Saṃsāra
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Saṃsāra (Sanskrit संसार) is the repeating cycle of birth, life and death (reincarnation) as well as one's actions and consequences in the past, present, and future in Hinduism, Buddhism, Bon, Jainism, Taoism,[1] and Sikhism.[citation needed]
According to these religions, a person's current life is only one of many lives that will be lived—stretching back before birth into past existences and reaching forward beyond death into future incarnations. During the course of each life, the quality of the actions (karma) performed determine the future destiny of each person. The Buddha taught that there is no beginning to this cycle but that it can be ended through perceiving reality. The goal of these religions is to realize this truth, the achievement of which (like ripening of a fruit) is moksha or nirvana (liberation).
Contents
Etymology and origin
Saṃsāra is a Sanskrit word, the literal meaning of which is "a wandering through" – in reference to the passage through many states of existence that is involved in the cycle of death and rebirth.
The historical origins of a concept of a cycle of repeated reincarnation are obscure but the idea appears frequently in religious and philosophical texts in both India and ancient Greece during the middle of the first millennium B.C.E.[2] Orphism, Platonism, Jainism and Buddhism all discuss the transmigration of beings from one life to another. The concept of reincarnation is present in the early Vedic texts such as the Rigveda but some scholars speculate it to have originated from the shramana traditions. Several scholars believe that reincarnation was adopted from this religious culture by the Historical Vedic religion and that Brahmins first wrote down scriptures containing these ideas in the early (Aitereya) Upanishads.[3][4][5][6][7][8]
Cycle of rebirth
The concept of samsara is closely associated with the belief that the person continues to be born and reborn in various realms in the form of a human, animal, or other being, depending on karma.[9]
Samsāra in Hinduism
In Hinduism, it is avidya, or ignorance, of one's true self that leads to ego-consciousness of the body and the phenomenal world. This grounds one in kāma (desire) and the perpetual chain of karma and reincarnation. Through egotism and desire one creates the causes for future becoming. The state of illusion that gives rise to this is known as maya.
Through ascetic practice one finally attains sanctity and liberation (moksha or mukti).[10]
Broadly speaking, the celibate holy life (brahmacarya) which leads to liberation is a path of self-purification by which the effects of negative karmas are avoided.
The Hindu Yoga traditions hold various beliefs. Moksha may be achieved by love of Ishwar/God (see bhakti movement, see Mirabai), by psycho-physical meditation (Raja Yoga), by discrimination of what is real and unreal through intense contemplation (Jnana Yoga), and through Karma Yoga, the path of selfless action that subverts the ego and enforces understanding of the unity of all.
The Rig Vedic, Yajur Vedic and Atharva Vedic Upanishads like Aiteraya Upanishad, Taittiriya Upanishad, Swetaswatara Upanishad, Mundaka Upanishad etc. contain the most ancient ideas on reincarnation of souls.[11][12][13] Hence, based on this, the earliest known texts to have spoken about karma, sansara, and moksha or mukti, are the Vedas and other Dharmic Texts. (Dharmic Texts stands for the Vedas, Ithihasas and Puranas). The Vedas describe karma as the result of enjoying the sensory pleasures of this material universe.[14]
Saṅsāra in Jainism
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In Jainism, Saṅsāra is the worldly life characterized by continuous rebirths and reincarnations in various realms of existence. Saṃsāra is described as mundane existence, full of suffering and misery and hence is considered undesirable and worth renunciation. The Samsāra is without any beginning and the soul finds itself in bondage with its karma since the beginningless time. Moksha is the only liberation from samsāra. Jainism maintains that one who accrues a significant amount of bad karma can also be reborn as a plant or even as a rock,[15] and similar concepts can be found in the Puranas, in the Bhagavad Gita, in the Manusmṛti[16] and in similar texts.
Samsara in Buddhism
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Within Buddhism, samsara is defined as the continual repetitive cycle of birth, death, and intermediate bardo state that arises from ordinary beings' generating and fixating on a mistaken concept of self and experiences. Samsara arises out of wrong knowledge about reality (avidya) and is characterized by dukkha (failure, suffering, anxiety, dissatisfaction). Buddhists believe that liberation from samsara is possible by following the Buddhist eight-fold path.
Generally, there are six realms of samsara. These include: gods, asuras, hungry ghosts, hell beings, animals, and humans.[17]
In Buddhism, according to the Pāḷi Canon, the five khandhas (aggregates), namely, matter, feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness, do not survive the death of the body,[18][19] but due to the volitional actions of an evolving citta (mind),[20][21] a new personality in a new form is bound to arise somewhere within the totality of the 31 phenomenal worlds, which represent states of mental qualities and experiences or samsāra. According to Buddhism, the new being is never the former being; rather, the origination of renewed existence[22] is caused by the former being's taṇhā (thirst),[23] which is a factor[24] that leads a being to produce karma. However, the subject of experience, although completely altered in terms of the sensory aggregates, will be the one which is in the here and now, that is to say, the owner of mental, physical and verbal action.[25]
Saṅsāra in Sikhism
In Sikhism, it is thought that due to actions here and now and interactions with fellow humans, people obtain the chance of union with Akal. Through controlling the 5 thieves Kaam, Krodh, Moh, Lobh, and Hankaar, they are able to achieve the state of the Gurmukh or "God-willed", as opposed to Manmukh or "self-willed". Human life in Sikhism is deemed to be the highest form of life and the only form of life capable of being a Gurmukh.
