The meaning of paccaya in Dependent Origination

Essays
21

Dear Ajahn :folded_hands: ,

Do you mean at the time of death as the moment one dies here in this world, or do you include the “death process” (in between)?

Because according to the suttas it is possible to see the Dhamma during the death process, and get at least stream entry if not full Nibbana at this point:

SN51.26:

Because of developing and cultivating these four bases of psychic power, seven fruits and benefits can be expected.

What seven? They attain enlightenment early on in this very life. If not, they attain enlightenment at the time of death.

So I think you might be underestimating how much can happen during the death process. My guess it is the time when there is probably the biggest chance for enlightenment actually. I don’t say anyone should count on it, and don’t practice during the lifetime as much as possible, but there is a chance to actually get liberated at this point, since you have to let go anyway, so if you have a lot of Dhamma brainwashing already, you can do the final steps even if you have not completed the path during lifetime.

AN4.131:

What individual has given up the lower fetters and the fetters for getting reborn, but not the fetters for getting a continued existence? One extinguished between one life and the next.

What individual has given up the lower fetters, the fetters for getting reborn, and the fetters for getting a continued existence? A perfected one.

These are the four individuals found in the world.”

According to this sutta there is a “continued existence” that is not rebirth yet, which is the antara-bhava. So Nibbana can happen at this point for some. At least for the one who has overcome at least the sensual part, and can let go of bhava-tanha in the antara-bhava.

It may seem a small detail, but it’s one more argument in favor of Bhante Sunyo interpretation that suttas are not meaning this as “the” condition.

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22

The term translated as rebirth here is upapatti. Those who have abandoned the lower fetters but not the fetter of being reborn and the fetter for getting a continued existence are known as non-returners (anāgāmīs). After death, they are reborn among the Brahmās of the Pure Abodes. They have transcended rebirth within sensuality, yet they are not fully liberated from all forms of rebirth.

There is indeed a state between existences that is sustained by craving, but this intermediate state is not considered an actual “existence” and is said to be of extremely short duration. The teaching about the interval between lives is prone to distortion and can be misused to support eternalist views or ideas about a being existing outside the Three Realms of Existence. There may already be discussions on SuttaCentral exploring this nuanced point.

Regarding craving as fuel between lives, I recall SN44.9 Kutūhalasālāsutta

“But when someone who is attached has laid down this body and has not been reborn in one of the realms, what does the worthy Gotama say is their fuel then?”

“When someone who is attached has laid down this body, Vaccha, and has not been reborn in one of the realms, I say they’re fueled by craving. For craving is their fuel then. [Taṇhā hissa, vaccha, tasmiṁ samaye upādānaṁ hotī”ti.]”

When a being dies and craving is still present, this craving sustains the process (via upādāna) until a new becoming (bhava) occurs within one of the Three Realms — the Sensual Realm, the Form Realm, or the Formless Realm. As mentioned earlier, this process happens very quickly — in an extremely short interval.

A notable exception is the case of a non-returner who has abandoned the fetter of getting reborn (upapattipaṭilābhiyāni) but not the fetter for getting a continued existence (bhavapaṭilābhiyāni), as mentioned in AN4.131. At the time of death, they are still non-returners, not yet arahants, but their craving is so weakened that it cannot sustain a new becoming — not even in a Pure Abode. In such specific cases, the rebirth process is effectively “aborted,” and full extinguishment (parinibbāna) occurs during the interval between lives.

This exceptional case is part of a classification found in some suttas that outline five types of non-returners, such as AN3.87 Dutiyasikkhāsutta:

One individual has given up the lower fetters, but not the fetters for getting reborn, or the fetters for getting a continued existence.
1- With the ending of the five lower fetters they head upstream, going to the Akaniṭṭha realm.
2- With the ending of the five lower fetters they’re extinguished with extra effort.
3- With the ending of the five lower fetters they’re extinguished without extra effort.
4- With the ending of the five lower fetters they’re extinguished upon landing [they attain arahantship immediately after being reborn in a Pure Abode.].
5- With the ending of the five lower fetters they’re extinguished between one life and the next [antarāparinibbāyī, they die as non-returners, but are not reborn in a Pure Abode because they are fully extinguished before that.].

