The Law of Dependent Arising (01) – Bhikkhu K. Ñāṇananda

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The Buddha, soon after his enlightenment, reflected on the depth of the Dhamma he had realized. He saw two points in this Dhamma that transcends logic (atakkāvacara), which it is difficult for the worldlings immersed in defilements to see. One is the Law of Dependent Arising (Paṭicca Samuppāda) or conditionality (idappaccayatā). The other is Nibbāna – the stilling of all Preparations (sabba-saṅkhāra-samatha).

The Buddha at the end of the seven days kept attending thoroughly to the Law of Dependent Arising during the three watches of the seventh night. The three verses we brought up as the topic of our sermon today were uttered by the Buddha as paeons of joy (udāna) proclaiming that he attended to the Law of Dependent Arising in three ways during the three watches of the night.

We can get some idea of the Law of Dependent Arising. To begin with, let us form a general idea of the meaning.

During the first watch of the night, the Buddha attended on the Law of Dependent Arising in the direct order and during the second or the middle watch in reverse order.

During the last watch, he combined both ways of attending and attended in both direct and reverse order. Now we shall give a clue to the understanding of these three ways of attention………

[pdf]http://www.dhammikaweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Sermon1_Pahan_Kanuwa_Sermon_183.pdf[/pdf]

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