THE BUDDHA'S AWAKENING 29longer created any karma, he lived out the remainder of this life on the
strength of the karma he had created earlier. Old karma entered the process of
dependent co-arising at the conditions of name-and-form or the six sense
fields, but with no ignorance or craving to reiterate the process, it could go no
further than feeling.
Furthermore, the teaching of dependent co-arising resembles a medical
diagnosis in several ways. By showing that the ailment depends on a series of
conditions, dependent co-arising indicates the points at which the series can
be broken and a cure achieved. Craving and ignorance are the two most im-
portant links in this regard, and in the next chapter we will analyze the duties
appropriate to each of the Four Noble Truths in order to show how the over-
coming of ignorance and the abandoning of craving must occur simultane-
ously. In pointing out these causal links, the pattern of dependent co-arising
counteracts the theory that suffering is a fortuitous happening, against which
no remedy would be effective. It also opposes the view that the ultimate cause
of suffering is some entity outside the process, such as a god or an immutable
soul. Salvation or release from causally produced suffering is to be found in
the process of causality itself as initiated within the mind.
For the early Buddhists, dependent co-arising inextricably entailed suffer-
ing and stress. Happiness based on causal conditions was inherently unstable
and unreliable. However, although there is no refuge to be found within the
interdependent dance of causally produced things, one can use the dynamics
of dependent co-arising to follow a path to gain release from causality to the
unconditioned sphere, and thus beyond suffering altogether. The experience
of following the path to release was what convinced Gautama-now the Bud-
dha-that he had succeeded in his quest for a happiness beyond the sway of
aging, illness, and death. What remained to be seen was whether others could
be brbught to experience the same direct realization for themselves.