From SAMVEGA and PASADA to Wisdom and Love: The Buddhist Path to Awakening and Cessation of Suffering!

Our path begins with SAMVEGA and PASADA that are constantly cultivated on the path in a process that culminates in the equation of wisdom and love compassion that is at the end the highest attainment of the spiritual path. Thus without SAMVEGA and PASADA, there will not be at the end the penetrative and liberating wisdom as well as ultimate love and compassion that will set us free from the meaningless, senseless, useless and futile conditioned existence and the SAMSARIC prison of worldly life! For the average western practitioner nowadays the terms or the Buddhist teaching on SAMVEGA and PASADA will be with greater certainty unknown. Usually when we will hear teachings on Buddhism, the emphasis will be on the teaching concerning the equation of wisdom and love as standing at the heart of Buddhist teachings. While this is of course true and cannot be denied, whereas the highest spiritual attainment in Buddhism is indeed the equation of wisdom and love, the truth is that there is another crucial teaching, which stands at the heart of Buddhism that is SAMVEGA and PASADA. Without this concept, which we will discuss immediately, our path will not really lead us to the point, where we will attain the penetrative and liberating wisdom and love that are required for our liberation. Without SAMVEGA and PASADA that are not a single even, as we will see in the course of this discussion, but they must be in fact cultivated on daily basis on the path. Without them we are likely to fall back on our spiritual journey, especially in our ego trip oriented society with its materialistic propaganda of its hedonistic mainstream economy! Either way, in order to sell Buddhism in such an environment, even masters and monks are falling sometimes into the trap of not speaking loudly and clearly the truth that most of the current and older societies likes so much to ignore. In some cases a prominent monk suggested to take the noble truths of the Buddha and present them in the west in other words. Don't say suffering, he suggested, say from now on the absence of happiness. As if suffering and happiness are not merely the two side of the same coin. As if it is not, as AJHAN CHAH used to say, to grab the snake one time from the tail and one time from the head, whereas it is not really matters where you grab the snake thus it will bite you anyway. The problem with this kind of a "spiritual mall or supermarket approach" or a kind of "economic growth based and oriented spirituality", the attempt to advertize and sell Buddhism in this way at almost any price or no price at all, will lead us exactly to the opposite result, as one may wish; it can eventually deteriorate the DHAMMA in the west. In that sense, leaving the teaching of SAMVEGA and PASADA aside, because they go against the current materialistic and hedonistic western stream, whereas it does not fit into the western new age commercialized spirituality of instant happiness, we're starting or can end in resembling to a dog that is running endlessly after his tail. So what are actually SANVEGA and PASADA? Are they feeling or attitudes? Why are they so important in the Buddhist path and to our spiritual growth until we liberate ourselves and attain Enlightenment? And why they inevitably

