.

Comparable to the breaking of a big branch of a mighty tree, says the Buddha, is Ven. Sariputta Thera's passing away and no one can stop the breaking of what is breakable by ordering that thing not to break.

The Blessed One taught many people such as the mother Kisa Gotami the nature of death and led them through the gateway of the perception of death to the deathless, by making them follow the path of virtue, concentration, and wisdom (sila, samadhi, pañña) in due order.

That is to say, by making them first establish themselves in virtue, and with virtue as the powerful condition making them bring about concentration, and then with concentration as the powerful condition making them bring in to being wisdom.

The Buddha himself and every one of his disciples, passed through the Seven Purifications, and the Four Stages of Enlightenment to the ending of ill.

What is death?

It is the vanishing, the passing away, the dissolution, the disappearance, the dying commonly called "death," the action of time, the break up of the [five] aggregates, the laying down of the body of a being. Or it is what takes place when vitality, action-produced heat, and consciousness leave the body, and the body is fit to be abandoned as useless for work, activity. 

"This body," says the Buddha, "is abandoned when life, warmth, and consciousness leave it, and this body, which is bereft of sense, becomes the food of others."

Once when the Blessed One was staying at Ayodhya on the Ganges he spoke thus:

"Meditators, if in any manner, this river Ganges were to bring [into being] a great ball of foam, and an intelligent person were to see it, reflect on it, and thoroughly examine it, then, to that person who sees, reflects on, and thoroughly examines it, worthless would that ball of foam appear, empty, and without essence.

"Indeed, meditators, how can there be essence in a ball of foam? In the same way, meditators, a meditator sees, reflects on, and thoroughly examines form of any kind -- past, future, or present, internal or external, coarse or fine, low or high, far or near.

"To the meditator who sees, reflects on, and thoroughly examines it, worthless would form appear, empty and without essence. Indeed, meditators how can there be essence in form?

"If, in any manner, meditators, when, in the heavy rain of autumn a bubble rises in water and passes away, and an intelligent person were to see it, reflect on it, and thoroughly examine it, then, to that person who sees, reflects on, and thoroughly examines it, worthless would that bubble appear, empty and without essence.

"Indeed, meditators, how can there be essence in a bubble? In the same way, meditators, a meditator, sees, reflects on, and thoroughly examines feeling of any kind -- past, future, or present, internal or external, coarse or fine, low or high, far or near.

"To the meditator who sees, reflects on, and thoroughly examines it, worthless would feeling appear, empty and without essence. Indeed, meditators, how can there be essence in feeling?

"If, in any manner, meditators, when a mirage quivers, at midday, in the last month of the hot season, and an intelligent person were to see it, reflect on it, and thoroughly examine it, then, to that person who sees, reflects on, and examines it, worthless would that mirage appear, empty, and without essence.

"Indeed, meditators, how can there be essence in a mirage? In the same way, meditators, a meditator sees, reflects on, and thoroughly examines perception of any kind -- past, future, or present, internal or external, coarse or fine, low or high, far or near.

"To the meditator who sees, reflects on, and thoroughly examines it, worthless would perception appear, empty, and without essence. Indeed, meditators, how can there be essence in perception?

"If, in any manner, meditators, a person who moves about having need of heartwood, in search of, looking for it, were to enter with a sharp axe, a forest, see a giant young banana tree grown faultlessly, cut it at the root, cut off its top, and strip the rind from the stalk, that person by stripping the rind from the stalk, should not come even to sapwood, how to heartwood?

"Were an intelligent person to see it, reflect on it, and thoroughly examine it, then, to that person who sees, reflects on, and thoroughly examines it, worthless would that banana stalk appear, empty, and without essence.

"Indeed, meditators, how can there be essence in a banana stalk? In the same way, meditators, a meditator sees, reflects on, and thoroughly examines formations of any kind -- past, future, or present, internal or external, coarse or fine, low or high, far or near.

"To the meditator who sees, reflects on, and thoroughly examines those, worthless would formations appear, empty, and without essence. Indeed, meditators, how can there be essence in formations?

"If, in any manner, meditators, an illusionist or illusionist's apprentice were to produce an illusion at a junction of four great roads and an intelligent person were to see it, reflect on it, and thoroughly examine it, then, to that person who sees, reflects on, and thoroughly examines it, worthless would that illusion appear, empty, and without essence.

"Indeed, meditators, how can these be essence in an illusion? In the same way, meditators, a meditator sees, reflects on, and thoroughly examines consciousness of any kind -- past, future, or present, internal or external, coarse or fine, low or high, far or near.

"To the meditator who sees, reflects on, and thoroughly examines it, worthless would consciousness appear, empty, and without essence. Indeed, meditators, how can there be essence in consciousness?

"The instructed noble disciple who sees thus, turns away from form -- and also from feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness.

"Turning away [from these Five Aggregates] one detaches oneself. With detachment one becomes free. When freed, one knows: 'I am freed,' and one understands: 'Birth has been exhausted, the excellent life has been lived, what ought to be done has been done, and there will be nothing more to come of this.'"

Further, the Buddha said that one whose turban is on fire should be one who aspires to the deathless act. There is no excuse for delay in working for deliverance from ill. Death is trying to take us always.

On a certain occasion the Blessed One went to a certain house set apart for sick monastics and, having sat down on a seat prepared for him, said: "Mindfully and with complete awareness should a monastic meet the end. This is the advice I give you."

Again and again, the seeds of grain are sown;

Again and again, the devas send down rain;

Again and again, the farmers plow the fields;

Again and again, the country is enriched.

Again and again, the alms seekers seek alms;

Again and again, the kindly givers give;

And giving repeatedly, the givers make,

Again and again, for happy worlds above.

Again and again, the milk is drawn from cows;

Again and again, the calf goes to its dam;

Again and again, a being tires and quakes;

Again and again, the fool goes to the womb.

Again and again, comes birth and death to us;

Again and again, men bear us to the grave.

But one who sees clearly, having known the path

Which leads not to birth, does not rise again.