Everything goes through the cycle of birth, growth, maturation, decay and death. But all of this is an illusion. Everything we see is an illusion.
None of this has ever been or will ever be; all is an appearance, all is an illusion. Illusions are truth. All illusions are real. We say illusion, meaning that they’re shadows.
Illusions are shadows moving endlessly across the ground. The shadows are quite real but they’re shadows. They have very little substance.
All the manifest forms of existence are but illusions. They are momentary displays of consciousness, flashes of lightening in the sky. They are there for a moment and then they are gone.
We fall into states of illusion – we forget all this. We get caught up in desires, frustrations, political movements, philosophies, religions, the getting of a living, the pain of a body, the pleasure of a body.
None of this exists. All important decisions in the universe occur someplace else.
The samsara is the sense of self. I’ve had past experiences. I’m aware of the moment. I will have future experiences.
The idea of self is dependent upon attraction, aversion and memory. Memory is simply a serial account of attractions and aversions that don’t exist now except in imagination.
Personality is a manifestation of ego. Ego is the central sense of separateness that a person has from the rest of the universe. Personality is the form that that separateness take.
Life isn’t complicated. The reason it appears complicated to you is because you are in a very distorted state of mind. That’s the basic premise of Buddhism – that you’re in a very distorted state of mind.
At the moment you’re suffering from what we call Maya. Maya is illusion. Maya is a Sanskrit word that suggests that we have forgotten. We’ve forgotten the purpose of life.
There is illusion, the way you see things now, thinking that there is a tomorrow, there is a today, there is time and that there is life and death. Those are just appearances.
I don’t think you see your minds. I think you see your thoughts; you see your desires; you see your relatives, friends, lovers, enemies. I don’t think you see your mind. You think of the mind as the clutter.
Samsara is the world appearance, the cycle of rebirth, the physically manifest universes and states of mind that you perceive through the medium of ego.
This solidity is not true. The apparent solidity is the delusion of the senses and of the self. Everything is made up of infinite, intelligent light.
The burden you are carrying around is the burden of self. You seek release from that. You want to let it all go. You want to forget who you are and what you are. You wish to be the whole universe, infinite, endless.
You can be in a state of mind for a few seconds and forget that you were ever in any other state of mind. That’s what we mean by illusion.
What gets frustrating for some people is the fact that you might get very high, but you find yourself pulled down again. There are forces of illusion or maya that cause us to make mistakes.
To suffer because of anything you see, feel or experience here in the world of moment to moment is a mistake. It is like becoming upset over a frightening dream.
The Samsara is the movement of life. And you, an individual self, a form, a moment on a wave, are bound.