Day 56 of 365: Dusting Our Boots Off

Sometimes, in the heat of suffering, we just want to knock the dust of samsara off our boots and get out of here.  This impulse to escape can be productive in the sense that one is connecting with revulsion towards suffering.  However, solidifying that into a goal of some kind, a goal to get from samsara to nirvana, is a provisional view according to the Middle Way teachings.  How would nirvana and samsara be related if they both truly existed?  If nirvana arose after samsara, then nirvana would have arisen from samsara and would be subject to the same impermanence.  If samsara existed after nirvana, then nirvana, with no reference point of samsara or suffering, could not be defined.  Therefore, nirvana does not exist in a solid real way as somewhere separate from samsara.  When we find ourselves thinking there are greener pastures over the horizon, perhaps flashing on this idea will remind us that actual liberation starts with staying with all our confusion and our impulse to escape.