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23

Thank you Ven. Brahmali & Ven. Sunyo for this fascinating examination of how to translate paccaya. I have not yet read Ven. Sunyo’s essay so I am operating a bit blindly here.

This discussion might also include questioning the adequacy of the English word “condition” to convey the meaning of paccaya. If we agree “condition” is not adequate, then either (1) we further qualify it or (2) choose another word. OK, either (1) or (2) seems to be happening amongst the various esteemed translators for whom “condition” is not adequate.

I’m curious how we arrived at the word choice “condition” many moons ago? I see in my 15-pound American Heritage dictionary that the English word, first observed in the 14th century, derives from Old Latin condiciō, from condīcere, to agree: com + dīcere (to talk). Hence the sense being a kind of verdict (a noun).

Definitions (5) and (6) in the American Heritage dictionary read like this:

(5) One that is indispensable to the appearance or occurrence of another; prerequisite

(6) One that restricts or modifies another; a qualification

….whereas (1) reads:

A mode or state of being

I only include (1) to show how the dictionary editors chose to define it as the first entry in the 2000 edition. Clearly the various pāli translations are pointing to (5) or (6).

I wonder whether the English word “condition” lends itself to further qualification, based on the American Heritage dictionary meaning? I.e., does (5) or (6) rule out further qualification?

:folded_hands:

Oh – now that I’m reading Ven. Sunyo’s essay I see this further down:

Vātsyāyana’s reply appears to refute that there could be any further qualification for a causal factor.

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On Dhp 154 and demolition
24

I’m not sure this is a helpful addition to your query, but taking that first definition of ‘condition’ we can read the ablative as, “from the the condition [of]”, where the specific ‘condition’ would be the nidāna?

e.g. “avijjā paccayā sankhārā” - ‘from the condition of avijjā there are sankharas’ ?

or maybe better, ‘when there is avijjā there are sankharas’…

25

Well it seems to me we are still forcing the noun “condition” to read as (1) rather than (5) or (6). But that is certainly a diplomatic option, your proposal!

For example, when the water for my salt water tank is in good condition, in my mind I’m referring to (1) . If I consider good water a “condition” for a healthy tank, I’m referring to (5) or (6). There would be no qualifying the latter by definition.

That’s why I’m pondering the initial choice “condition” many eons ago when the Pali was first translated as such in English given the potential ambiguity.

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26

Yet we are talking about the second noble truth: craving for existence leads to suffering via rebirth. The phrasing of this truth is simply that certain kinds of craving lead to rebirth, yet as you point out, it is implied that this craving must remain at the time of death. Interpretation is required.

Now, an important point is that the second noble truth is just the shortest sutta version of DO. If this short formulation can be shown to require this specific interpretation, the same must be true for DO overall. In other words, it is implied that avijjā is present for every step, for only then does each step naturally lead to the following one.

Further, the kind of conditionality we see in the second noble truth is one of sufficiency: craving for existence must lead to rebirth. And so we have that craving is both a sufficient and necessary condition for rebirth. (That craving is also a necessary condition is implied by the cessation sequence).

I am not entirely clear whether all the links can be described as both sufficient and necessary. But my point here is that DO overall has this structure. Sufficient conditionality, it still seems to me, is baked into DO.

But how do you know for sure that there are no further necessary conditions? I mean, you have just come up with these extra conditions, but is that the end of it? I don’t think so. For instance, you might get enlightened in the intermediate existence, in which case you would not get reborn. I suspect that with enough creativity you would be able to find an endless number of necessary conditions. The second noble truth, then, is a focus on the critical condition, with the rest implied. (I would say it’s just too obvious that you cannot get enlightened before you get reborn.) You might argue that strictly speaking craving is not a sufficient condition, but for all practical purposes it is.

Right, but it means the other necessary conditions are implied. And because they are implied, each factor in effect becomes sufficient, as we see in the second noble truth.

