Sri Lankan temple dancers at Sravasti.
The source of suffering is the ignorant belief in permanence, including a permanent and unchanging Self. Everything in the universe is not only empty of its own identity, but also exists in a complex web of interdependence with everything else. A leaf is not just a leaf, but also the earth that fed the tree it grows on, and the water that nourished the tree, and sunshine and clouds and wind, and the insects, plants and animals whose death fertilized the soil it grows in, and all those things depend on many others, and so on ad infinitum. Nothing exists independently of everything else in the universe. In a sense, birth and death are illusions; everything exists at all times. Nothing passes from existence to non-existence, it only changes form. Ovid describes this insight in Metamorphoses: "Nothing retains its own form; but Nature, the greater renewer, ever makes up forms from forms. Be sure there's nothing perishes in the whole universe; it does but vary and renew its form.” Since there is no Self, there is also no "me," and neither is there a "mine." Thus it is a delusion to crave anything for oneself. As the sutras put it: "'These sons belong to me, and this wealth belongs to me,' with such thoughts a fool is tormented. He himself does not belong to himself; how much less sons and wealth?" In a sense, Buddhist enlightenment is akin to saintliness, living life in complete self-abandonment, as if one's own ego did not exist.
Size: 4512px × 3008px
Location: Sravasti, India
Photo credit: © Leonid Plotkin / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: asia, buddha, buddhism, buddhist, dancer, holy, india, jetavana, lankan, pilgrimage, pradesh, religion, religious, sacred, savatthi, shravasti, sravasti, sri, temple, tradition, traditional, uttar
