The Prisons of Renewed Existence

Three of the great teachers of the Buddha’s time described their vision of the prison of renewed existence before giving their plans for escape. The Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta saw the prison as kamma clinging to the soul due to our actions and passions. The Buddha saw it as suffering dependent on craving. Gosāla saw beings imprisoned with an irrevocable sentence, beyond their power to shorten or lengthen, but with release guaranteed at its predestined time.

They shared a belief in saṃsāra—that humans will be reborn in realms of pleasure and affliction but not become truly liberated and free until they have awakened (the Buddha), worn away all kamma (Nātaputta), or reached their destined time (Gosāla). In the case of the Buddha and Nātaputta, not only did they proclaim a philosophy of liberation from saṃsāra, they also taught people their own particular way of freedom from the yokes, burdens, and torments of renewed existence.

Sañjaya, according to my research, did not see saṃsāra as a prison, nor himself as a prisoner needing a method of escape. He did not see existence as a burden to be dropped, nor did he see sense pleasures as a charcoal pit, nor the world as a burning house. He approached life from a different angle, occupying a different sphere of exploration.

At the Buddha’s time, this type of inner exploration might not have interested those intent on finding liberation from whichever prison of existence they believed themselves to be trapped in. Endless exploration of one's inner world might have seemed idle, without benefit, beside the point, and not providing solace for suffering. But that is reading Sañjaya’s method in comparison with the liberation methods of his time. In its own sphere, it offered the peace of not having to hold a position to defend. The sage who inhabited this sphere of exploration could be open to knowing other people’s ideas and not need to acquiesce to those ideas nor attack the messenger.