At the end of seven days, after
emerging from that concentration,
the Blessed One surveyed the world
with the eye of an Enlightened
One. As he did so he saw beings
burning with the many fires and consumed with the many fevers born of
lust, of hate, and of delusion.
Knowing the meaning of this, he then
uttered this exclamation:
This world is anguished, being exposed
to contact,
Even what the world calls self is in
fact ill;
For no matter upon what it conceives
(its conceits of self),
The fact is ever other than that (which
it conceives).
The world, whose being is to become
other,
Is committed to being, is exposed to
being, relishes
only being,
Yet what it relishes brings fear, and
what it fears is pain.
Now this holy life is lived to abandon
suffering.
"Whatever monks or brahmans have
described liberation from
being to come about through (love of)
being, none, I say, are liberated from being. And whatever monks or
brahmans have described
escape from being to come about through
(love of) non-being, none,
I say, have escaped from being. Through
the essentials of existence,
suffering is; with all clinging
exhausted, suffering is no more."
See this broad world:
Beings exposed to ignorance relishing
what is,
Never freed from being.
Whatever the kinds of being, in any
way, anywhere,
All are impermanent, pain-haunted, and
subject to change.
So a man who sees this as it is,
Abandons craving for being, without
relishing non-being.
The remainderless fading, ceasing, the
Extinction,
Comes with the utter ending of all
craving.
When a bhikkhu reaches Nibbana thus
through not clinging,
Then he will have no renewal of being;
Mara has been vanquished and the battle
gained,
Since one such as he has outstripped
all being.
Ud. 3:10
"Bhikkhus, there are two kinds of
(wrong) view, and when deities
and human beings are in their grip,
some hang back and some overreach; it is only those with vision that
see. How do some hang back?
Deities and human beings love being,
delight in being, enjoy being;
when the Dhamma is expounded to them
for the ending of being,
their hearts do not go out to it or acquire
confidence, steadiness and
decision. So some hang back. And how do
some overreach? Some
are ashamed, humiliated and disgusted by that
same being, and they
look forward to non-being in this way: 'Sirs,
when with the dissolution of the body this self is cut off,
annihilated and accordingly after
death no longer is, that is the
most peaceful, that is the goal superior
to all, that is reality.'
So some overreach. And how do those with
vision see? Here a bhikkhu
sees whatever has come to being as come
to being. By seeing it thus
he has entered upon the way to dispassion
for it, to the fading and
ceasing of lust for it. That is how one with
vision sees."
Iti. 49
"Whatever recluses or brahmins, monks, are speculators about the past or speculators about the future or speculators about the past and the future together, hold settled views about the past and the future, and assert various conceptual theorems referring to the past and the future, all of them do so on these sixty-two grounds or on a certain one of them. Outside of these there is none.
"This, monks, the Tathāgata understands. And he understands: 'These standpoints, thus assumed and thus misapprehended, lead to such a future destination, to such a state in the world beyond.' He understands as well what transcends this, yet even that understanding he does not misapprehend. And because he is free from misapprehension, he has realized within himself the state of perfect peace. Having understood as they really are the origin and the passing away of feelings, their satisfaction, their unsatisfactoriness, and the escape from them, the Tathāgata, bhikkhus, is emancipated through not-holding.
Monks, the Tathàgata's body stands with its leading factor in being cut off at the root. As long as his body stands, gods and men will see him. With the breaking up of his body, after the extinction of his life, gods and men will not see him." D1
Here a bhikkhu sees whatever has come to being as come to being. With ignorance as a condition ... being ...
To be is to be contingent: nothing of which it can be said that "it is" can be alone and independent. But being is a member of paticca-samuppada as arising which contains ignorance. Being is only invertible by ignorance.
Destruction of ignorance destroys the illusion of being. When ignorance is no more, than consciousness no longer can attribute being (pahoti) at all. But that is not all for when consciousness is predicated of one who has no ignorance than it is no more indicatable (as it was indicated in M Sutta 22) Nanamoli Thera
Upādānapaccayā bhavo; bhavapaccayā jāti; jātipaccayā jarāmaranam... ('With holding as condition, being; with being as condition, birth; with birth as condition, ageing-&-death...') The fundamental upādāna or 'holding' is attavāda (see Majjhima ii,1 <M.i,67>), which is holding a belief in 'self'. The puthujjana takes what appears to be his 'self' at its face value; and so long as this goes on he continues to be a 'self', at least in his own eyes (and in those of others like him). This is bhava or 'being'. The puthujjana knows that people are born and die; and since he thinks 'my self exists' so he also thinks 'my self was born' and 'my self will die'. The puthujjana sees a 'self' to whom the words birth and death apply.[d] In contrast to the puthujjana, the arahat has altogether got rid of asmimāna (not to speak of attavāda—see MAMA), and does not even think 'I am'. This is bhavanirodha, cessation of being. And since he does not think 'I am' he also does not think 'I was born' or 'I shall die'. In other words, he sees no 'self' or even 'I' for the words birth and death to apply to. This is jātinirodha and jarāmarananirodha.
