Thanks @thomaslaw ! I note that Choong Mun-keat does not render the pali as “only” suffering:
‘Dukkhameva uppajjamānaṁ uppajjati, dukkhaṁ nirujjhamānaṁ nirujjhatī’ti na kaṅkhati na vicikicchati aparapaccayā ñāṇamevassa ettha hoti.
you’ll have no doubt or uncertainty that what arises is just suffering arising, and what ceases is just suffering ceasing. Your knowledge about this is independent of others. (sujato)
he has no perplexity or doubt that what arises is only suffering arising, what ceases is only suffering ceasing. (bodhi)
then, [one knows]: when suffering arises, it arises; when suffering ceases, it ceases. One is not in doubt, is not uncertain. (mun-keat)
苦生而生，苦滅而滅，於彼不疑、不惑
then, when suffering arises, it arises; when suffering ceases, it ceases. Of that one is not in doubt, is not uncertain. (mun-keat)
the suffering arising arises, and the suffering ceasing ceases… (patton)
doesn’t think of self as suffering that arises and ceases. When suffering ceases, it ceases without doubt or confusion. (l-deep machine translation)
That is my conclusion @thomaslaw . These are the conclusions. That something is rare, that something else is common, etc etc.
I think I see what your asking though, so I will put you out of your misery, overall, my conclusion is that Yin Shun was wrong, and SN is in fact a significantly later work by and large than the bulk of DN and MN, and that it is a sort of transitional text, exhibiting the beginnings of scholasticism and consequently being closely related to the Vibhanga.
Although really thats just a sub-conclusion and my other, more fundemental conclusion is that conditionality is exactly the buddhas answer to the undeclared points, showing a middle path between metaphysical speculation and skepticism.
This fundemental insight starts to be obscured by the rise of the aggregates/anatta doctrine in SN, and then there is a fundemental split between the scholasticism of the abhidhamma and the pluralism of the Mahayana.
I see. You conclude that the Buddha did not teach “Dukkhameva uppajjamānaṁ uppajjati” indicated in SN, which is in fact a significantly later work. Good on you!
I am not sure I would go quite that far @thomaslaw - just because I think the work is later doesnt mean it can’t contain teachings of the Buddha, and I am likewise not especially sure that the works I think are earlier necessarily do contain accurate representations of the Buddhas teachings…
But, yes, Do I think the Buddha used the exact words Dukkhameva uppajjamānaṁ uppajjati ? Probably not.
Yes! I am reasonably confident about the relation between DN and MN and SN, but I am much less confident that we have ANY direct quotes of what the Buddha actually said, theirs just so much in the materials that seems like the repetition of formulaic catechisms rather than actual reportage of anything anyone ever actually said in conversation or lecture. I think we most likely have literary summaries of ideas, some of which most likely go back, in some form, to the Buddha, but which are probably not actually particularly like what he actually said.
I love this sutta, and rely on it heavily fir my understanding of the philosophy of Buddhism, minus the “only” or “just” glosses on the arising and ceasing of suffering it is a brilliant synopsis of the teaching. Did the Buddha actually say it? I have no idea. I think it occurs in a text that is later than the earliest texts we have, what that means in terms of authorship is difficult to determine.
Again, I am not sure, it may be that the anatta and aggregates are an original teaching that just happened not to be on the DN syllabus so to speak, and their prevalence in SN reflects a compensatory correction of a lopsidedness in some of the other NIkayas.
However it may also be that as the Buddhist school rose in prominence, and other schools modified their rhetoric and sharpened their attacks, that presentations of the teaching changed and developed to respond to the new environment.
I am not sure that aggregates/anatta in any way contradict other teachings, I just suspect that they can be (mis) used/construed to create a (negative) metaphysics and that if this is done it does contradict the undeclared points and conditionality.
For example at DN1 and Dn2 we see an environment where there are a plurality of philosophical views, ranging across monism and pluralism, fatalism and indeterminacy, skepticism and nihilism, etc, the Buddha positions his teachings amongst all these.
It may be (and I am speculating here, but it is my current preferred speculation) that there is a shift from the orthodox Brahmanism being most often associated with “annihilationism” at the time of the Buddha, towards an Atman monism later on, and the Anatta doctrine reflects a response to this new hegemony.
So while materialism and anihillationism is equally prominent it does not do rhetorically to be spruiking Anatta, as you end up sounding like one of that crowd, but if they disappear and are replaced with a kind of absolute idealism Atman doctrine that has perhaps taken over as the per-eminient philosophical position then a critical “anti-Atman” presentation, Anatta, looks reasonable.
That wasn’t really a translation. I was just showing that the word order was the same in Pali and Chinese. I guess if I were to make it proper English, I would say something like, “The suffering that’s arising arises, and the suffering that’s ceasing ceases.” Even better would be to get rid of the redundancy: “Suffering arises, and then suffering ceases. There’s no doubt or confusion about that.”
The figures are worthless, for you’ve limited your search to occurrences of these words in the dative case. In the DN, for example, there are actually 10 occurrences of pubbenivāsānussatiñāṇa.
You need to remove the inflectional endings of nouns before searching.
So my claim that SN lacks the compound version stands.
Not sure what it means though, SN and AN seem to preserve more variations of pubbenivāsaṃ i.e pubbenivāsaṃ anussaratha, pubbenivāsaṃ anussarasi, pubbenivāsaṃ anussaramānā, pubbenivāsaṃ anussarantānaṃ, pubbenivāsaṃ anussarantīnaṃ but SN in particular seems to lack the compound form pubbenivāsā which I suppose could imply SN being closed for editing prior to the appearance of the compound and the standardization of the forms pubbenivāsaṃ anussarati and pubbenivāsaṃ anussarāmi.
It certainly wouldn’t hurt!
Nevertheless, I think I am gleaning useful information. There is to my mind absolutely no doubt that there are significant differences in vocabulary in the 4 primary Nikayas, and a pretty clear overlap between DN and the first half of MN and SN and the second half of MN, and a pretty clear tendency for AN to have quite distinct and unique terminology in many instances.
I am in fact (slowly) learning Pali, and am very much looking forward to @sujato 's course next year.
In the meantime I will continue to explore the corpus using the blunt instruments at my disposal.
If you remove the inflectional ending and search for pubbenivāsānussatiñāṇ you should find 3 occurrences in DN2, 2 in DN10, 3 in DN28, 1 in DN33, and 1 in DN34.
