"We continually try to get away from pain by
seeking pleasure, and in doing so, we just keep going around and around. I'm so hot I open all the windows, and then I'm so cold I
put on a sweater. Then it itches, so I put cream on my arms, and then that's sticky, so I go take a bath, and
on and on.
We are always trying to get out of the boiling pot into
some kind of coolness, always trying to escape and therefore never really fully
settling down and appreciating.
That's called 'samsara.' In other words, we're always
working in that framework of trying to get comfortable through political
beliefs and philosophies and religions and everything, trying to gain pleasure
in all that occurs."
Pema Chodron, "The Wisdom of No Escape," p. 75
