Observations placeholder
Samyutta Nikaya - Wheel of life
Identifier
016671
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The Samyutta Nikaya (Saṃyutta Nikāya SN, "Connected Discourses" or "Kindred Sayings") is a Buddhist scripture, the third of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka of Theravada Buddhism. Because of the abbreviated way parts of the text are written, the total number of suttas is unclear. The editor of the Pali Text Society edition of the text made it 2889, Bodhi in his translation has 2904, while the commentaries give 7762. A study by Rupert Gethin gives the totals for the Burmese and Sinhalese editions as 2854 and 7656, respectively, and his own calculation as 6696; he also says the total in the Thai edition is unclear. The suttas are grouped into five vaggas, or sections. Each vagga is further divided into samyuttas, or chapters, each of which in turn contains a group of suttas on a related topic.
A description of the experience
Samyutta Nikaya
O disciples, what do you think is the mass of the waters of the great ocean or that of the tears you have shed during the course of your long pilgrimage, perpetually racing to new births and new deaths, joined to that which you hate and separated from that which you love?
This wheel is without beginning and without end. Unknowable is the beginning of beings enveloped in ignorance, who impelled by desire are led toward rebirths, who pursue this wheel of rebirths.
Thus, for a long time, you have suffered physical pains, moral sufferings, and fattened the soil of cemeteries. Long enough to have become disgusted with this existence, long enough to turn aside from it and free yourselves