The Buddha left the cycle of birth and death, right?

[Danioover9000]

@CuriousityIsKey

3 hours ago, CuriousityIsKey said:

If reaching nirvana means leaving the wheel of Samara, why are we still here then? Aren't we all different incarnations of the same single consciousness? When one gets out, shouldn't that mean everyone is out? What am I missing, or am I taking it all too literally?

   Probably too literally.

   Maybe you're missing psychedelic experience, awakening, mystical experiences, paranormal experiences, meditative and kundalini stuff, direct experience of direct experience. Mahbe these and more.

   This isn't like Solipsism, where you are the only real thing, the only existence, and the world and otherness is an illusion, that if you died the whole illusion dies with you. Nah, duality, the devil and god are way too complex to simply die out like that. It's closer to panpsychism than Solipsism in this sense.

   Probably are different incarnations of the same consciousness, but sure doesn't feel like that's true.

   Maybe the wheel of samara is more pleasant than Nirvana, which is why most people stick to the wheel more than going outside the wheel. Most people know what's inside the wheel, and not outside the wheel. I think that's the simple logic behind it.

[VeganAwake]

4 hours ago, The Lucid Dreamer said:

There is no one there to leave the cycle of death and rebirth to begin with. 

❤ 

Yep, It's the recognition there never was a real individual to escape or not.

No one escapes because no one is really imprisoned.

 

[WelcometoReality]

7 hours ago, CuriousityIsKey said:

If reaching nirvana means leaving the wheel of Samara, why are we still here then? Aren't we all different incarnations of the same single consciousness? When one gets out, shouldn't that mean everyone is out? What am I missing, or am I taking it all too literally?

Yeah, we are but the realization is subjective. From Buddhas point of view the world wakes up and it is realized it's ONE. From your perspective that hasn't been realized.

[Nahm]

13 hours ago, CuriousityIsKey said:

If reaching nirvana means leaving the wheel of Samara, why are we still here then?

The wheel isn’t a place or thing, it is thought attachment, and it persists only by the aversion of the practice which would otherwise result in cessation of thought attachment. Thought attachment is averted via believing ‘one’s own’ intellectualizing, conceptualizing, justifying & rationalizing, namely in matters of objectifying people to fulfill ‘one’s own’ egoic impulses, vs utilization of the practice to see that these are illusory, in that they are fleeting and come & go. 

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Aren't we all different incarnations of the same single consciousness?

Yes, but to the extent there is no such thing as ‘we’ or ‘incarnations’, or even ‘single’ or ‘consciousness’. 

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When one gets out, shouldn't that mean everyone is out? What am I missing, or am I taking it all too literally?

There is no actuality of a you, people, or others in a world. This is already within the enlightened one. But thought attachment, and the conjecture of ‘conceptualizing aversion away’ makes it seem so, keeps one asleep if you will.