Impermanence of Causation

Is causation itself impermanent?

If so, is the ending (fading away??) of causation equivalent to nibbana?

If you mean causation as dependent-origination, then, in my understanding, I would say yes, it seems to be described as something that has always existed and will always exist… See SN12.20

“And what, bhikkhus, is dependent origination? ‘With birth as condition, aging-and-death comes to be’: whether there is an arising of Tathagatas or no arising of Tathagatas, that element still persists, the stableness of the Dhamma, the fixed course of the Dhamma, specific conditionality.

Also SN12.33:

“When, bhikkhus, a noble disciple thus understands aging-and-death, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation, this is his knowledge of the principle. By means of this principle that is seen, understood, immediately attained, fathomed, he applies the method to the past and to the future thus: ‘Whatever ascetics and brahmins in the past directly knew aging-and-death, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation, all these directly knew it in the very same way that I do now. Whatever ascetics and brahmins in the future will directly know aging-and-death, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation, all these will directly know it in the very same way that I do now.’ This is his knowledge of entailment.

Is there a sutta mentioning the ending/fading away of causation?

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None that I know of (but I don’t know very much with regard to the EBTs :grinning:). It was just a logical (or maybe illogical) deduction…

Causation, or the ‘perception of causation’ maybe (“because of this, that comes to be, etc…”) seems to be dependently arisen itself, so it is an example of a conditioned ‘thing’, which of course makes it subject to arising and ceasing.

Technically saying something is impermanent is valid only where time is a valid concept i.e. In samsara, not Nibbana. Causation (arising and passing away) is impermanent due to the presence of Nibbana ending it all.

Yes. Nibbana is uncaused.

With metta

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This seems to be a logical level the suttas simply don’t deal with, also regarding other structures of the ‘second order’ - there seem to be always a heaven and hell, or a Buddha arising every now and then, a similar paticcasam., always the same khandhas etc.

It needn’t to be this way. It makes sense that there are some khandhas in a come-to-be-universe, but why is it not more random? So the question that the suttas don’t deal with is “why?” or “who was the creator?” or if you prefer The Matrix “the architect?”

Those questions are not as irrelevant as it seems. If there was for example an Overlord of the second order there might actually be an eternal soul of the second order as well - a soul that is changing always in the same parameters, but not in the structure in which its anicca is processing.

It’s all theoretical of course because the Buddha didn’t explicitly go into it, but still worth a thought

Well, sure, the perception of causation is a dependently arisen phenomenon, like all perception, so it is bound to be impermanent.