:folded_hands: :slightly_smiling_face:

I would counter that this is precisely why we need to focus on the first factor of avijjā. In fact, it is only at avijjā that DO can be turned into dependent cessation. It cannot happen anywhere else in the sequence because all the other factors are given once avijjā is given.

Nice to see you here, Piotr! I hope you are keeping well.

Yes, this is the point I was trying to make to Ven. Sunyo above. In the end, I do not think it is possible to come up with a final list of necessary conditions.

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27

It’s always been interesting to me how Buddhism meets the challenge of Hume, for whom we can’t never say that A is necessary or sufficient for B, only that it’s probably so (even if it’s 99.99999%). For Hume, we can’t say death necessarily follows a birth, even if we witness a trillion conjunctions of those events.

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28

Thanks again for the discussion, Ajahn. :pray: By now, I think we’ve exchanged our core ideas.

To sum up, if I understand correctly, your main reason for seeing the origination sequence as a chain of sufficient conditions is that sufficiency must be present in the origination of suffering. Therefore you conclude that paccaya in this context must imply a sufficient condition for each individual link.

To convince me, I suppose the argument needs to be the other way around: first we show that paccaya means a sufficient condition, then we conclude what the logic of the origination sequence is about. As I said, I think you’re missing the most important premise. Namely, where do the suttas say that the origination sequence has to be about sufficiency for each link? That’s what you assume, but at the same time that’s exactly what I think you need to prove! :wink: It’s begging the question.

All clear cases of paccaya I’ve seen, certainly in context of DO, both in the standard chain and in similes, are more naturally read as necessary conditions. In many cases it is also impossible to read them as sufficient ones. So I’m happy with Nyanatiloka’s definition in his Buddhist Dictionary: “Paccaya: ‘condition’, is something on which something else, the so-called ‘conditioned thing’, is dependent, and without which the latter cannot be.” I’m also happy with Bhante Sujato’s translation of ‘requirement’. I actually used that myself as well.

I can admit, though, for a long time I also thought the origination sequence had to be about sufficiency in each and every link! :slight_smile: But I think it’s the Western approach to causality that underlies this more than anything else. From the start I saw some problems with the assumption, however, and now it no longer seems to me that the sequence has to be all about sufficient conditions. Here’s some less technical reasons I’ve not yet mentioned:

  • The sequence is primarily a mnemonic tool. We are given more precise explanations elsewhere, which tell us how various factors work together to cause suffering. We should overlay these explanations on the sequence when interpreting it. Then we do arrive at sufficient causality—just not through one single factor but by combining multiple together. In other words, it is exactly as you say:

If there are other necessary conditions, then it is precisely the case that not one single condition can be logically sufficient. :red_exclamation_mark:

  • The sequence is taught with the Buddha’s ever-present aim: to liberate people from suffering. And to stop suffering, we “just” need to know what necessary conditions are, and then end just one of them. So that’s what the Buddha constructed the sequence around. I think that, if hypothetically we were only taught the origination sequence and not the cessation one, we’d still have all the information we’d need about how suffering comes to cease. We could construct the cessation sequence ourselves, since it is logically equivalent to the origination one. (However, it does still tell us directly what will happen when we do end ignorance, and that is a very different way of contemplating than through origination.) Ajahn, you argue that “the ending of the problem” is only what the cessation sequence is about, but I believe the origination sequence is taught with the same aim in mind. You may even agree with me, because you said regarding the origination of death in SN12.10: “The Buddha-to-be is looking for a solution to the problem of death.” Yes, exactly! He was looking for the solution right from the start. He was asking: there is suffering; what (necessary condition) do I need to end to stop this? He didn’t start with knowledge of ignorance and then figured out what it is a sufficient condition for, finally ending up at suffering through 11 steps of sufficiency.
  • I fail to see how the (paraphrased) reflection “if you are ignorant, you will be reborn and therefore suffer” (i.e. sufficiency of ignorance for the entire sequence) is psychologically any more useful or meaningful than “as long as you are ignorant, you can still be reborn and therefore suffer” (i.e. necessity). The former actually would be very damning, whereas the latter leaves open the opportunity to end rebirth in this life. (Of course, there is no “you” to suffer, but I use this just to clarify the idea.)
  • The ancient Indian approach to causality was centered around necessary conditions, not sufficient ones. The classic example is that a seed together with earth and water are “causes” for the arising of a sprout. Kalupanaha explains in Causality: the central philosophy of Buddhism (p.59): “Early Buddhist theory transcends the commonsense notion of causation. While recognizing several factors that are necessary to produce an effect, it does not select one from a set of jointly sufficient conditions and present it as the cause of the effect. […] Only if a cause includes all the necessary factors will it give rise to the effect.” As the Sautrantrikas already argued: “a lamp with its light are both the effect of a complex of previous causes and conditions, oil, wick, etc.” See some similar explanations in my essay on “only if”. The fallacy of single cause may also be worth a look: “when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes”. In lived reality, do things ever have a single sufficient cause?… I don’t think so.

