
Buddha in his last night of Rohatsu is said to have found the interrelatedness of existence:
Extreme living: hedonism and asceticism are not compatible with fostering peace, knowledge and light (understanding/awakening).
Rather flexibility of insight of conditions-cause and effect, are useful in understanding life and is the Middle Way to nirvana.
This middle way is the Noble Eightfold Path, consisting of Right View, Right Thinking, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Diligence, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.
These practices penetrate the three marks of existence: Impermanence (change)- Annica, No soul (aloof permanent personal essence)-Anatta, and dis-ease (longing and attachment)-Dukkha
The chain of dis-ease is within the origination of the Great Matter: Life and Death
Origination is inter-are (interconnected and conditional), without this awareness (ignorance) dis-ease occurs.
This existence of disease, when seen, is clear, conditional, and related to impermanence (change) and anatta (no-soul) . It has conditions (cause and effect) these conditions can be addressed to lessen or remove the Dukkha.
The absence of the understanding of the seven points above is Ignorance.
Ignorance is the first link of the construct of Dependent Origination:
In Buddhism, ignorance (Avijjā) in Sanskrit or avijjā in Pāli) is the root cause of suffering. It is also the first factor that keeps us bound to the cycle of rebirth. This ignorance is not a lack of knowledge. Instead, it is a misunderstanding or misperception of the nature of reality and of ourselves. The eradication of ignorance through Buddhist practice leads to liberation.
Saṅkhāra or mental formations. Our mind is made of particles. Modern physics speaks about matter, reality as being made of subatomic particles (seeds). But in Buddhist psychology we speak about consciousness – mind – in terms of mental formations: very tiny particles that make up our mind. ‘Formation’ is translated from the word samskara. Anything that is formed, like a flower, is a formation. Many conditions have come together for a flower to manifest as a flower. The sunshine, rain, clouds, soil; many things come together and support a flower to manifest. https://plumvillage.app/our-mind-and-mental-formations/
Viññāṇa or consciousness “Life Force.” This is sometimes referred to as the animating force which is somewhat odd but suggests that at this point the relational aspect of formations emerges an interrelatedness of each other.
There are six types of consciousness, each unique to one of the internal sense organs, consciousness (viññāṇa) is separate (and arises) from mind (mano)
here, consciousness cognizes or is aware of its specific sense base (including the mind and mind objects), viññāṇa is a prerequisite for the arising of craving (taṇhā) hence, for the vanquishing of suffering (dukkha), one should neither identify with nor attach to viññāṇa.
Phassa It is an awareness in which a pleasant [or unpleasant or neutral] feeling is felt when the object, sensory capacity, and cognitive process have come together and which is restricted to the appropriate object. Transformation in the controlling power means that when the visual sense meets a pleasant object [for example] and the feeling becomes the cause of adhering to this pleasure, rapport [sparsha] restricts the pleasant color-form and the feeling becomes the cause of pleasure.[1]
Vedanā is the sensation of tactile pleasure.
