samsara means in Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and some other eastern religions, the ongoing cycle of birth, death, and rebirth endured by human beings and all other mortal beings, and from which release is obtained by achieving the highest enlightenment.
samsara is pronounced /sʌmˈsɑɹə/.
Why “samsara” is a great word
Samsara is the ceaseless, cyclical wandering through repeated states of birth, life, death, and rebirth, driven by the force of karma. From Sanskrit *saṃsāra*, from *saṃ-* ("together, completely") and the root *sṛ* ("to flow, to wander"), it literally means "a wandering through." Unlike "nirvana," the extinguished stillness beyond all becoming, or "moksha," the achieved freedom from bondage, samsara is the condition itself—the river, not the shore. It is the weary tread of a pilgrim on a road that loops back upon itself, the wheel of a potter's thumb endlessly shaping the same clay, and the fading script of a story written, erased, and written again on the same slate. It is the fundamental condition of a universe that forgets, and therefore must remember, only to forget once more.
noun
- In Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and some other eastern religions, the ongoing cycle of birth, death, and rebirth endured by human beings and all other mortal beings, and from which release is obtained by achieving the highest enlightenment.e.g.“Until we are released from the law of karma and reach moksha or deliverance, we will be in samsara or the time process.”