So to understand my perspective—and that of the early Buddhists, I’d say—all you may need to do is change your conception of causality! :smiley: I had to do so myself at some point as well.

Aside from the argument that the origination sequence has to be about sufficiency because necessity “is not broad enough”, you also gave two others. You argued that birth is sufficient for death, and that imasmiṃ sati means “if there is this …” and thus indicates sufficiency.

I explained why I am not convinced by these arguments either: The actual factor following birth includes old age, so this link isn’t about sufficiency in the first place; but even if it were, it is just one example which can’t be extrapolated for the entire sequence. And the meaning of imasmiṃ sati is to me precisely the matter that’s in question. :smiley:

So I’m not sure if we can progress from here… which may be good, because we spent a lot of time on this already. :smiley:

However, one last thing I’d like to attempt, since I failed to do so earlier, is to show you the main logical flaw that your idea has. You may not agree with it, but at least you should understand my perspective. :slight_smile: I’ll explain it in the other thread, because it seems more fitting there.

With metta!

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29

Thank you for the reply Bhante :folded_hands:t3:

That makes sense if we take D.O. to be linear, but at DN 14, we explicitly have:

nāmarūpapaccayā viññāṇaṁ, viññāṇapaccayā nāmarūpa

If paccayā here means always, necessarily then how can escape from nāmarūpa be possible? If viññāṇa and nāmarūpa must always lead to each other, then it’s an unbreakable cycle, no? :folded_hands:t3:

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30

Hi Beth! Thanks for joining in. :slight_smile:

Just to clarify, I have no objections to the translation ‘condition’ per se. I only object to it being interpreted as a sufficient condition rather than a necessary one.

I was actually thinking about that as well, but with the assumption that it could be adequate. In various everyday context it does mean necessary condition. For example, from some online dictionaries:

  • This planet has the right conditions for life,
  • Certain conditions must be met before the aid will be provided.
  • He spoke on condition that he not be identified.

As you quote:

I.e. a necessary condition.

In the past I’ve even translated paccaya as prerequisite:

Here paccaya, in a direct explanation of the principles behind DO, cannot mean ‘sufficient condition’, as I pointed out to Ajahn Brahmali before. It is a nutriment, i.e. necessary condition.

If the Pali uses paccaya only with this sense, as it seems to me, then the translation ‘requirement/prerequisite’ is more precise, but ‘condition’ not necessarily wrong, just a bit too broad.

And yes, that’s also because ‘condition’ can mean a state of being. Also, Ven. Sujato translates saṅkhāra as such in some cases. And asankhata as ‘the unconditioned’. (I’m not particularly happy with that translation, but if we use it, it could be beneficial to separate it from paccaya.)

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31

This is puzzling. Are you suggesting that some of the links in DO are not necessary conditions? That some are sufficient, but not necessary? :folded_hands:

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32

Which takes me back to translation strategies that attempt to qualify a particular term when its meaning precludes further qualification :zany_face: :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: I really hadn’t given this any thought – the translation choice “condition” – until reading Ven. Brahmali’s essay. That’s when I learned of Bhante Sujato’s translation switch.

This part of the study does feel a bit compelling to me – what’s the history of this translation choice (not a focus in Ven. Brahmali’s essay). I’ll likely go down that rabbit hole in my spare time! Have to imagine it coincides with English choices for the related Sanskrit term.

