The Tragedy of Samsara

Essay #3 of Samsara the Goddess

Samsara is not a place, she is a Goddess and you are her!

This post builds on ideas from:
Essay #1, The Two Natures
Essay #2, The Superpowers of Samsara

Introduction

These essays present an understanding of Dharma tailored to Westerners and smartphone addicts. While this perspective does not contradict a traditional understanding, it omits two ideas that often mystify Westerners: reincarnation and karma. Instead, it approaches the Buddhist path through a framework of Basic Human Needs, inspired by Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communications.

I realize it may be a bit off-the-beaten-track. When I personally focus all my energy and intension on penetrating the damn fog of Ignorance, this is what I see. So take it for what it’s worth. It’s better that we not cling too tightly to understandings and explanations. After all, they are Empty. Maybe the best understanding is the one that inspires us to practice like our hair was on fire.

Our reality is a balance between our Buddha Nature and our Samsara Nature. Samsara Nature is a remarkable force which helps us to survive and prosper. Unfortunately, it gives rise to a vast ocean of suffering. This essay looks at that suffering, beyond simply defining the three types of suffering. It asks a deeper question: in what specific ways does our Samsara Nature cause us to suffer?

A brief review of the first two essays in the series

We humans have two natures, inseparable, like two sides of a coin.

Samsara Nature creates the real world (look around). Any thing with a name attached to it, that’s Samsara Nature. Samsara Nature is full of desires, aversions, judgments, needs, and suffering.

Buddha Nature on the other hand, is the source of life’s endlessly changing color and richness. It’s also the source of Enlightenment experiences like Bliss, Emptiness, and Bodhicitta.

I have discovered that it makes good sense to understand Samsara Nature as a being, with agency. I call her The Goddess Samsara. She behaves rationally, seeks to achieve goals, and has a tremendous impact on our lives.

The Goddess Samsara’s mission and purpose is to help us to survive and prosper. She does this by obsessively seeking to fulfill a particular list of physical and social needs, which are COMMON TO ALL HUMAN BEINGS. I refer to this list as our ‘Basic Human Needs’. The needs on this list include:

Shelter, Nourishment, Safety, Community, Sexual expression, Connection, To be heard and understood, Order, Status, Peace, Honesty, Respect, Fairness, Choice, Solitude, Play, The need to contribute to others, Hope, and many more.

The list is engraved in our genes. It defines what it means to be human. Whenever I write ‘needs’ in italics, I’m referring to the needs in this list. There’s a lot to be learned from examining the entire list, but I’ll save that for another essay.

How does she do it?

How does The Goddess Samsara go about meeting our ‘needs’?

Newborn babies work tirelessly to figure out how to get their needs met. Each time a need is fulfilled, whether by chance, intention, or someone’s care, they remember everything about the experience, so it can be repeated. All of this remembered information is saved in a special part of our brain. We can call that special part our Inner Library.

Let’s also give a name to the newborn intelligence which struggles to meet the infant’s needs. Let’s name it The Goddess Samsara.

The Goddess saves every aspect of how the need was met in her Inner Library. This includes things (what Buddhism might call ‘forms’) labels, parts, causes, and conditions. She also saves strategies, associations, judgments, and more.

The Goddess Samsara’s very reason for existence, lies in meeting our needs. Her instrument is the Inner Library. She uses this storehouse of knowledge to execute strategies that fulfill needs. She determines which needs take priority, brainstorms, experiments, designs and executes strategies, analyzes results, and saves everything she learns back into her Library.

(It’s really quite amazing.)

The twist

But here’s the twist. The things we see and interact with in the real world are nothing more that a reflection of the information Samsara has saved into the Inner Library.

I’m going to italicize ‘thing’ and ‘real world’’ to emphasize that they both arise from the information in the Inner Library.

In the course of meeting needs, Samsara discovers new things all the time. As soon as she saves the information about a new thing into the Inner Library, that thing suddenly appears to us as real (it inherently exists from it’s own side). When a baby discovers that a spoon can be a strategy for eating, SHAZAM!! Spoons now exist as a real and permanent element of the baby’s real world.

In short, the Inner Library contains saved information which our perception uses to embody the things in the real world.

It’s helpful to think about the Library information which defines a thing, as a story. Your elbow is a story. A cloud is a story. Your eye is a story. Even YOU are a story. Put simply, the shelves of our Inner Library are filled with stories. Every element of our real world is one of those stories. AND THAT’S ALL IT IS. Every element of our real world is a STORY that Samsara made up, to help her meet our needs, to help us to survive and prosper.

