SN 3.22.62

The Buddha affirms that the most fundamental way of describing things (forms, sense-experiences, perceptions, the own-make, and consciousness) is relative to their position in Time.

Read the Sutta

Recommended translation: Getting Down to the Fundamentals, Olds, trans.
Index of Available translations: SN 3.22.62

 

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Nirutti-patha 'the path down to the root'.

Nirutti is actually a super-normal power: the ability to see or intuit the etymology of words, idioms, expressions.

Here that power is being spoken of relative to the perception of the seer of a world outside of Time where what is seen can give the appearance that all things already exist in every potential variation, and that it is essential for communication (and even perception) in ordinary or consensus reality to describe (and even experience) things relative to their order in what is understood to be Time.

This sutta describes how that order is determined. This sutta will seem simple-minded to some. This is, however a serious problem for some who have chanced upon perception outside of time accidentally, and we can imagine a time before Time when the Great Spirit was contemplating individual existence and trying to figure out how that could be accomplished.

Think of the situation where because Time has not yet been invented, you come across yourself able to see yourself simultaneously as an adult, as a child or as an old man, able to go in any and all directions at the same time. This way Madness lies.