Of course, we can get around an ambiguous translation by changing the grammatical form of a word from a noun to a verb or vice versa.

Which seems like a fine proposal as it points to (5) or (6).

However if one sticks to a like-for-like translation, thereby retaining the same grammatical form, we come up against the same conundrum.

Perhaps this is where we encounter “But does it sound awkward?” For students who, for years, have become accustomed to “condition” for paccaya maybe “requirement” feels a bit dry or even disappointing. Not the fault of the translation, necessarily. Just doesn’t feel comfortable wearing a new shoe at the beginning.

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33

I would say that ignorance is here assumed. This is the conditionality that pertains to non-arahants. Once avijjā has ben eliminated, DO no longer applies. This is why DO normally includes the factors of ignorance and willed activities (saṅkhārā).

Every link is certainly a necessary condition for the following one. I think this is something most Buddhists agree on, or at least those who have considered the issue. But I believe DO also has a certain element of sufficiency to it.

Personally, I do not tend to focus too much on grammatical form, unless it clearly has a doctrinal significance. What it more important to me is to render the Pali into natural idiomatic English. In my experience, ideas are best understood when the language is clear, simple, and ordinary, instead of a kind of slightly artificial Buddhist hybrid English, if you know what I mean.

I am not entirely sure about each link, but the third noble truth, as it is formulated in the suttas, suggests that craving is a sufficient condition for rebirth. Because DO is an expansion of the third noble truth, that sufficiency should somehow be encapsulated by DO, as I see it.

Anyway, thanks for all the additional arguments you present here. I agree with much of this, but I will let the discussion come to an end at this point. I just want to make a brief comment on your last point:

With these assumptions, the Buddha would effectively be arguing:

  • If there is no feeling, there will be no craving.
  • Therefore, if there is feeling, there will be craving.
  • (I.e. feelings are a sufficient condition for craving.)

For the record, my position is probably best represented as follows:

  • If and only if there is no feeling, there will be no craving
  • Therefore, if there is feeling, there will be craving
  • (I.e., feeling is both a necessary and sufficient condition for craving)

I will leave it at that for now, but let me sum up my takeaway. DO is clearly about dependency or necessary conditions. In many ways this is the most important conditional relationship in DO, because it shows the solution to the problem of saṁsāric existence.

Still, there is an element of sufficient conditionality in DO that to my mind is not reducible to necessity, as perhaps we see most clearly in the second noble truth. If you die with craving, it will always lead to rebirth. However, I am not sure how, or even if, this needs to be captured in our rendering of paccaya. For the time being I prefer the rather vague translation “condition”, yet I do see the benefits of more specific renderings such as “depends on” or “requirement”.

Thanks for being a good kalyāṇamitta, Ven. Sunyo, and thanks also to everyone else for your contribution. It’s super helpful to have such a constructive and pleasant discussion forum!

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34

I know you said you don’t want to discuss it further, but if you’ll indulge one clarifying question:

Are you saying that, for a living Arahant, they (properly speaking) have no viññāṇa, nāmarūpa, or vedanā? :folded_hands:t3: Or am I misunderstanding what you’re saying?

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35

:pray:

But what’s problematic is, the suttas that explain the mutal dependency between namarupa and vinnana don’t go further back to prior factors. They don’t mention avijja and sankharas. These two factors (namarupa and vinnana) are at the base of the chain. That isn’t problematic if they are necessary conditions for one another, but it would be if paccaya meant sufficient condition here. Because then the Buddha (or Sariputta) would effectively be saying: “vinnana is sufficient for namarupa, and namarupa is sufficient for vinnana”. And then stop his explanation of the origin of suffering there… :thinking:

The primary use of this teaching on their interdependency, as I see it, is to negate Brahmins who believed namarupa to be dependent on consciousness, but consciousness ultimately independent from namarupa.

There is sufficiency in those truths, I agree.

I don’t think it says all craving is a sufficient condition for rebirth, though. The second truth say that the craving “that leads to rebirth” (a restrictive clause) is what leads to suffering, not that all craving leads to rebirth. Because not all craving does lead to rebirth, I think this is quite obvious.