A River of Suffering

So there’s this thingamabob (so to speak), which is Samsara the Goddess together with her Inner Library. The thingamabob helps sentient beings survive and prosper. It works really well; our entire planet is seething and overflowing with sentient beings. Buddhism asserts that this thingamabob causes us tremendous suffering. The following sections detail ways in which this suffering unfolds:

The cluster-f***

(Sorry for the obscenity but I can’t find a more appropriate expression.) We spend our lives in the middle of one.

First, the Goddess chooses an unmet need (surely one of many). Then she discovers or remembers a strategy to meet that need. Next she MOTIVATES us to execute the strategy, by flooding us with desire, aversion, and other afflictive emotions. Finally, she analyses the results of our efforts, deals with snags and snafus, and saves whatever she has learned into the Inner Library.

And all that is for ONE need. She’s likely multitasking on seven or eight needs.

The suffering

Sometimes a strategy works without a hitch. Other times it’s like an anxious treasure hunt, a starving rat in a maze, or walking through a mine field. We ride a roller coaster of emotions: craving, fear, love, hate, hope, happiness, depression, joy, disappointment, and frustration. It feels rootless, complicated and confusing.

(If you want peace, go get an addiction.)

A personal note

I can feel her at this very moment pulling on me like a draft horse. Whenever I write an insightful paragraph, she instantly hijacks it to try and meet my needs for recognition and contribution. This totally undermines my efforts to learn and share Dharma.

Negative emotions

Samsara seems to prefer the negative. Why?

Negative emotions help us survive. Suppose Samsara is executing a strategy to meet a need, and that strategy gets blocked. If it gets blocked by some thing she can point her finger at, she associates negative emotions with that thing. The thing doing the blocking might be a person, a mistake, a locked door, and empty gas tank, or whatever.

Suddenly we’re overwhelmed with anger, fear, craving, hatred, disgust, rage…

As a result we get heightened focus and energy, super courage and strength. We’re ready for fight or flight. We revert to a cornered animal or a starving predator. If we ourselves made the mistake, we might actually physically attack ourselves.

The suffering

Negative emotions feel like crap, they’re not healthy, they may create more problems than they solve, and they spread a wave of suffering like a stone tossed in water. It’s no fun to suddenly go mad. (Though some people enjoy it.)

Never let go (Impermanence)

When a need arises in an unfamiliar situation, Samsara must discover a new method to satisfy the need. She’ll try out her new method a few times to make sure it works. If it gets good results it will become her go-to method for that particular need and situation.

The problem is, the Goddess clings very very tightly to her go-to methods. If a method works a few times, she figures we might as well depend on it for the rest of our lives.

Nope! Sooner or later impermanence comes along and her habitual go-to methods become less effective or fail.

The Goddess is a genius at discovering new methods, but terrible at getting rid of old broken ones. In some ways this is efficient. She doesn’t have to keep figuring out how to meet the same need every time it arises.

The suffering

BUT THE SUFFERING! We end up chained for life to relationships, identities, beliefs, habits, foods, loyalties... And if Samsara finally admits a method is failing and looks for an alternative — OMG, the trauma, the grief, and the gnashing of teeth.

She’s very conservative.

Happiness

Discussing ‘happiness’ is difficult because the word has so many definitions: bliss, ecstasy, inebriation, excitement, contentment, anticipation, relief, joy in others’ happiness, general well being, etc.

Happiness is a Basic Human Need. It offers us stress reduction, energy and relaxation. Socially, it facilitates connection and general good will. So it is on Samsara’s list of needs.

But sadly, it has a very low priority on that list. Deeply depressed people survive, prosper and even procreate. The Goddess mostly does not care if you’re hurting or depressed. SHE DOES NOT CARE.

What in the world is more important to Samsara than happiness? Money, family, contribution to community, loyalty, integrity, and how about dinner…

(This business of happiness being so all-fired important is a recent invention by Westerners and smart-phone addicts. Back in the old days nobody cared if you were happy. If you wanted to be happy, you got drunk.)

The suffering

No-happiness is like a wound that never heals. It’s a tragedy without hope. It’s a tunnel with no light a the end. Might as well get drunk.

Chasing the memory of the jewel instead of jewel

When we have a profound or peak experience, the Goddess saves all the elements of that experience into the Inner Library. It was ‘profound’ so it probably met some needs and we might want to repeat it.

Unfortunately, the actual experience can’t be saved. What can be saved are the things associated with the experience, like the setting, behaviors, thoughts, etc.

Later we want to repeat the experience. Samsara retrieves the information but it doesn’t work. We remember all the inside and outside details, but the profoundness is missing. Then we attempt to FAKE the experience with all our might. Nope! And then we give up.

