Samsara is the territory of Māra, everything that moves through it is within its scope. Therefore it is not surprising that the first consciousness arising in it, as we saw, in the sphere of cessation was the same Māra.
And nobody better than the Māra to go inaugurating ever lower, more entropic spheres, from the development of the attachment to existence in the first place and reaching the attachment to one’s own sphere, to the ones who torture you, that stupid and evil called » Stockholm Syndrome «, which makes the victims of this immense ocean of suffering love it and cling to it compulsively.
The idea that the first being was death is ancient, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad whose origin goes back several centuries before the Buddha, points it out explicitly:
Naiveha kiṁcanāgra āsīt, mṛtyunaivedam āvṛtam āsīt, aśanāyayā, aśanāyā hi mṛtyuḥ; tan mano’kuruta ātmanvī syām iti. so’rcann acarat, tasyārcata.āpojāyanta, arcate vai me kam abhūd iti; tad evārkasya arkatvam; kaṁ ha vā asmai bhavati, and evam etad arkasya arkatvaṁ veda.
Originally, there was nothing. Death was engulfing everything. That is all the meaning, literally, of this prayer. In the beginning of things, what was there? Nothing was there. There was a devouring and devouring death principle, so to speak; nothing else we can conceive. In the Veda, too, is this same point reflected in the Nāsadīya Sūkta, which proclaims that, at the beginning, there was no existence or nonexistence.
The principle of devouring death is the element of hunger that traps objects. Here, hunger does not simply mean the appetite for edible dishes such as rice, barley, etc. It is the essence of pure attachment.
And now the most interesting question arises …
How is it possible, from the sphere and the world of Māra, to escape from it?
We must consider that absolutely everything we have at our disposal is in Samsara, everything we are or think, consciences, interfaces, emotional reactions, perceptions, concepts, knowledge, what we imagine, what we do , what affects us and what we affect. Everything, absolutely everything, is within Samsara, within the scope of Māra.
Imagine someone in a small boat in the middle of an infinite ocean, at the mercy of their swings, being part of all their movement, being part of the same ocean …
How can you get out of it?
What is «going out»? How can the fact of «going out» be conceived if one can not even think of something that is different from the sea that surrounds you?
And I repeat, any question about Nibbāna is out of scope. And even the word needs a qualia to be defined. But Nibbāna is a concept without qualia, not because it is an empty concept, but because it can not have qualia. Nibbāna is simply unthinkable.
So we go back to the wretched shipwreck who can not even think that there is a safe harbor.
How can you get out of your bad situation if you can not even think or imagine another? And even further, how can you design an exit, an escape strategy?
This is a logical problem of the first order.
You do not know what the escape is because it is unthinkable. If you do not know what it is and you can not know where it is because it is not, or when it is because it is never (this is only the most basic and can be linked to infinity) How can you design and execute an escape strategy?
Take a few seconds and try to locate the question.
Did you find the solution?
You simply can not. It is impossible. Intrinsically impossible, and even more, actively impossible, because the guardian of the ocean is not a passive being, but keeps and watches absolutely everything and as a shepherd with his flock, he directs and keeps it according to his interests.No stupid sheep is going to escape the butcher’s knife and you’re just another stupid sheep.
And then you see people kicking in the water, submerging and emerging, screaming in the ocean, closing their eyes and nose. Doing all sorts of nonsense and arguing that this way they will leave the sea, there in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the storm.
Vipassanos, Weizza-Lams, Zenes, Vajrayans, Theravadines that many coats, Chanes and Seones, and then those infected by the virus of the gods who pray to their invisible friend who lives in their head to take them out of there and take them to a less stormy sea.
Insane asylum.
Let’s analyze in another way …
If it is obvious that we can not, in any way, if there is an exit, who can tell us?
It can only be someone who exists, who is here and now, who is also in Samsara, but it needs to meet, at least, two conditions (obvious), on the one hand, having one foot outside of Samsara and on the other, that has sufficient entity to counteract the strength and potency of Māra.
And yes, there is someone like that.
The Brahmā, the most powerful god, the Mahābrahmā who is also an anagami who should already be out of Samsara on his own merits, but who has stayed to get someone else out of Samsara.
That same one who is in charge of revealing the Dhamma to the Buddhas and moving them to teach and that, after all, is the true protagonist of the epic of enlightenment.
Sahampati, my teacher.
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