Understanding the Pursuit of Happiness and the Cycle of Existence : หน้า 90/263

Those who search for happiness via sense pleasure only experience happiness at the moment before suffering mani- fest itself. As soon as suffering becomes manifest, such peo- ple are often so shocked that they cannot even control them- selves — like a rabbit caught in a hunter's snare which bounds and throws itself backwards and forwards out of fear of death at the hunter's hand. Craving is like the hunter (who sets the snare) and those subject to craving are like the rabbit. The edge of the forest where the rabbit lives is like the pleasures of the five senses. For as long as the rabbit can run around freely in the wood, it feels that life is happy and that searching for happiness from the five senses is justified. However, when it gets caught in the snare, it is terrified in the face of death. Similarly, the unenlightened person, still under the influence of his defilements, becomes ensnared in the Ten Fetters [samyojana] and therefore cannot escape the suffering of birth, old age, sickness and death. Those who are still ensnared in craving will continue to have to endure the suffering of being born and reborn in the Cycle of Existence without end. Thus, the wise expend all efforts to remove themselves from craving and give craving no further opportunity to ensnare them in sense pleasures. They set their aims on Nirvana which is free from all greed, hatred and ignorance and which is the embodiment of true happiness and freedom from suffering. They strive to de- velop the wisdom of attainment of arahantship and to ex- 1. The Ten Fetters [samyojana] are subtle defilements of the mind. They are divided into the lower and upper fetters: Lower fetters [orambhāgiyā samyojana]: 1. Mistaken self- view [sakkāyadiṭṭhi]; 2. Doubt [vicikicchā]; 3. Superstition concerning rites and ritua- als [silabbataparāmāsa]; 4. Grasping for sense-pleasure [kāmarāga], and; 5. Annoy- ance [pāṭigha]. Higher fetters [uddhambhāgiyā samyojana]: 1. Grasping for form absorptions [rūparāga]; 2. Grasping for formless absorptions [arūparāga]; 3. Stub- born self-view [mañña]; 4. Absent-mindedness [uddhacca], and; 5. Ignorance [avijjā].