Analysis of Dependent Co-arising

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Analysis of Dependent Co-arising

~ Sakyamuni Buddha

 

 

Home everywhere, happy anywhere (in this case, Savathi), Sakyamuni

Buddha caught his friends' attention when he kindly chimed out,

 

"Let's look at dependent co-arising!

 

What is it? Well, originally there is nothing known or knowing – our

actual nature! From knowing nothing, we begin creating stories. These

stories eventually coalesce into a sense of self-consciousness, which

generates more stories about identity to confirm itself, requiring

perception, memory, and imagination to merge with the life force and

enliven the cognition of individuated physicality via the various

sensory faculties. "I am" is born. Now, "I am" is feeling, and

what "I am" is feeling is desire. This desire means to hold on until

it is satisfied – no, it can't slow down, it cannot rest. This is

also called "becoming". It is the creative impulse which takes

breath, an appearance in time, and thus also subject to impermanence.

For all of that which resists and conflicts with change, that strives

to hold on to the slightest wisp of a story: suffering, and in any

case, death. And that's the whole damn thing in a nutshell!

 

So what is this original not knowing? It is not knowing the story –

any story. It is not knowing the beginning, middle, or end of any

story. It is not knowing any method or practice which may lead to the

end of any story, since there is no story to be known. That's not

knowing . . . and, from the remaindlerless fading and cessation of

that very not knowing, comes the end of the stories. From the end of

all story comes the realization of the insubstantiality of any

narrator – the end of self-conscious identification -- nothing to

name, nothing to crave, nothing to cling to, nothing created or

destroyed, nothing happening, not one damn thing!"

 

 

~Paticca-samuppada-vibhanga Sutta

 

Translated from the Pali by

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

 

Transliteration by bob

 

 

 

 

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