🪷 Samsara is Nirvana (Suffering is Bliss)
- Madhukar Dama
- 3 days ago
- 19 min read
A slow narration from Madhukar
PROLOGUE
I didn’t plan to write any of this.
It just gathered, like dust on a shelf — quiet, slow, real.
These are not teachings. I am no teacher.
I have only lived. Watched. Waited. Sat with joy and pain until they became the same guest.
Everything here comes from an ordinary house with cracked walls, from mornings that smelled of hot rice and castor oil, from footsteps on cold floors.
I’ve learnt one thing:
Life doesn’t ask us to escape.
It asks us to stay. To see. To bow.
If you’ve come looking for secrets, you won’t find them.
But if you sit long enough, if you stop arguing with the way things are —
you may begin to feel what I’ve felt:
That Samsara was never a trap.
That suffering was never separate from peace.
That this very life — as it is — is the gate.
Welcome.
Let us begin.
---
1 - The Chair
There is a chair in my house that nobody sits on.
It is old, with three good legs and one that shakes slightly if you lean too hard.
It stands in a corner beside the window, gathering sun in the mornings, and moths at night.
My younger daughter once asked me why I don’t fix the leg.
I said, “Because it teaches me something.”
She didn’t ask again.
---
2 - The Cycle
In this house, we’ve cried without reason and laughed without warning.
We’ve broken steel buckets, burnt three pressure cookers, and once left a dosa to blacken so badly that the pan had to be thrown away.
And in the middle of all this, we’ve also healed people.
They come early, before sunrise, speaking of pain in the knees or a pressure in the chest.
They talk, I listen. I hand them a bottle of castor oil and say, “Apply here. Slowly. Daily. Let it speak to you.”
They look at me like I’ve given them too little. But they return anyway.
And over time, something shifts in their face. A silence enters. A patience returns.
It is never the oil alone. It is never the method. It is something else.
---
3 - Resistance
When I was young, I used to think that life was supposed to get better.
That problems were stairs, and one day you would climb high enough to reach clean air.
Now I know — there is no such stair.
There is only a circle. Sometimes a spiral.
The leaky tap. The hard rice. The old body. The unspoken words. They do not go away. They return. Not to torment — but to shape.
Samsara is not a prison. It is a wheel. If you walk against it, it grinds you. If you walk with it, it carries you.
---
4 - Clenched
Once, I met a man who had everything — salary, air conditioning, obedient children, a quiet wife.
He said to me, “I cannot feel anything.”
Another time, I met a woman who had lost her husband and lived alone with two sick goats.
She said to me, “Some days I feel like the whole sky is hugging me.”
I did not know how to explain this.
So I just nodded.
---
5 - Washing
There was a year when I lost three people. My uncle, my old friend, and a boy who used to fetch grass for our cows.
During that year, I took to walking at night.
No phone. No torch. Just the path and the moon.
One night, I stopped near the pond and sat under the pipal tree. A mosquito bit me, and I slapped my arm too hard.
Then I laughed. And I cried. I don’t know which came first.
All I remember is: there was nothing left to want in that moment. And yet everything was present.
The pain had not gone.
But the fear of it had.
That is what I mean when I say, suffering is bliss.
Not because it feels good.
But because it wakes you up.
---
6 - The Dirt Path
A woman came to me last week. Her son was in a coma. She asked me what to do.
I said, “Sit beside him and oil his feet.”
She said, “That’s all?”
I said, “Yes. But do it without asking for anything. No prayers. No bargains. Just presence.”
She returned after ten days, eyes swollen, voice quiet.
She said, “He is still not waking. But I feel I’ve met him for the first time.”
That is what I mean when I say, Samsara is Nirvana.
The dirt path is the shrine.
---
7 - Stillness
Sometimes I look at my daughters while they’re asleep.
They breathe like small animals. One turns, one snores. Their legs tangle. The room smells of fruits and sambhar and schoolbooks.
I do not wish for them to avoid pain.
I only wish for them to meet it gently, without panic.
If they can do that, they will know what I’ve come to know:
That bliss is not a bright place.
It is a deep quiet behind your ribs.
It walks with you through the market, through the hospital, through the funeral, through the queue at the ration shop.
It is not above. It is inside.