See also
References
- ↑ 简论道教与佛教生死观的差异
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- ↑ “This suggests that the doctrine of transmigration is non-aryan and was accepted by non-vedics like Ajivikism, Jainism and Buddhism. The Indo-aryans may have borrowed the theory of re-birth after coming in contact with the aboriginal inhabitants of India. Certainly Jainism and non-vedics ... accepted the doctrine of rebirth as supreme postulate or article of faith.” Masih, page 37.
- ↑ Karel Werner, The Longhaired Sage in The Yogi and the Mystic. Karel Werner, ed., Curzon Press, 1989, page 34. "Rahurkar speaks of them as belonging to two distinct 'cultural strands' ... Wayman also found evidence for two distinct approaches to the spiritual dimension in ancient India and calls them the traditions of 'truth and silence.' He traces them particularly in the older Upanishads, in early Buddhism, and in some later literature."
- ↑ Gavin D. Flood (1996), An Introduction to Hinduism, Cambridge University - Press : UK ISBN 0-521-43878-0 - “The origin and doctrine of Karma and Samsara are obscure. These concepts were certainly circulating amongst sramanas, and Jainism and Buddhism developed specific and sophisticated ideas about the process of transmigration. It is very possible that the karmas and reincarnation entered the mainstream brahaminical thought from the sramana or the renouncer traditions.” Page 86.
- ↑ Padmanabh S. Jaini 2001 “Collected Paper on Buddhist Studies” Motilal Banarsidass Publ 576 pages ISBN 81-208-1776-1: "Yajnavalkya’s reluctance and manner in expounding the doctrine of karma in the assembly of Janaka (a reluctance not shown on any other occasion) can perhaps be explained by the assumption that it was, like that of the transmigration of soul, of non-brahmanical origin. In view of the fact that this doctrine is emblazoned on almost every page of sramana scriptures, it is highly probable that it was derived from them." Page 51.
- ↑ Govind Chandra Pande, (1994) Life and Thought of Sankaracarya, Motilal Banarsidass ISBN 81-208-1104-6 : Early Upanishad thinkers like Yajnavalkya were acquainted with the sramanic thinking and tried to incorporate these ideals of Karma, Samsara and Moksa into the vedic thought im mendicancy as an ideal. Page 135.
- ↑ "The sudden appearance of this theory [of karma] in a full-fledged form is likely to be due, as already pointed out, to an impact of the wandering muni-and-shramana-cult, coming down from the pre-Vedic non-Aryan time." Kashi Nath Upadhyaya, Early Buddhism and the Bhagavadgita. Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1998, page 76.
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- ↑ Rig-Veda: Aiteraya Upanishad II-i-4: This self of his (viz. the son) is substituted (by the father) for the performance of virtuous deeds (which is nothing but Karma). Then this other self of his (that is the father of the son), having completed his duties and having advanced in age, departs. As soon as he departs, he takes birth again. That is his (i.e. the son’s) third birth.
- ↑ Rig-Veda: Aiteraya Upanishad II-i-5: This fact was stated by the seer (i.e. mantra): “Even while lying in the womb, I came to know of the birth of all the gods. A hundred iron citadels held me down. Then, like a hawk, I forced my way through by dint of knowledge of the self”. Vamadeva said this while still lying in the mother’s womb
- ↑ Yajur Veda- Mundakopanishad 3.1.8 - It is not comprehended through the eye, nor through speech, nor through the other senses; nor is it attained through austerity or Karma. Since one becomes purified in mind through the favourableness of the intellect, therefore can one see that indivisible self through meditation.
- ↑ Yajur Veda- Swetasvatara Upanishad IV-6: Two birds of beautiful plumage, who are inseparable friends, reside on the self-same tree. Of these, one eats the fruits of the tree (worldly enjoyment) with relish while the other looks on without eating. IV-7: Sitting on the same tree the individual soul gets entangled in Karma and feels miserable, being deluded on account of his forgetting his divine nature. When he sees the other, the lord of all, whom all devotees worship, and realizes that all greatness is his, then he is relieved of his misery (Karma).
- ↑ Lambert Schmithausen (1991a).Buddhism and Nature. The Lecture Delivered on the Occasion of the EXPO1990. An Enlarged Version with Notes. Number VII in Studia Philologica Buddhica Occasional Paper Series. The International Institute for Buddhist Studies.
- ↑ śarīrajaiḥ karmadoṣair yāti sthāvaratāṃ naraḥ (Manusmṛti 12.9).
- ↑ http://buddhism.about.com/od/basicbuddhistteachings/tp/Six-Realms-of-Existence.htm
- ↑ http://dharmafarer.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/7.10-Maha-Tanhasankhaya-S-m38-piya.pdf
- ↑ http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.048.than.html
- ↑ http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an01/an01.049.than.html
- ↑ http://www.palikanon.com/english/pali_names/maha/mahali_s.htm
- ↑ http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.064.nypo.html
- ↑ https://suttacentral.net/en/sn1.55
- ↑ http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.15.0.than.html
- ↑ http://minhhanhdp.brinkster.net/access_to_insight/dichthuat/Wings_Part1_b.htm
External links
- Sansara – Tour of This Universe and Beyond
- Reincarnation: A Simple Explanation
- Karma in Sikhism
- About Reincarnation
- Samsara (Film, IMDB)
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