II. The Truth of the Origin of Suffering
NARRATOR TWO: Here are detailed definitions of the second noble truth.
| FIRST VOICE: "These five aggregates affected by clinging have desire for their root ... The clinging is neither the same as the five aggregates affected by clinging, nor is it something apart from them. It is the desire and lust comprised in them that is the clinging there." MN 109
"That comes to be when there is this; that arises with the arising of this."[5] MN 38
"(In the statement of dependent arising:)[6] What is ageing? In the various orders of beings, it is any being's ageing, old age, brokenness of teeth, greyness of hair and wrinkledness, decline of life and weakening of sense-faculties. What is death? In the various orders of beings, it is any being's passing, passing away, dissolution, disappearance, dying, completion of time, dissolution of aggregates, laying down of the carcass. What is birth? In the various orders of beings, it is any being's birth, coming to birth, precipitation in a womb, generation, manifestation of aggregates, acquisition of bases for contact. What is being? Three kinds of being are: being in the mode of sensual desire, being in the mode of form, being in the mode of the formless. What is clinging? There are four varieties of clinging: clinging as the habit of sensual desire, clinging as the habit of wrong view, clinging as the habit of (misapprehension of) virtue and duty,[7] and clinging as the habit of self-theories. What is craving? There are six bodies of craving: craving for visible forms, sounds, odours, flavours, tangibles, and ideas. What is feeling? There are six bodies of (the three sorts of) feeling: feeling born of eye-contact, of ear-contact, of nose-contact, of tongue-contact, of body-contact, and of mind-contact. What is contact?[8] There are six bodies of contact: eye-contact, ear-contact, nose-contact, tongue-contact, body-contact, mind-contact. What is the sixfold base? It is the eye-base, ear-base, nose-base, tongue-base, body-base, and mind-base. What is name-and-form?[9] What is called name comprises feeling, perception, choice,[10] contact, and attention; what is called form comprises the four great entities and any forms derived upon them by clinging; so this name and this form are what is called name-and-form. What is consciousness? There are six bodies of consciousness: eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, and mind-consciousness. What are formations? Three formations are: the bodily formation, verbal formation, and mental formation. What is ignorance? It is nescience about suffering, about the origin of suffering, about the cessation of suffering, and about the way leading to the cessation of suffering." SN 12:2
"Dependent on eye and visible forms, eye-consciousness arises; the coincidence of the three is contact; with contact as condition, feeling; with feeling as condition, craving; that is how there is an origin to suffering (and so with ear ... mind)." SN 12:43
"Inflamed by lust, incensed by hate, confused by delusion, overwhelmed by them and his mind obsessed, a man chooses for his own affliction, for others' affliction, and for the affliction of both, and experiences pain and grief." AN 3:55
"Beings are owners of actions, heirs of actions, they have actions as their progenitor, actions as their kin (and responsibility), actions as their home-refuge; it is actions that differentiate beings into the inferior and superior." MN 135
"What is old action? Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind, are old action (already) determined and chosen that must be experienced to be seen. What is new action? It is whatever action one does now, whether by body, speech, or mind." SN 35:145
"This body is not yours or another's, but is past action (already) determined and chosen that must be experienced to be seen." SN 12:37
"It is choice that I call action; it is in choosing that a man acts by body, speech, and mind. There are actions whose ripening will be experienced in hell, in the animal womb, in the realm of ghosts, among human beings, and in heavenly worlds. Actions ripen in three ways: they can ripen here and now, on reappearance, or in some life-process beyond that." AN 6:63
"Actions done out of lust or hate or delusion ripen wherever an individual selfhood is generated, and wherever those actions ripen, there their ripening is experienced, whether here and now or on next reappearance or in some life-process beyond that." AN 3:33
"There are four incalculables, which cannot be calculated, an attempt to calculate which would lead to frustration and madness. What four? They are the objective field of the Buddhas, the objective field of one who has acquired the meditations, the ripening of action, and the calculation of the world." AN 4:77
"The world is led by mind." SN 1:72 |
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Footnotes:
5. This is in the sense of necessary condition. [Back to text]
6. On dependent arising see The Path of Purification, Ch. XVII. [Back to text]
7. Silabbat'upadana -- clinging to rites and rituals. [Back to text]
8. "Contact" is the contact between the "in-oneself" and the "external" (e.g. eyesight-cum-seen), which is only made possible by the presence of consciousness (e.g. eye-consciousness). It is thus a basic factor in the essential complexity of anything arisen, perceived and formed, whether five-sensory or idea or both. [Back to text]
9. "Name-and-form" is the perceiving and the percept together, experienced and recognized ("named"). It is the "imagery-cum-matter," which together make the individualized and determined subjective perception of an object; but it does not, in the Suttas, include the consciousness in virtue of which that is possible. Later literature include the consciousness within "name," thus favouring an underivable "mind-matter" opposition. [Back to text]
10. Other renderings of cetana (here "choice") are "volition" and "intention." [Back to text]