Furthermore it is said that Gotama Buddha, after much consideration, at the time
he gained enlightenment, came to the realization of what is usually designated in
Buddhism as ‘The twelve-linked chain of causes and effects as related to suffering.’
Here we can find a more elaborate and methodical explanation of the Four Noble
Truths. This realization of ‘dependent co-origination’ or interdependence can be
taken as an elucidation on how non-awareness causes suffering, and how it is possible
to awaken. For further discussion on this point, let us refer to the sutras.
Without being able to realize the source where it springs from (avijjƗ, ignorance),
but employing all available resources (sa khƗra, the factors of forming a self), a fixed,
substantialized self that conceives of itself as existing separately, comes into being.
Without questioning—as though it was a commonplace everyday fact—an egocentric
way of perceiving the world (viññƗa-nƗmarnjpa-saƗyatana-phassa/consciousness,
external objective world, the six kinds of consciousness, the connection between the
perception organs, the object of perception, as consciousness) comes to be formed
on the assumption that the self and the world are opposite, antagonistic entities. Thus,
the self and the world are taken as existing in isolation, without any inherent
interconnection. An experience of the self emerges in which the self judges the world
(vedanƗ, value), according to criteria established by itself. This, in the form of
self-centered passion (ta hƗ, desires), becomes an unconscious habit without
revealing its true character as an enigmatic drive inciting us from the depths of
darkness. The self clings (upadana) more and more to itself as something fixed and
substantialized, giving rise to the various distresses (dukkha, suffering) associated to
our existence (bhava), i.e. coming into being (jƗti), aging (jarƗ), getting sick and
dying (mara a). Fear and insecurity arise which cannot be helped, because the basic
cause of our suffering is to be found in this point of self-clinging.
By means of something ordinary in one’s daily experience, the practice of
meditation, a crevice can be opened in the carapace of this refractory self so that a
breakthrough and transformation happens. The belief and experience that there is a
separation between the self and what is not the self, on which basis these elements
are supposed to exist without any interconnection, in a complete state of isolation,
becomes the basis for judging the world. Only when these factors are shattered and
perceived as fictitious can one realize that it is not the case and that all things at all
times are necessarily interwoven and interconnected (paiccasamuppƗda,
interdependence). This is the experience of enlightenment which, together with a
balanced insight, enables one to understand that a separate self is a fiction, and that
suffering is extinguished when one no longer clings to this fiction.^1
Although acquainted with many examples of mystical experience, I must confess
that cases like Gotama Buddha’s—where this experience is related to our existential
sufferings, the basic cause of these sufferings is clarified, and even a method to eliminate
them is provided—is rare, I believe. Yet, Gotama Buddha’s attempts are not
concerned with objective—or external—causality. The objective facts that we come
into existence, age, and get sick and die are not in themselves—he argues—causes of
suffering. ‘It is Mine’ coming into being, aging, and getting sick and dying that is the
232 HAYA TATSUO