Skip to main content

Did 12ps (dependent co origination) originally have fewer than 12 links?


Re: Buddha did not teach12 dependent arising links

Post by frank k » Mon Dec 23, 2019 2:52 am
Here in SN 35.113 is the most relevant and practical moment to moment portion of 12ps:
http://lucid24.org/sn/sn35/sn35-v11/index.html#s113

The fire sutta, guarding the sense doors, most of the major formulas all use that PS sequence.
PS (paticca samuppada) occurs all over the EBT, that's indisputable. The only question is how many links were there originally.
I suspect SN 35.113 was the original one, with 9 links, repeated for all 6 salayatana.
The ubiquitous 12ps, I suspect, was just a memory device to combine the 9 original, with two other types of dependent origination:
1) the mutual dependence between vinnana and nama rupa
2) the avijja underlying kamma/sankhara, tanha and dukkha.

Why do I think SN 35.113 with just 9 links was the original?
1. That ps pattern appears more frequently than the 12 (counting all the occurrences of the 12 which include the 9)
2. Read SN 35.113 carefully. The Buddha is witnessed composing oral teaching instructions of those 9ps, meant to be memorized, recited, and learned by disciples.
3. In the Theravada vinaya, the traditional first 3 suttas taught, the 9 links appear in fire sutta, but 12ps is not mentioned. In one of the Agama vinayas, the 4th sutta supposedly was one that included the 12ps. Now if the Buddha really taught 12ps that soon, SN 35.113 wouldn't make sense, and you would think all the EBT schools would agree on this.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Advice to younger meditators on jhāna, sex, porn, masturbation

Someone asked: Is porn considered harmful sexual.activity? I don't have a sex life because I don't have a partner and I don't wish to engage in casual sex so I use porn to quench the biological urge to orgasm. I can't see that's it's harmful because nobody is being forced into it. The actors are all paid well and claim to enjoy it etc. The only harm I can see is that it's so accessible these days on smart devices and so children may access it but I believe that this is the parents responsibility to not allow unsupervised use of devices etc. Views? Frankk response: In another thread, you asked about pleasant sensations and jhāna.  I'm guessing you're young, so here's some important advice you won't get from suttas   if you're serious about jhāna.  (since monastics are already celibate by rule)   If you want to attain stable and higher jhānas,   celibacy and noble silence to the best of your ability are the feedstock and prerequiste to tha...

SN 48.40 Ven. Thanissaro comments on Ven. Sunyo's analysis

This was Ven. Sunyo's analysis of SN 48.40: https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2024/05/exciting-news-honest-ebt-scholars-like.html And here is Ven. Thanissaro's response to that analysis: I think there’s a better way to tackle the issue of SN 48:40 than by appealing to the oldest layers of commentarial literature. That way is to point out that SN 48:40, as we have it, doesn’t pass the test in DN 16 for determining what’s genuine Dhamma and what’s not. There the standard is, not the authority of the person who’s claiming to report the Buddha’s teachings, but whether the teachings he’s reporting are actually in accordance with the principles of the Dhamma that you know. So the simple fact that those who have passed the Buddha’s teachings down to us say that a particular passage is what the Buddha actually taught is not sufficient grounds for accepting it. In the case of the jhānas—the point at issue here— we have to take as our guide the standard formula for the jhānas, a...

1min. video: Dalai Lama kissing boy and asking him to suck his tongue

To give more context, this is a public event,  * everyone knows cameras are rolling  *  it's a room full of children * the boy's mom is standing off camera a few feet away watching all of this * the boy initiated contact, he had already had a hug with Dalai Lama earlier and then asked Dalai Lama for another hug which triggered this segment  17 min. video showing what happened before that 1 min. clip and after, with some explanation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT0qey5Ts78 16min talk from Ajahn Acalo with his thoughts on Dalai Lama kissing boy, relevance to Bhikkhu monastic code, sexual predators in religion in general, and how celibate monastics deal with sexual energy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK2m0TcUib0 The child's comments about the incident in a filmed interview later https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/world-news/2023/04/18/643eba5d46163ffc078b457c.html The child: It's a great experience It was amazing to meet His Holiness and I think it's a great ex...