Taṇhā Kāma-taṇhā (sensual pleasures craving):[5] craving for sense objects which provide pleasant feeling, or craving for sensory pleasures.[16] Walpola Rahula states that taṇhā includes not only desire for sense-pleasures, wealth and power, but also "desire for, and attachment to, ideas and ideals, views, opinions, theories, conceptions and beliefs (dhamma-taṇhā)."[9]
Bhava-taṇhā (craving for being):[5] craving to be something, to unite with an experience.[16] This is ego-related, states Harvey, the seeking of certain identity and desire for certain type of rebirth eternally.[5] Other scholars explain that this type of craving is driven by the wrong view of eternalism (eternal life) and about permanence.[4][17]
Vibhava-taṇhā (craving for non-existence):[4] craving not to experience unpleasant things in the current or future life, such as unpleasant people or situations.[5] This sort of craving may include attempts at suicide and self-annihilation, and this only results in further rebirth in a worse realm of existence.[5] This type of craving, states Phra Thepyanmongkol, is driven by the wrong view of annihilationism, that there is no rebirth.[17]
Upādāna is the Sanskrit and Pāli word for "clinging", "attachment" or "grasping", although the literal meaning is "fuel".[4] Upādāna and taṇhā (Skt. tṛṣṇā) are seen as the two primary causes of dukkha ('suffering', unease, "standing unstable"). The cessation of clinging is nirvana, the coming to rest of the grasping mind.[5]
Bhava The Sanskrit word bhava (भव) means being, worldly existence, becoming, birth, be, production, origin,[1] but also habitual or emotional tendencies.[2] In Buddhism, bhava is the tenth of the twelve links of Pratītyasamutpāda.[3] It is the link between the defilements, and repeated birth, that is, reincarnation.[4] In Thai Buddhism, bhava is also interpreted as habitual or emotional tendencies which leads to the arising of the sense of self, as a mental phenomenon.
Jarāmaraṇa Aging decay or death The Discourse That Sets Turning the Wheel of Truth states:
"Now this, bhikkhus, for the spiritually ennobled ones, is the true reality which is pain: birth is painful, aging is painful, illness is painful, death is painful; sorrow, lamentation, physical pain, unhappiness and distress are painful; union with what is disliked is painful; separation from what is liked is painful; not to get what one wants is painful; in brief, the five bundles of grasping-fuel are painful." – Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, Samyutta Nikaya, Translated by Peter Harvey[4]
Elsewhere in the canon the Buddha further elaborates on Jarāmaraṇa (aging and death):[a] "And what is aging? Whatever aging, decrepitude, brokenness, graying, wrinkling, decline of life-force, weakening of the faculties of the various beings in this or that group of beings, that is called aging.
"And what is death? Whatever decreasing, passing away, breaking up, disappearance, dying, death, completion of time, break up of the aggregates, casting off of the body, interruption in the life faculty of the various beings in this or that group of beings, that is called death."[5]
Dependent Origination is highlighted by Dogen-zenji in Uji or “Being Time.” Here he acknowledges “now” as a brief existence:
In temporal passage Dogen sees the arising of all things through co-dependent origination as the result of a dynamic process whereby the One actualizes itself as the many things/events through our conscious self. Dogen says: “Unless my self puts forth the utmost exertion and lives time now, not a single thing will be realized, nor will it ever live time.” This prompts Kim to comment: “Herein lay Dogen’s existential solution to the problem of one and many.”
With his concept of existence-time, Dogen presented time in terms of three characteristics. First, he deepened the traditional Buddhist view of time as dharmas: things/events do not move in time but are time.
Second, Dogen’s concept of time fully incorporated into itself the self and the world. Whereas Buddhist practice has generally been formulated in terms of space (as in “form is emptiness”), Dogen is inviting us to formulate it in terms of time. As we silence our ego-centred habits, we “exert” the things/events, and allow them to realise themselves as what they truly are.
Third, Dogen explained how this is achieved by the intra-subjective activity of the “realized now,” which brings together past, present, and future into the single thought of the present moment, where they are integrated into a “unique whole of actuality,” or “epochal whole.” The “exertion” is carried out through co-dependent origination now conceived as an “activity.” It is not ultimately seen as “our” exertion, but rather the activity of reality that realises itself through our consciousness into the things/events we see, without being “obstructed” by our attachments. attachments.https://buddhism-thewayofemptiness.blog.nomagic.uk/dogen-uji-existence-time/#:~:text=In%20temporal%20passage%20Dogen%20sees,events%20through%20our%20conscious%20self.
Please join us February 4, 2025, as we plunge into this pivotal feature of Buddha- Dharma-Nature. We are at the First Congregational Church in Falmouth at 7:00 PM/ET. And on Zoom at : https://zoom.us/j/7096899032?status=success#success password FSZS
Unshin Sangaku Dan Joslyn-sensei

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