The Buddha, soon after awakening, contemplates specific conditionality and dependent co-arising.
So I have heard. At one time, when he was first awakened, the Buddha was staying in Uruvelā at the root of the tree of awakening on the bank of the Nerañjarā River. There the Buddha sat cross-legged for seven days without moving, experiencing the bliss of freedom. When seven days had passed, the Buddha emerged from that state of immersion. In the first part of the night, he carefully applied the mind to dependent origination in forward order:
“When this exists, that is; due to the arising of this, that arises. That is: Ignorance is a condition for choices. Choices are a condition for consciousness. Consciousness is a condition for name and form. Name and form are conditions for the six sense fields. The six sense fields are conditions for contact. Contact is a condition for feeling. Feeling is a condition for craving. Craving is a condition for grasping. Grasping is a condition for continued existence. Continued existence is a condition for rebirth. Rebirth is a condition for old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress to come to be. That is how this entire mass of suffering originates.”
Then, understanding this matter, on that occasion the Buddha expressed this heartfelt sentiment:
“When things become clear
to the keen, meditating brahmin,
his doubts are dispelled,
since he understands each thing and its cause.”
The Buddha is sharing on his experiential understanding of dependent origination after his awakening.
Ignorance is a translation of the word avijjā. It can be understood as misapprehension of true reality, projecting onto how things are, positivism in the mind (seeing things through a positive or filtered lens), a mind prone to not closely examining and assumption making. Its counterpart wisdom is a mind that independently verifies, not believing or assuming things to be a certain way, not biased, open-minded, accepting of things the way they’ve come to be.
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