---
8 - Returning
That old chair still stands.
Sometimes when no one is home, I sit in it, lean just enough to make it rock slightly, and close my eyes.
The leg creaks. The birds call. Someone’s pressure cooker whistles three houses away.
And I feel it again:
This life — this exact one, with all its brokenness, noise, demands, losses —
This is the destination.
There is no higher.
No purer.
No better.
There is only this.
And when you stop wanting it to be anything else,
it becomes everything.
---
9 - The Boy
A boy came to me once. Seventeen, thin wrists, tired eyes.
He said, “Uncle, I’ve done everything right. Studied well. Listened to my parents. But still I feel like I’m choking inside.”
I looked at his hands. They were clenched.
I said, “Try carrying water in a closed fist.”
He didn’t understand.
So I filled a pot, asked him to take water with his palm clenched.
He tried. Failed.
I said nothing. He sat in silence.
Before leaving, he asked, “Will it always hurt like this?”
I said, “Yes. But the hurt will soften. And one day, it will become your teacher.”
He didn’t thank me. But he walked away a little slower.
That’s how healing begins. Not with answers. But with less running.
---
10 - Sweeper
There is a neighbour here. Retired army man. Very disciplined.
Every day he sweeps his gate, washes his bike, waters the plants.
And every day, he finds something to complain about — garbage, power cut, noise, potholes.
One day I asked, “Does anything bring you peace?”
He said, “Only when everything is in order.”
I said, “Then you will wait forever.”
The world has no interest in lining up just for your comfort.
If you wait for silence to come from the outside, you will grow old waiting.
True silence doesn’t come when things are quiet.
It comes when you no longer argue with what is.
---
11 - Silence
My wife once lost her voice for a week.
Not due to illness — it just stopped.
She moved her lips, but no sound came.
We found other ways. She would blink twice for yes, once for no. Write small notes. Point at things.
And in those silent seven days, I saw her clearest.
She smiled more. Listened deeply. We both slowed down.
When her voice returned, I missed the stillness.
Sometimes, when too many words fill the room, I say, “Let’s speak like we did that week.”
She laughs and says, “You liked me better broken?”
I say, “No. I liked myself better when I was listening.”
---
12 - Bowed
One man I helped never healed physically.
His spine was damaged. He remained bent forward like he was bowing to the ground.
But every time he came to see me, he’d ask, “Can I sweep your porch?”
Not out of service. Not for gratitude.
It gave him joy.
He said, “Before the accident, I never noticed dust. Now I see how peaceful it is to remove it.”
Sometimes, when suffering bends the body, the heart straightens.
---
13 - The Visitor
A woman once wept in my house for nearly two hours.
She had no name for her pain.
Just said, “I don’t know why I feel so heavy all the time.”
I didn’t try to fix her. I just made her sit, placed a pack of warm castor oil on her belly, and said, “Let it melt something.”
She came three more times. Never said much.
On her fourth visit, she brought lemons from her tree.
She didn’t say thank you.
She didn’t need to.
---
14 - No War
People think peace is loud.
That it announces itself with grand clarity.
But I have seen the quiet kind — the one that comes like warm rain during power cuts.
It does not scream “I am peace!”
It simply stops needing anything.
You just notice:
You’re not comparing anymore.
You’re not rehearsing replies.
You’re not measuring moments.
You sit with the roti burning slightly, and don’t mind.
You wait in traffic, and don’t fight.
You hear someone gossip about you, and it stings, but doesn’t linger.
That is peace.
Not perfect. Not holy. Just no longer at war.
---
15 - Enough
I’ve never visited a holy mountain.
Never taken a vow of silence.
I still like the taste of jaggery in my tea. Still forget birthdays. Still get annoyed when the goats eat the drumstick leaves.
But something inside me cracked long ago. And through that crack, the light stopped hiding.
I no longer believe life is unfair.
It just doesn’t bend to our moods.
It asks only one thing:
“Will you stay with me, even when I’m difficult?”
If your answer is yes —
then one day, while sweeping, or kneading dough, or rubbing oil on your back —
you will find yourself crying softly, and not know why.
That is the day Samsara bows its head.
---
16 - The Mirror
My eldest daughter, Adhya, is taller than her mother now.