contradict the current materialistic and hedonistic approach that has reached epidemic proportion? First of all, traditionally SAMVEGA and PASADA are understood as a set or a cluster of emotions. The Term itself can be hardly translated into western languages, as there's no exact phrase that can do this. This problematic of western languages is quite well know, because based on their religious heritage, which does not stand in resonance with the DHAMMA and ultimate truth, at least not always, they lack those special meanings. Another example is the Word MUDITHA, which is translated as sympathetic Joy, but lacks an exact expression in many languages. Either way, while seeing SAMVEGA and PASADA as a cluster of emotions is possible, I think the notion of this concept is more an aggregation of certain emotions, yearnings and attitudes. In the next lines let's try to define it even more deeply. While inside the cluster or aggregation there can be a different emphasis on that or the other emotions, some basic attitudes and emotions appear always in the cluster of SAMVEGA. There is meaningless, lack of desire or will to be part of or associated with, lack of a common ground, lack of significance, uselessness and futility ( in the conditioned existence of SAMSARIC Life and the mainstream values of the worldly society), there is a shock and inability to understand our own ignorance and how could we be so blinded, living this impossible worldly life, not only in the current life time, but in the course of many life cycles, and there is immense urgency and yearning to escape this useless, senseless and futile SAMSARIC cycle of endless births and rebirths. Usually those three elements will not occur in the same intensity at the beginning. In fact what will catapult us on the path is the first intuitive and sober glimpse into the meaningless, uselessness and the futility of the conditioned existence and the worldly life, which will be the result of our suffering, while later when insight and wisdom will grow with the practice, we will not be able then at this point not only to understand how we could live so ignorantly, but we will also not be able to imagine a life without DHAMMA and falling back to our deluded previous lifestyle. Here we must also understand that at the beginning SAMVEGA will be accompanied and affected quite much and colored by different types of aversive feelings. We may feel disgust, alienation and other form of aversive feeling towards the worldly life very often. Yet this is in my opinion not right SAMVEGA, because all aversion of every type or attachment on the contrary are all of them forms of the three poisons, whereas aversion is rooted in ill will and attachment is rioted in greed. True renunciation means of course non attachment (or detachment), but it doesnt mean of course a fearful and aversive flight from life. Renunciation has therefore two wings: renunciation of our attachments is the one side and the renunciation (overcoming) our fears and aversions is the second one. In other words, through adding PASADA, as we will discuss later, we must learn that renunciation does not mean denial of life or try to push any aspect of life from experiencing it, that's fear and aversion! Renunciation is the art of abandoning of worldly life and values, treating all aspects of life without being fearful, aversive or attached to them! That is then true SAMVEGA! Anyway, in that sense SAMVEGA has some very important implications and significance for those of us who sincerely have committed themselves to the path, especially when the goal is ultimate liberation from suffering and the escape from the SAMSARIC cycle of endless births and rebirths. Here, we should bear in mind that some of us are catapulted to the spiritual path when they have gained

and attained already a very strong sense of SAMVEGA through suffering, usually the elements of the intuitive understanding of the meaningless and the futility of conditioned existence as well as the urgency to end their suffering as soon as possible through the spiritual path, even when they still do not understand everything with deep penetrative wisdom, whereas for those people SAMVEGA is a source of support to overcome the difficult times in practice, possible falls and drop back, while other people may begin with a different starting point, with less portion or great suffering, whereas those people may experience not only falls and drop back but due to enough SAMVEGA they may even abandon the practice. Either way, although people committing themselves to the path of liberation on behalf on strong SAMVEGA may have some advantage and more determination, all of us must still cultivate more and more SAMVEGA, especially the one whose suffering is less so that they can deal better not only with the natural difficulties of practice that will always arise, but also because at current time we are surrounded and are object to a most extreme materialistic and hedonistic attack and propaganda due to the information war the current mainstream economy and all the institution supporting it has declared on us. To withstand it alongside with all the delusions, greed and ill will it is showering on us, strong SAMVEGA and constant cultivation of it is a kind of remedy and antidote against it! Yet, here at this point we should also understand that, when we approach the spiritual practice only with that kind of emotional cluster, problems may still arise on the path. Actually, single emphasis on SAMVEGA, will inevitable create a kind of depressed, stressed and compressed spirituality, which will only keep us away from happiness, cessation of suffering and liberation, it will on the contrary foster and enhance this suffering. It can also lead one whether to abandon the practice or to live hypocritically, which is in any case worse than the first option of those two. This is why Buddhism adds the other part of equation that is PASADA offering to each cluster of SAMVEGA an antidote, an anti cluster, of PASADA. As we did with SAMVEGA, we can say that in PASADA, we will meet three basic elements that will occur in the one or the other expression. The first notion is the idea of the precious human life as standing as an antidote to the meaningless and the futility of the conditioned existence; the second is our Buddha Nature, which is our nature and the basic goodness as well as our loving awareness and wisdom, as standing opposed to the misunderstanding and sometimes the ability to accept the ignorance in which we lived before; whereas the third one is the right approach in terms of right effort that could be also described as an effortless effort as being a balance to the urgency of SAMVEGA. Moreover, SAMVEGA and PASADA, as we will see immediately, when I will talk also about PASADA itself, are non dual in their nature and there are aimed at creating balance without falling into the one or the other extremity of aversion and attachment, of self indulgence and self mortification! When misunderstanding non duality, being attached or aversive only to one set of feelings, the process is quite inevitable to end either in self indulgence when emphasizing the cluster of PASADA, or self mortification, when putting the whole emphasis solely on SAMVEGA. Walking the middle path of those two basic clusters, we create balance and harmony in our practice. SAMVEGA in that sense is like our guide or compass; PASADA prevents us from running to fast, more than we may be able at each point of time in our practice, preventing us from causing ourselves damage and harm. We begin with SAMVEGA and end the path when adding and