Take something simple like going to the bathroom. Samsara remembers things: knocking, turning a doorknob, urinating, and pushing the flush lever. It’s easy to repeat.

But an intimate moment? A meditation insight? These have far less to do with things, and if one tries to repeat them by remembering things, it does not work. The original experience arose from a unique present moment (in the past), which is completely different from our current present moment (now).

The suffering

After hours of meditation I had a fabulous insight. It was gone in 20 minutes. I wasted months straining to remember it back into existence. Such frustration. We naturally feel a certain that past experiences can be remembered and repeated. Some experiences yes, but for transcendent moments it’s like banging your head against a wall.

Maintaining the illusion

Every few seconds Samsara asks: Where am I? What’s happening?

She’s trying to make sense out of the chaos of the present moment. How does she manage to answer those questions? She matches up the chaos of the moment, with the things and forms in the Inner Library.

Unfortunately, they never completely match up. This is because the present moment is always new and unique. The result is that she must FORCE the present moment to match the things and forms in the Library. It’s like smashing a square peg into a round hole.

And it hurts. Maintaining the illusion of the real world is like maintaining a house built on flowing sand dunes. It takes a vast amount of energy and the work never ends. No matter how tired we get, for as long as we live, Samsara demands that we create a coherent real world out of whatever is in front of our faces.

What’s worse, if we have some pressing unmet need, Samsara desperately tries to find a solution to meeting the need, within the real world being created. It’s almost like she tries to bludgeon the current moment into meeting the need.

The suffering

It’s like this endless tension headache. Sometimes, I think the exhaustion of maintaining Samsara’s illusion is what finally kills us.

(If you practice a lot at concentrating on real world objects, you can actually watch yourself re-creating and rebuilding the illusion.)

Living the lie

We actually realize, way down deep inside, that our permanent and inherently existing real world, is an illusion.

The suffering

No matter how happy or successful we get, we sense that there’s something slightly hollow or fake about it. Then Samsara cracks her whip, and we ignore the feelings. But they gnaw at us. True happiness must be out there somewhere, but where?

Monkey mind

When Samsara has a moment to spare, she begins to search for unmet needs, strategies, dangers, opportunities, etc.

If she lacks a strategy for meeting some important unmet need, she’ll fantasize about the situation over and over again, searching for a solution.

If past experience tells her that a danger may materialize (an unmet need for safety), she’ll worry about it and endlessly explore scenarios.

Buddhists call this troubleshooting and problem solving behavior, our ‘monkey mind.’

The suffering

Of course it is a LIFELONG HEADACHE. The Goddess does it because she cares desperately about our well being.

Sorry, I made a mistake

Samsara’s Inner Library, which we experience as the real world, is a work in progress. The Goddess makes many mistakes.

She starts building the Library as a clueless infant. Later lessons and strategies are built on top of earlier lessons and strategies, so a mistake can propagate forward and cause problems for the rest of our life.

In addition, she’s trying to hit a moving target; life is always shifting and changing.

Then there are Thinking Errors. Evolution is haphazard. Along with fabulous intelligence our minds evolved to make errors when thinking. (Do an internet search to see lists of 25 to 150 of them.)

And finally, as we noted, The Goddess is TERRIBLE at correcting her own mistakes.

The suffering

We’re in for a rocky ride.

Physical pain

Physical pain is a warning of an unmet need for safety. Samsara responds by setting off a blaring fire alarm of FEAR AND AVERSION. The pain is a problem but the fear and aversion drives most of us crazy.

That blaring fire alarm makes it very difficult to observe the pain experience. An easy way to see the process at work is using the cold. Just take off your jacket.

If we manage to subdue Samsara, does physical suffering disappear? I knew a yogi who claimed she did not feel physical pain. I’ve tried it once or twice and it seemed to work, a little bit.

The suffering

We all know what this feels like.

Existential Angst

When we live in a world focused on meeting needs, we imagine we’ll be happy when the needs are met.

The suffering

Nope! When happiness arrives for a brief moment, then evaporates, we’re stuck with hollow disappointment. We miss the joy of ordinary, present-moment pleasures. It starts to feel like contentment is always somewhere else, like just beyond the next hill.

Conclusion

This essay was long and complicated, and it introduced unfamiliar ideas. I would truly appreciate any feedback you might have—especially corrections, suggested additions or clarifications, mistakes, strong disagreements, or even strong emotional reactions. All perspectives are welcome; they would help me refine the ideas, and the way they’re expressed.

Stay tuned for “How Samsara Wrecks Dharma Study,” the fourth essay in the series.

Thanks for reading.