(See, in Kosala Samy. i,3 <S.i,71>, how the words birth and death are avoided when the arahat is spoken of. Atthi nu kho bhante jātassa aññatra jarāmaranā ti. N'atthi kho mahārāja jātassa aññatra jarāmaranā. Ye pi te mahārāja khattiyamahāsālā... brāhmanamahāsālā... gahapatimahāsālā..., tesam pi jātānam n'atthi aññatra jarāmaranā. Ye pi te mahārāja bhikkhu arahanto khīnāsavā..., tesam pāyam kāyo bhedanadhammo nikkhepanadhammo ti. ('—For one who is born, lord, is there anything other than ageing-&-death? — For one who is born, great king, there is nothing other than ageing-&-death. Those, great king, who are wealthy warriors... wealthy divines... wealthy householders ..., —for them, too, being born, there is nothing other than ageing-&-death. Those monks, great king, who are worthy ones, destroyers of the cankers...,—for them, too, it is the nature of this body to break up, to be laid down.'))
The puthujjana, taking his apparent 'self' at face value, does not see that he is a victim of upādāna; he does not see that 'being a self' depends upon 'holding a belief in self' (upādānapaccayā bhavo); and he does not see that birth and death depend upon his 'being a self' (bhavapaccayā jāti, and so on). The ariyasāvaka, on the other hand, does see these things, and he sees also their cessation (even though he may not yet have fully realized it); and his seeing of these things is direct. Quite clearly, the idea of re-birth is totally irrelevant here.
Nanavira Thera
"Whatever recluses or brahmins, monks, are speculators about the past or speculators about the future or speculators about the past and the future together, hold settled views about the past and the future, and assert various conceptual theorems referring to the past and the future, all of them do so on these sixty-two grounds or on a certain one of them. Outside of these there is none.
"This, monks, the Tathāgata understands. And he understands: 'These standpoints, thus assumed and thus misapprehended, lead to such a future destination, to such a state in the world beyond.' He understands as well what transcends this, yet even that understanding he does not misapprehend. And because he is free from misapprehension, he has realized within himself the state of perfect peace. Having understood as they really are the origin and the passing away of feelings, their satisfaction, their unsatisfactoriness, and the escape from them, the Tathāgata, bhikkhus, is emancipated through not-holding.
Monks, the Tathàgata's body stands with its leading factor in being cut off at the root. As long as his body stands, gods and men will see him. With the breaking up of his body, after the extinction of his life, gods and men will not see him." D1
Here a bhikkhu sees whatever has come to being as come to being. With ignorance as a condition ... being ...
To be is to be contingent: nothing of which it can be said that "it is" can be alone and independent. But being is a member of paticca-samuppada as arising which contains ignorance. Being is only invertible by ignorance.
Destruction of ignorance destroys the illusion of being. When ignorance is no more, than consciousness no longer can attribute being (pahoti) at all. But that is not all for when consciousness is predicated of one who has no ignorance than it is no more indicatable (as it was indicated in M Sutta 22) Nanamoli Thera
Upādānapaccayā bhavo; bhavapaccayā jāti; jātipaccayā jarāmaranam... ('With holding as condition, being; with being as condition, birth; with birth as condition, ageing-&-death...') The fundamental upādāna or 'holding' is attavāda (see Majjhima ii,1 <M.i,67>), which is holding a belief in 'self'. The puthujjana takes what appears to be his 'self' at its face value; and so long as this goes on he continues to be a 'self', at least in his own eyes (and in those of others like him). This is bhava or 'being'. The puthujjana knows that people are born and die; and since he thinks 'my self exists' so he also thinks 'my self was born' and 'my self will die'. The puthujjana sees a 'self' to whom the words birth and death apply.[d] In contrast to the puthujjana, the arahat has altogether got rid of asmimāna (not to speak of attavāda—see MAMA), and does not even think 'I am'. This is bhavanirodha, cessation of being. And since he does not think 'I am' he also does not think 'I was born' or 'I shall die'. In other words, he sees no 'self' or even 'I' for the words birth and death to apply to. This is jātinirodha and jarāmarananirodha.
(See, in Kosala Samy. i,3 <S.i,71>, how the words birth and death are avoided when the arahat is spoken of. Atthi nu kho bhante jātassa aññatra jarāmaranā ti. N'atthi kho mahārāja jātassa aññatra jarāmaranā. Ye pi te mahārāja khattiyamahāsālā... brāhmanamahāsālā... gahapatimahāsālā..., tesam pi jātānam n'atthi aññatra jarāmaranā. Ye pi te mahārāja bhikkhu arahanto khīnāsavā..., tesam pāyam kāyo bhedanadhammo nikkhepanadhammo ti. ('—For one who is born, lord, is there anything other than ageing-&-death? — For one who is born, great king, there is nothing other than ageing-&-death. Those, great king, who are wealthy warriors... wealthy divines... wealthy householders ..., —for them, too, being born, there is nothing other than ageing-&-death. Those monks, great king, who are worthy ones, destroyers of the cankers...,—for them, too, it is the nature of this body to break up, to be laid down.'))
The puthujjana, taking his apparent 'self' at face value, does not see that he is a victim of upādāna; he does not see that 'being a self' depends upon 'holding a belief in self' (upādānapaccayā bhavo); and he does not see that birth and death depend upon his 'being a self' (bhavapaccayā jāti, and so on). The ariyasāvaka, on the other hand, does see these things, and he sees also their cessation (even though he may not yet have fully realized it); and his seeing of these things is direct. Quite clearly, the idea of re-birth is totally irrelevant here.
Nanavira Thera
