In short: saṃsāra ("wandering on") is the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. The Buddha said: "Mendicants, this transmigration has no known beginning. No first point is found of sentient beings roaming and transmigrating, shrouded by ignorance and fettered by craving." (SN 15.3). It ends when ignorance and craving end: that ending is nibbāna.
Ignorance
Craving
Rebirth
✦ More tears than the oceans
The Buddha asked which is more: the tears we have shed over countless lives, or the water in the four oceans. The tears, his monks answered. (SN 15.3)
🪷 How it ends
Nibbāna · Dependent origination · Rebirth in Buddhism
Questions people ask
What is samsara?
Saṃsāra ('wandering on') is the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. The Buddha said it 'has no known beginning' and is driven by ignorance and craving (SN 15.3). Nibbāna is its end.