balancing it with PASADA. In a non dual way, we approach a twofold path for own sake, freedom and liberation. When understanding SAMVEGA and PASADA in this way, we understand that although all of the conditioned existence, all of the worldly expressions in our human life, all that this worldly life and values represent is nothing which is really worth, they are meaningless, useless senseless and futile, whereas they have only one worth of abandoning and escaping them, whereas on the other hand the human life in this realm is still very important, not only because in order to escape this meaningless existence, we have to exist in it first hand, but also because the human realm with its conditions is the best or the optimal one to practice the DHAMMA. It is the same approach as we undergo with the detachment from everything that is material: in order to be able to detach and train yourself in detaching from materiality, you have first hand to attain some degree of materiality. In Buddhism it is wonderfully expressed in our approach to work and generosity, As opposed to the materialistic propaganda of the mainstream economy, the aim of work cannot be in maximizing pleasure and endless desires, because endless desires and pleasures by their very definition have no end and cannot be satisfies, but it is to attain wealth in order to satisfy our basic needs and that of our families and spend everything else on our communities and societies with generosity. In that sense and values Buddhism stands as opposed to other systems not only because of its generosity based economy versus the greedy hedonistic mainstream economy of the west, but also because it basically believes in our inherent goodness and not in our allegedly flawed nature as in most theistic traditions, may they be monotheistic, polytheistic and others. In that sense and in terms of the first link inside SAMVEGA and PASADA, it means that although the conditioned existence is completely meaningless and futile, the human existence is not a punishment, but a sign of progress; by experiencing the meaningless and futile existence, we learn and escape it into the unconditioned and deathless. The second part is the belief in our basic goodness and love, which are our true Buddha Nature. It stands as opposed to the notion and the feelings of guilt we may have by accusing ourselves in being ignorant, which is also a misunderstanding of ANATTA, the theory of non self. Such feelings of guilt, shame and self hate, are very common for western practitioners. They arise through their Christian-Judeo conditionings and heritage, which sees our true nature as being basically flawed. It helps is therefore to create a kind of compassionate and loving spirituality, far of the agonizing ideas of soul and all the fearful delusion of allegedly terrible punishment of being burnt in eternal fire, hell and so on. The last link is the right effort in terms of effortless effort. As we know sometimes, when we are too hasty, there are also a lot of problems that may arise; when being hasty we can even hurt ourselves seriously. In that sense this kind of approach balances our emergency in a way that we can approach the path as fast as possible, but without harming ourselves and with compassion and love to ourselves. At the end all the links within the both clusters create a balanced and harmonized approach that lead us safely to our goal, the ultimate liberation and cessation of suffering and the escape from the SAMSARIC cycle of births and rebirths. Our path begins with SAMVEGA and PASADA that are constantly cultivated on the path in a process that culminates in the equation of wisdom and love compassion that is at the end the highest attainment of the spiritual path. Thus without SAMVEGA and PASADA, there will not be at the end

the penetrative and liberating wisdom as well as ultimate love and compassion that will set us free from the meaningless, senseless, useless and futile conditioned existence and the SAMSARIC prison of worldly life!