Samsara Like a House on Fire
Buddhism has an appropriate metaphor: Samsara is like a burning house. If you keep reflecting on it, you will come to harbor a desire to break free from it, and will no longer feel a desire for its temptations and illusions. Then you can spend all your energy to develop the wisdom of no-self, which is the only way to attain ultimate freedom from samsara.
Each of us should understand the teaching of the twelve links of dependent origination. Only with that can we recognize that the suffering of samsara is like being trapped in a house on fire and further generate the aspiration of breaking free from samsara. This is the same goal for everyone.
To break free from samsara, or to decipher the secret code of reincarnation, the key point is the practice of no ego. Without realizing the emptiness of ego, we cannot eliminate the root cause of samsara, ignorance. So I hope that each of us can make good use of our precious human bodies to achieve liberation in this very life. Rather than being reincarnated in different forms such as horses or cows, we’d better eradicate the seed of ignorance in this very life and achieve ultimate liberation.
Each of us here faces old age and death. Such is samsara, always associated with birth, old age, sickness and death. When Buddha Shakyamuni was still a prince, he saw birth, old age, sickness and death, which led him to become ordained and eventually cut off the root of samsara. In Thailand, there are so many ordained practitioners in so many monasteries practicing the wisdom of no ego. This can lead to ultimate liberation.
