an essay on dependent origination written by Ajahn Brahm which i
find very helpful.
http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/B%20-%20Theravada/Teachers/Ajahn%20Brahmavamso/Dependent%20Origination/PaticcaSamuppada_Dependent_Origination.pdf
below is a quote from the essay:
Jatipaccayå Dukkha5 – ‘Suffering is caused by birth’.
As shown above, birth is a sufficient cause for suffering, that is,
birth must
give rise to dukkha. Every being that is born will get old, get
sick and die, and
experience the inescapable dukkha associated with that process.
Thus birth is the
problem.
This first link of Paticca-samuppåda is rarely given the
attention it deserves.
It has enormous implications. Before the great insight into
Dependent Origination
under the Bodhi Tree, the Bodhisatta, like most people, had lived
in hope that
somehow He could attain perfect happiness in this existence or some
future existence.
Now He saw that all existence (bhava) is inextricably involved
with suffering. There
is no perfect happiness to be found in any form of existence. As
The Buddha said in
the Anguttara collection:
“Just as a tiny bit of faeces has a bad smell, so I do not
recommend even a tiny
bit of existence, not even for so long as a fingersnap”. (AN 1,
18)
A simile might help. A person born in a harsh prison, raised in
that prison,
who has spent all their time in the prison, can only know prison
life. They don’t even
suspect that anything beyond their prison can exist. So they make
the best of prison.
Those who think positively, because they have gone to prison
seminars, begin to think
that the harsh prison is instead a wonderful place. They even
compose songs like “All
jails bright and beautiful … the good Lord made them all”! Others
get involved with
social service, compassionately decorating the prison cells of
others. When someone
gets tortured or otherwise punished in jail, they think something
has gone wrong and
look for someone to blame. If someone suggests that it is the very
nature of jail to be
suffering, then they are dismissed as a pessimist and told to “Get
a life!”. One full
moon night, a prisoner discovers a door leading out of the jail and
goes through. Only
then does he realize that jail was inherently suffering and you
can’t make it other
wise. He goes back to tell his fellow prisoners. Most don’t believe
him. They can’t
even imagine anything other than their jail. When he says that the
jail is suffering and
the cessation of imprisonment is happiness, he is accused by one
and all of escapism.
Sometimes people rebuke me saying “You monks are just trying to
escape
from the real world!”.
I reply “Well done! At last someone else has understood
Buddhism!”
What’s wrong with escapism, especially when one realises that the
real world
is the harsh prison