2.7 The 12 Causal Links in the PS Model.....................
Diagram constructed by Patchanee Malikhao from Jackson ( 2003 :111–119).
“It [PS Model] is a detailed demonstration of how suffering arises and how
suffering ceases. It also demonstrated that the arising and ceasing of suffering is a
matter of natural interdependence. It is not necessary for angels or holy things, or
anything else to help suffering to arise or cease.... The other aspect of [PS Model] is
that it demonstrates that there are no sentient beings, persons, selves, we or they
here orfloating around looking for a next life. Everything is just nature: arising,
existing, passing away”(Buddhadasa 2002 :23–24).
This interpretation of Buddhadasa boldly contradicts the traditional interpreta-
tion, which has widely mistaken the birth of I, myself, and mine (atta) with the birth
of a human life and the suffering from the birth of I, myself, and mine (atta) with
the old age, sickness, and death. Buddhadasa famously stated that“Nirvana here
and now,”meaning that one can attain Nirvana in this lifetime as one can be trained
to be a selfless person. The ways to the cessation of“the subjective sense of self (or
atta) together with the self-centered attitudes associated with it,”as Jackson ( 2003 :
116) states, were explained by Buddha as thefour Noble Truths(Abe 1989 : 205–
296, Jackson 2003 : 132,142, Thomas 1951 : 96).
The PS model shows that the becoming of self and the passing away of self are
impermanent as long as the mind moves.
2.7 The 12 Causal Links in the PS Model 27