She ties her own hair, reminds me to drink water, and reads the newspaper with a kind of tiredness I used to mistake for maturity.
Yesterday, she asked, “Appa, why don’t you worry more? You’re so calm all the time.”
I wanted to tell her that calmness came after years of burning inside.
But I just said, “Because I no longer believe my worry will stop the rain.”
She didn’t reply. But I saw it — a small line on her forehead softened.
Some truths must be said without explanation.
Some questions don’t want answers — just company.
---
17 - Departure
I once met a dying man who laughed too much.
He had a broken liver, a swollen stomach, and half his teeth missing.
But he chuckled like a child whenever someone scolded him.
His wife said, “He used to be angry all the time. Now he’s like this.”
He looked at me and said, “Everything they took away from me was just extra weight. I’m almost flying now.”
He died two days later.
And I think of him every time someone tells me, “I want to be free.”
Freedom is not a reward. It is what remains when everything else is taken.
---
18 - Wait
There was a time I thought I needed to help everyone.
That it was my duty to guide, fix, teach.
But I was wrong.
You cannot carry people across rivers they don’t know they’re drowning in.
Now, when someone comes to me crying, I sit with them in the dirt.
I don’t lift them.
I wait.
Until they shift, even slightly. Until their own hand moves.
That small movement is sacred. It must be theirs.
Healing is not something I give.
It is something they uncover.
---
19 - Flight
My younger daughter, Anju, once brought me a broken plastic bird.
The wing had snapped off. She asked, “Can we make it fly again?”
I said, “It never flew to begin with.”
She frowned. Then said, “But it looked like it did.”
That sentence stayed with me.
So many things in life only look like they fly:
Power.
Popularity.
Perfection.
Prestige.
They flap beautifully. But inside — plastic.
When you stop chasing flight, real wind touches you.
---
20 - Water
Sometimes, when no one is home, I boil water and drink it slowly with jaggery.
I sit by the back window, where the guava tree leans over the neighbour’s wall.
And I watch the ants.
They never panic. Never protest. Never say, “Why me?”
They just carry crumbs ten times their size, fall, rise, walk again.
If I had to choose one prayer, it would be this:
“Make me as simple as these ants. Let me carry pain without drama. Let me accept joy without grabbing. Let me walk—just walk.”
I used to want enlightenment.
Now I just want to be clear.
---
21 - Wrong Questions
At my age, people ask often: “What is the meaning of life?”
I say, “Wrong question.”
Better to ask, “Can I meet this life, exactly as it is?”
Because meaning changes.
When my first child was born, her breath gave me meaning.
When my father died, his silence gave me meaning.
Now, even a cracked tile gives me meaning, if I stare long enough.
Life doesn’t need to be understood.
It needs to be met.
Like a river. Like a stranger. Like a poem in a tongue you almost remember.
---
22 - Stains
In our house, there is a wall full of stains.
Oil, pencil scribbles, beetle-wing shadows.
Savitri once said, “We should repaint it.”
But I said no.
Because every mark is a season.
That brown circle? The year the stove exploded.
That grey patch? Monsoon leak we never fixed.
That scribble? Anju learning to write the Kannada letter for “ka”.
We keep thinking we need to erase things to feel new.
But sometimes, healing means leaving the marks intact.
Letting them age with grace.
Not every scar asks for makeup.
Some just want to be left in peace.
---
23 - Belly
I still take a castor oil pack some nights.
The girls tease me. The cloth is ancient. The oil smells like age.
But when I lie down, belly warm, legs stretched, eyes closed — I am nowhere and everywhere.
No thought. No future. Just here.
If people knew what healing this offered — they would stop chasing cures.
Sometimes, the body doesn’t need to be fixed. It just wants to be heard.
The belly remembers. The skin remembers. Even the silence remembers.
And when all these remember together — that is bliss.
---
24 - Time
Last week, an old patient of mine died.
I had once helped him ease a wound that no doctor could name.
His daughter called me, crying, and said, “He always said you gave him peace.”
But I had not done anything.
I had only sat with him, listened, offered warm oil, and didn’t rush.
Maybe that is all people need.
To not be rushed.
To not be talked over.
To be allowed to crumble slowly, without shame.
If I could gift the world one thing, it would not be medicine.
It would be time.
