SN 3.22.5
The Buddha instructs the bhikkhus to develop serenity for seeing the origin and ending of form, sense-experience, perception, own-making and consciousness.
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Recommended translation: Serenity, the M. Olds translation.
Index of Available translations: SN 3.22.5
Note in my translation the use of 'counterpart' as a translation for 'paṭicca' in an effort to get away from 'cause' and even 'condition'; the use of 'serenity' for 'samādhi' in order to point to the fact that samādhi is more than just concentration; and the use of 'arising to self' for 'samudaya' in an effort to point out the 'sam' that never appears in the translation 'arising' or 'origin'. What the Buddha is always talking about is not the original creation of things, but the identified-with existence of things. Form has existence only in so far as it is experienced by an individual. That does not mean that the individual is creating form. It only means that the individual has created the experience of form. 'It is the diversity of data that results in the diversity of perceptions; it is not the diversity of perceptions that results in the diversity of data. SN 2.14.8 - olds
Kammic Returns
Not seeing that this is pain, that this pain arises to the self from thirst; that to end the pain it is necessary to end the thirst and that the way to do that is to align one's behavior with the Eight-Dimensional Way of the Aristocrat returns as own-making: — the identification with acts of body, speech and mind intended to create experience of pleasure for the self and the identified-with results of those acts.
The counterpart of own-making is consciousness. The kammic return of own-making is consciousness of named form. Consciousness of named forms follows in the footsteps of own-making.
The counterpart of consciousness is named form.
The counterpart of named form is consciousness.
The counterpart of consciousness of named forms is the six realms of sense.
The counterpart of the six realms of sense is contact: — identified-with experience through the senses.
The counterpart of contact is pleasant or unpleasant sensation.
The counterpart of sensation is thirst: — for pleasure, for being or for not-being.
The counterpart of thirst is the obsession, pondering, thinking, imagining, intending that constitutes the fuel that supports existence.
The counterpart of supporting fuel is the coming into existence of being some sort of living being in some sort of realm of being. The kammic return of the mental acts of obsessing, pondering, thinking, imagining, and intending that support existence is the coming into existence of being some sort of living being in some sort of realm of being. Becoming some sort of being in some sort of realm of being follows in the footsteps of supporting fuel.
The counterpart of coming into existence is birth.
The counterpart of birth is aging and death
grief and lamentation,
pain and misery,
and despair.
We are not thinking in terms of 'cause'. That is deeper than we can know. We are examining the occurance of the coinsidental phenomena that we can see with our own eyes that end in aging and death. Our concern is just at the level of knowing that when such and such is the case with us what returns to us is such and so; that when such and such is not the case with us, such and so does not follow after.