Then the third noble truth says the cessation of suffering comes about by ending “that very same craving” (yo tassāyeva taṇhāya), i.e. that very same craving of the second noble truth, specifically: the craving that leads to rebirth.

Of course, this pragmatically means we need to end all craving, because we can’t just end a subset of it. But it does not imply that all craving leads to rebirth, that craving is a sufficient condition for rebirth.

Thanks, Ajahn, that clarifies your position. But I think we’d be hard-pressed to show that this was the Buddha’s.

“If and only if there is no feeling, there will be no craving”… :face_with_spiral_eyes: So to end craving we need to end feelings… I don’t think the Buddha would start his argument with that assumption. Moreover, that’s not what he says. :slight_smile: He just says that if there is no feeling, there is no craving. He says nothing about craving only ceasing if feelings cease. And we’re not caught up in the potentially ambiguous meaning of paccana here, because the wording is:

This says nothing about “only if there is no feeling, there will be no craving”. It only says “if there is no feeling, there is no craving”.

I agree with this, actually. I just don’t think the sufficient conditionality is to be found in each and every factor for each and every next factor.

:pray: I was going to say something to this effect. Even if you were right and all links were sufficient, if they are also all necessary at the same time, then it would still be difficult to show that paccaya implies sufficient conditionality, instead of just necessity. Because in that case, you could be right, but paccaya could still mean a necessary condition. This wouldn’t contradict your idea about the structure of DO, after all, since you agree all links are also necessary.

ALso, I think we have clear examples where it can only mean necessity, such as fuel being paccaya for fire as an illustration of consciousness being dependently arisen. But we don’t have clear independent examples of paccaya meaning sufficiency, I don’t think. (At least not in technical context like DO.)

So the principle of least meaning which you ascribe to, in my eyes speaks for paccaya to be interpreted only as a sufficient necessary condition.

Thanks also for the kind exchange. For your birthday I will give you a gift! Namely, I will leave you be regarding this topic, haha. :laughing:

Here’s the cake:

:birthday_cake:

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36

Think you meant “necessary” here :folded_hands:

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Why changing the word “ birth” to “rebirth”? From what I understand, the word “jati” means birth.

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39

Hi Cristy, welcome to the forum.

You’re not the first person to question this translation. In this context, the words are synonyms. Any birth that has craving from a past life as a condition is, by definition, a rebirth.

While “birth” is closer to the original meaning of the word jati, the translator may have chosen “rebirth” intentionally. This could be to emphasize Dependent Origination (DO) as the causal mechanism of rebirth, or to make the concept more accessible to beginners. In this way, “rebirth” could be seen as a didactic choice, simplifying the explanation for those encountering these ideas for the first time.

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They aren’t, and I am not the first person to question they synonymity, here are the reasons:

It will be convenient to start at the end of the paticcasamuppāda formulation and to discuss jāti and jarāmarana first. To begin with, jāti is ‘birth’ and not ‘re-birth’. ‘Re-birth’ is punabbhavābhinibbatti, as in Majjhima v,3 <M.i,294> where it is said that future ‘birth into renewed existence’ comes of avijjā and tanhā; and it is clear that, here, two successive existences are involved. It is, no doubt, possible for a Buddha to see the re-birth that is at each moment awaiting a living individual who still has tanhā—the re-birth, that is to say, that is now awaiting the individual who now has tanhā. If this is so, then for a Buddha the dependence of re-birth upon tanhā is a matter of direct seeing, not involving time. But this is by no means always possible (if, indeed, at all) for an ariyasāvaka, who, though he sees paticcasamuppāda for himself, and with certainty (it is aparapaccayā ñānam), may still need to accept re-birth on the Buddha’s authority.[c] In other words, an ariyasāvaka sees birth with direct vision (since jāti is part of the paticcasamuppāda formulation), but does not necessarily see re-birth with direct vision. It is obvious, however, that jāti does not refer straightforwardly to the ariyasāvaka’s own physical birth into his present existence; for that at best could only be a memory, and it is probably not remembered at all. How, then, is jāti to be understood?

10. 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.

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