---
25 - Everything
Now, the neem tree outside is taller than the house.
Its shadow reaches the kitchen door by noon.
Adhya will grow up soon. Anju too, later. The house will become quieter. The stains will fade. The chair may fall apart.
But I don’t feel fear anymore.
Everything is exactly where it belongs — even what is broken, delayed, forgotten, or misunderstood.
This world — this very one, with all its heaviness and heat — is a holy thing.
Samsara is not a trap.
It is the lamp.
And Nirvana?
It is not an escape.
It is simply seeing — that there never was anything to escape from.
---
26 - Bell
The temple bell next door used to irritate me.
It rang sharp every morning at 5.25 — never 5, never 6. Just that perfect corner between sleep and waking.
I once even asked the priest to delay it. He smiled kindly and said nothing.
Years passed.
Now when I wake and hear the bell, I feel a certain company.
The bell no longer disturbs me because I’ve stopped imagining that my sleep is more important than other people’s prayers.
This is how Samsara trains you — not by removing irritations, but by melting your resistance to them.
---
27 - Cleaning
During Sankranti, we clean the whole house. Every year.
Same corner, same webs, same dust.
Adhya once asked, “Appa, why clean the same things again and again?”
I said, “Because the dust comes back. And so do we.”
She said, “Then what’s the point?”
I said, “Not everything is done to finish. Some things are done to return.”
That’s what this life is.
Not a ladder. A circle.
Not escape. A return.
We don’t clean to prove we’re clean.
We clean to remember who we are underneath.
---
28 - Blister
A small blister on my foot has taught me more than any book.
It came from a tight slipper. At first, it was only red. Then it puffed. Then it hurt. Then it opened.
Then — it calmed.
This is the cycle.
Pain is not permanent.
But it must pass through its full story.
The world rushes to stop pain early. Pills, distractions, promises.
But what heals, truly — is witnessing.
Even pain gets tired if you simply let it exist without resistance.
---
29 - Transistor
An old transistor sits near my desk. It doesn’t work.
Savitri once said, “Throw it.”
I didn’t.
Not because I’m sentimental — but because silence sounds better next to memory.
That transistor reminds me of days when the world was slower. When news came at 8. When songs were rare. When waiting was part of listening.
Sometimes I turn its knob knowing nothing will play.
And still — I feel peace.
It is good to keep some broken things.
They remind us we don’t need to be useful to be loved.
---
30 - Arrival
Last month, I met a man who said, “I’m looking for purpose.”
He said it like one might say, “I lost my wallet.”
I asked, “Did you eat this morning?”
He said yes.
“Did you speak kindly to someone?”
He paused. “Yes.”
“Did you breathe fully, even once?”
He smiled slowly.
Then I said, “Then today had purpose. You just didn’t see it.”
We think purpose must look like a flag.
Sometimes, it’s just a soft footprint.
---
31 - The Bowl
We lost our cow this year.
She had been with us twelve years. Gentle. Big eyes. Always came when I clapped twice.
When she died, the house felt empty in a new way.
But I didn’t cry.
Not because I didn’t feel — but because something in me had grown strong enough to hold the ache without breaking.
That is what suffering teaches if you let it.
It doesn’t take away sadness.
It just gives you a larger bowl.
---
32 - Womb
Sometimes, when guests come, they ask me:
“Why don’t you paint the walls?”
“Why is your chair so old?”
“Why no fridge?”
I smile and offer tea.
They don’t understand: my house is not a showroom.
It is a womb.
It holds fatigue. Laughter. Old arguments. Shared meals. Healing silences.
Everything here works slowly. But everything speaks.
Even the wall behind the gas stove has a voice. It has heard years of morning hunger and evening forgiveness.
This is my ashram. This is my temple.
---
33 - Space
Anju asked me why I don’t scold her anymore.
I said, “Because I finally realised that people don’t grow from scolding. They grow from space.”
She didn’t fully get it.
But she smiled and leaned her head on my arm.
In that moment, I felt something deep settle inside me.
Children don’t need better rules.
They need quieter adults.
---
34 - Dusk
There are nights I cannot sleep.
Not because of worry. Just because the world feels too alive.
The neem tree hums like a tired monk.
Dogs bark, not in anger, but in rhythm.
A bulb from some far house flickers like a soft memory.
