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Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c9.s1.t2: The Formula of the Causal Nexus

Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c9.s1.t2

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The Formula of the Causal Nexus

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IN order to understand the first of the four sacred truths, the tenet of suffering, we needed to acquaint ourselves only with the criticism which Buddha’s discourses give of the events of daily life, the dispositions and inclinations which govern our actions, and the consequences which follow from them. The tenets of the origin of suffering and its extinction bring us out of the domain of the popular speculative view of life, into the realms of abstract notions of Buddhist dogmatic, and therewith into a region where the ground vanishes from beneath our feet at every step.

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“This, O monks, is the sacred truth of the origin of suffering: it is the thirst (for being), which leads from birth to birth, together with lust and desire, which finds gratification here and there: the thirst for pleasures, the thirst for being, the thirst for power.

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“This, O monks, is the sacred truth of the extinction of suffering: the extinction of this thirst by complete annihilation of desire, letting it go, expelling it, separating oneself from it, giving it no room.”

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The state of being, as it surrounds us in this world, with its restless oscillation between origination and decease, is our misfortune. The ground of our existing is our will. This is our besetting sin, that we will to be, that we will to be ourselves, that we fondly will our being to blend with other being and extend. The negation of the will to be, cuts off being, for us at least. Thus the two tenets of the origin of suffering and its cessation, comprise the sum of all human action and all human destiny.

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But the sum must be resolved into the elements of which it is composed. The former tenet, as we have quoted it, speaks of the thirst for being, which leads from one birth to another. Whence this birth? It, the ground of our being, on what ground does it itself rest? And what law, what mechanism is there, what intermediate links are there, which the repetition of our being, re-birth with its sorrows, is connected with it?

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The very oldest traditions from which we draw our account of Buddhist speculations, show that these questions had been asked. People found the brief and concise setting of the sacred truths obviously inadequate and two formulas, or, more correctly speaking, a bipartite formula was drawn up, which was intended to supplement, or rather strengthen, the tenets regarding the origin of suffering and its cessation, the formula of the "Causal Nexus of being" (paṭiccasamuppâda).[*]

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Tradition assigns to this formula the next place in sacredness to the four truths. The knowledge of the four verities is what makes Buddha Buddha; the formula of the causal nexus, which had occurred to him already before the attainment of

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[*] This is frequently designated in later literature the formula of the twelve nidânas (Bases of Existence), an expression which, as far as I know, occurs neither in Buddha's discourses nor in the Vinaya texts.

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Buddhahood had been vouchsafed to him, occupied his mind while he sits under the tree of knowledge, “enjoying the happiness of deliverance.”* And when he combats the fear that his gospel will not be comprehended on earth, it is especially the law of the causal nexus of being, to which this fear attaches: “Men who move in a worldly sphere, who have their lot cast and find their enjoyments in a worldly sphere, will find this matter hard to grasp, the law of causality, the chain of causes and effects.”†

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† *Vide* supra, p. 120.

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Occasionally the sacred texts make the formula of the causal nexus actually an integral portion of the sacred truths themselves, by omitting the second and third truths and inserting in their stead this formula in its two branches.‡

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‡ So in the “Anguttara Nikâya” (Tikanipâta, Phayre MS., vol. i, fol. ce’).

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The propositions of the causal nexus of being, in the form which is most commonly met with in the traditions, and which may be regarded as the most ancient form, with their double, their positive and negative, arrangement—“forwards and backwards,” as the texts express themselves—are worded as follows:—

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“From ignorance come conformations (sankhârâ); from conformations comes consciousness (viññâṇa); from consciousness come name and corporeal form; from name and corporeal form come the six fields;§ from the six fields comes contact (between the senses and their objects); from contact comes sensation; from sensation comes thirst (or desire); from thirst comes clinging (to existence: upâdâna); from clinging (to existence) comes being (bhava); from being comes birth; from birth come old age and death, pain and lamentation, suffering, anxiety and despair. This is the origin of the whole realm of suffering.

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∗ “Mahâvagga,” i, 1 (supra, pp. 116, 117). In the “Saṃyutta Nikâya” (Phayre MS., vol. i, fol. ja) Buddha says that, in his case as in the case of the prior Buddhas, the knowledge of this hitherto unheard-of wisdom dawned on him before the attainment of the Buddhahood (pubbeva me bhikkhave sambodhâ anabhisambuddhassa).

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§ The fields of the six senses and their objects. In addition to the five senses the Indians reckoned understanding (mano) the sixth.

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“But if ignorance be removed by the complete extinction of desire, this brings about the removal of conformations; by the removal of conformations, consciousness is removed; by the removal of consciousness, name and corporeal form are removed; by the removal of name and corporeal form, the six fields are removed; by the removal of the six fields, contact (between the senses and their objects) is removed; by the removal of contact, sensation is removed; by the removal of sensation, thirst is removed; by the removal of thirst, the clinging (to existence) is removed; by the removal of the clinging (to existence), being is removed; by the removal of being, birth is removed; by the removal of birth, old age and death, pain and lamentation, suffering, and despair are removed. This is the removal of the whole realm of suffering.”

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The attempt is here made by the use of brief pithy phrases to trace back the suffering of all earthly existence to its most remote roots. The answer is as confused as the question was bold. It is utterly impossible for anyone who seeks to find out its meaning, to trace from beginning to end a connected meaning in this formula. Most of the links of the chain, taken separately, admit of a passable interpretation; many arrange themselves also in groups together, and their articulation may be said to be not incomprehensible; but between these groups there remain contradictions and impossibilities in the consecutive arrangement of priority and sequence, which an exact exegesis has not the power, and is not permitted to clear up. Even the ancient Buddhist theologians, who were by no means accustomed to construe too strictly in every case the requirement that "ein Begriff muss bei dem Worte sein,"* found here a stumbing-block; the variations, with which the formula of causality is found in the sacred writings, afford unmistakable evidence of this.

Cites (3)