The Conditioned Genesis of Dharmas

This is what I have heard:

Once the Buddha was staying in the Bamboo Grove in Kalandaka, near Rajagrha. At that time the Buddha said to the monks:

Monks, I now wish to teach you the Dharma concerning causes and conditions and conditioned genesis. What is the Dharma concerning causes and conditions?

It is: this is because that is. Conditioned by ignorance are formations, conditioned by formations is consciousness…….(until) this whole mass of suffering comes about.

What is the Dharma concerning conditioned genesis?

It is the Dharma on ignorance giving rise to formations and so on. Whether the Buddha is in the world or no longer in the world, this Dharma still stands. It is an abiding truth (Dharma), a proclamation of the way things are (Dharma). Because the Tathagata has of himself woken up to this wisdom, and has realized the highest right and inclusive awakening, he teaches the Dharma to people, he explains and makes plain to them the fact that conditioned by ignorance are formations …….(until) conditioned by birth are old-age and death.

Whether the Buddha is in the world or no longer in the world, this Dharma still stands. It is an abiding truth (Dharma), a proclamation of the way things are (Dharma). Because the Tathagata has of himself woken up to this wisdom, and has realized the highest right and inclusive awakening, he teaches the Dharma to people, he explains and makes plain to them that because of conditioned genesis there are old-age, sickness, death, anxiety, grief, suffering and affliction. All these teachings (Dharma) are the abiding truth, the truth (Dharma) of emptiness, of suchness, of ‘things are like that’, the truth that cannot be separated from suchness, that is not different from suchness, the Dharma that investigates things and discovers their truth, that is not perverted, and adapts skillfully the principle of conditioned genesis. That is the Dharma of conditioned genesis, meaning that conditioned by ignorance are formations, consciousness, the psyche-soma, the sense organs and objects, contact, feeling, craving, grasping, becoming, birth, old-age, sickness, death, anxiety, grief, afflictions, suffering. That is the Dharma of conditioned genesis.

The holy and noble disciples, who have been well trained are able to realize this true, right and skillful insight. They do not go searching for their past lives, asking: ‘In the past was I there or not? In the past to what race of beings did I belong and what kind of life did I lead?’ Such disciples also do not need to go searching for their future lives asking: ‘Shall I be there in the future or not? What kind of being shall I be and what kind of life shall I lead?’ Nor do they have doubts about the present asking: ‘Who am I? How come that I am present in life? Whence do I come and whither shall I go? When I die what will happen to me?’

If a shramana or Brahmin gives rise to such profane views that bind and imprison him, like the view of a separate self, a human being, a living being or a lifespan or the view that is caught in rites and rituals or hedonism, he should straightaway put an end to them and understand them clearly. Once these views have been ended, it is like when the top of the palm tree has been cut off, it will not be able to grow again in the future.

This is called the Dharma of conditioned genesis of the holy ones who have been well-trained. If you wish to understand rightly and truly this Dharma of conditioned genesis, you should examine and penetrate it skillfully.

As the Buddha finished giving this teaching, the bhikshus who heard it were happy to put it into practice.

~Samyuktagama 296