I do not feel restless.
I just lie there, inside time, watching thought pass like clouds.
That too is Nirvana.
Not a place.
A posture.
---
35 - Fermented
I found one of my old diaries last week.
Inside was a list titled:
“Things to achieve before 50.”
I read it. Laughed. Closed the book.
So many of those things don’t matter now.
What matters?
A peaceful stomach.
A quiet face.
Children who feel safe to cry near you.
A home that holds more warmth than worry.
And a death that arrives like an old friend, not a robber.
Everything else fades.
---
36 - Tree
The mirror in my room shows me things no one else sees.
Not just my face. But time itself.
The folds near my eyes, the soft sag at my neck, the dimming behind my pupils — they are not flaws.
They are the body’s quiet way of bowing.
We age the same way dusk comes — not with drama, but by softening the edges.
I used to fear old age.
Now I watch it like I’d watch the rain —
from inside, with both hands open.
---
36 - Full Circle
When Adhya left for a trip, she hugged me and said, “I’ll come back stronger.”
I didn’t say much. Just nodded.
But when she left, the wall clock ticked louder. The room gained a silence I didn’t ask for.
I went to her room, sat by the window, and stared at her empty steel water bottle.
I didn’t cry. But something inside me broke beautifully.
People think love is holding on.
But love is also allowing departure.
To love fully is to let them go without begging them to stay.
---
38 - Forgetting
Savitri sleeps earlier now.
Sometimes I wake at 2 a.m. and find her curled, palms beneath her cheek like a child.
I don’t wake her. I just sit beside her in the dark.
We’ve shared a life — with pain, with lack, with harsh words and long silences, with cups of tea and shared glances.
No movie. No poem. No book ever said this clearly:
The deepest love is not in romance.
It is in knowing someone’s breath, their cough, their footsteps in the hallway — and still choosing to stay near.
---
39 - Fire
The young these days speak of urgency.
Of changing the world. Protesting. Disrupting. Reinventing everything.
I admire their fire.
But I’ve seen that fire burn people too.
I tell them gently: “Do your work. But don’t forget to sit under a tree without a reason.”
Because no revolution is complete if you lose your own heart in it.
Sometimes, the smallest kindness to yourself is the seed of the largest change.
---
40 - Crackers
Last Deepavali, I watched the neighbours light crackers.
The children screamed in joy. The elders smiled. The sky filled with bursts of silver and red.
I stayed on the balcony, watching the lights fade before they touched the stars.
And I thought: That is life.
Beautiful.
Loud.
Blazing.
But it fades before it hits the heavens.
Which is why we must love it without clutching.
Not try to make it eternal. Just meet it fully while it lasts.
---
41 - Walk
I walk slower now.
The market feels farther. My steps are cautious. Ankles murmur. Knees hesitate.
But in this slowness, I’ve begun seeing things I missed for years:
A sparrow cleaning its beak on a cable.
A child offering her last biscuit to a stray dog.
An old woman adjusting her son’s collar without words.
Speed never let me see these.
Now, every journey takes longer.
But every journey shows more.
---
42 - Curd
Anju and I prepared curd together last Thursday.
She asked me, “Why do you add a spoon of old curd every time?”
I said, “Because new curd doesn’t grow by itself. It needs a little bit of the old.”
She paused, nodded, and whispered, “Like life?”
I smiled.
Yes.
The past is not our enemy.
It is the starter culture for what comes next.
If we carry its wisdom gently, the future ferments sweetly.
---
43 - Grain
I now eat with fewer items on my plate.
One sabzi. Some millet rice. One spoon of ghee. Maybe pickle if the stomach allows.
But every bite feels richer.
I chew slowly. Listen to the grain. Taste the effort of the farmer. The hand of the cook. The history of the seed.
Earlier, food was fuel.
Now, food is a memory in the mouth.
Hunger too has changed. It no longer rushes me.
It simply asks, “Are you paying attention?”
---
44 - Green Sun
Every once in a while, a child brings me a drawing.
Stick figures, uneven trees, crooked houses.
I never correct them. Never say the sun can’t be green.
I just say, “Thank you. I see it. It’s beautiful.”
Because that is what we all want, secretly.
To be seen.
Without being edited.
