All meanings in samsara are just like a dream. They have no true inherent existence and arise only as the display of pure awareness. When one fails to understand appearances as merely the display of pure awareness and identifies them as arising from self, i.e. self-identifies with them, then they become the experience of samsara.

This is a misinterpretation of the nature of the display, which would be like misinterpreting a striped rope to be a snake. Samsara is actually the confused perception of the display of rigpa, pure awareness.

If an appearance is not recognized as arising from the ground, then in that moment the confusion begins. A confused sentient being begins in the very moment when they fail to recognize their own display for what it is.

They are covering or obscuring their own nature by failing to recognize it as the display of the ground. This is called "not seeing it as one's own nature when it arises", the "unawareness of singular identity", and this precisely is the beginning of samsara.

If we were to ask whether the inconceivable qualities of buddha nature that we develop as we grow on the path are new qualities, the answer is no. They are qualities that we possess right now. Although we are developing on the path, we are simply bringing out or actualizing our inherent noble qualities that we've possessed all along, because we are originally Buddha.

~ Yangthang Rinpoche