If God exists, maybe that’s all He does all day:
Watch us lovingly without fixing anything.
---
55 - Bullock
One day, I will die.
It may be a slow cough. A quiet failure inside the chest. A slipping breath after sleep.
I don’t imagine it as a tragedy anymore.
I imagine it like a tired bullock returning to its shed.
The road will end.
The sun will set.
And I will not be sad.
Because nothing was wasted.
Not the tears.
Not the fights.
Not the burnt rice.
Not the unspoken words.
All of it belonged.
All of it was Life’s handwriting — even when unreadable.
---
46 - Bend
The neem tree outside has begun to lean.
Its trunk bends eastward now, as if bowing to the morning sun.
Anju says we should call someone to straighten it. I say no.
Let it bend.
Trees don’t need to stand proud. They need only continue growing.
That is enough.
I too have bent. My back curves slightly now. My shoulders fall forward.
But I don’t feel less.
I feel closer to the ground, closer to the truth.
Some things are more complete when imperfect.
---
47 - Exhaustion
A man came from the city last month. His mother had heard of my castor oil.
He said, “I’ve tried everything — doctors, yoga, tablets, therapy. I’m still anxious. Still sleepless. Still restless.”
I said, “That’s not failure. That’s arrival.”
He looked confused.
I said, “When you’ve tried everything, you’re finally empty enough to receive something real.”
Sometimes, it takes a full circle of failure to begin properly.
That’s how Samsara tricks you — it exhausts you, only to bring you to your knees, where grace finally touches you.
---
48 - Silences
I’ve started forgetting names.
Not because I’m careless — but because the mind is letting go of things that don’t need holding.
But strangely, I now remember silences more clearly.
The silence in my father's eyes the day he blessed me without words.
The silence in Savitri’s kitchen when she knew I was unwell but didn’t ask.
The silence on Adhya’s last night before leaving.
The silence in the sky after Amma died.
Words age. But silences stay young.
---
49 - Hands
I looked at my own hands this morning. Wrinkled. Veined. Skin like loose cloth.
These hands held newborns.
Massaged knees.
Cooked.
Touched dying foreheads.
Clutched fear.
Released anger.
Folded in prayer.
Wiped oil. Wiped tears. Wiped floors.
And now, they tremble when holding a glass.
But I do not hide them.
I let them tremble in peace.
Because everything they’ve held — they’ve also let go.
That is all that’s left to learn.
---
50 - The Last One
I do not know how many days remain.
But I feel no urgency.
I’ve lived inside storms, and I’ve become the sky.
What I know now:
There is no need to win.
No need to escape.
No need to be understood.
No need to delay love.
There is only one work left:
To bow quietly to this life —
exactly as it came —
and whisper:
“I saw you. I didn’t run. Thank you.”
---
The Silent Arc
Words end here.
But Madhukar remains — in memory, in dust, in bowls and books and corners of rooms.
Let this final arc not be told — but sensed.
---
Scene: After
The room is still.
The castor oil bottle stands half full.
The chair still rocks gently when wind enters.
One diary remains open on a table. Blank page. No pen.
Savitri waters the tulsi plant alone.
Anju adjusts the bedsheet. Not with grief — with care.
A bird sings outside.
Inside, nothing says death.
It all feels strangely full.
The neem tree still taps.
---
One Final Thought
You come looking for peace in escape.
But the old man — who cooked rice, rubbed oil, and listened more than he spoke —
he left behind the deeper truth:
“Samsara was Nirvana.”
“Suffering was Bliss.”
“The house was the temple.”
“The silence was the scripture.”
“And your life — exactly as it is — was always enough.”
—---
EPILOGUE
The chair still stands, though no one sits in it long.
The castor oil bottle is half-used.
The belly cloth folded.
The diary closed.
The neem tree outside leans a little more each season.
Its shade falls now on both the stove and the mat.
Adhya talks less. Anju cooks more.
Savitri hums while sweeping — the same old tune.
There are no photos on the wall.
No garlands. No framed words.
Only a breeze that carries memory gently through the hall.
And once in a while, someone sits here quietly and says,
“He didn’t talk much. But I felt understood.”
That is all.
Nothing ended.
Nothing began.
Only the wheel turned once more — without sound, without struggle.
And that was enough.
—
