Skip to content
Brickwall Unlimited

True Whether or Not a Buddha Appears

AN 3.136, the Uppāda Sutta — set 2, The Basic Diagnosis and the Path

Reading time: about 2 min · 207 words

Skip to the translation

Before you read

This is one of the shortest texts in the collection, and one of the most quoted.

It makes three claims. Everything that has been put together is impermanent. Everything that has been put together is unsatisfactory. And all phenomena are not-self.

The frame around each claim matters as much as the claim. These things hold whether or not a Buddha ever appears. A Buddha does not make them true. He awakens to them, and then he makes them plain to others.

If the wording of the frame sounds familiar, it is the same wording SN 12.20 uses for dependent arising.

Translation

Whether Tathāgatas Arise or Not

"Bhikkhus, whether Tathāgatas arise or not, that element still stands: the stability of the pattern, the regularity of the pattern. All that has been put together is impermanent. A Tathāgata awakens to this and breaks through to it. Once he has, he tells it, teaches it, makes it known, sets it out, reveals it, breaks it down, and makes it plain: 'All that has been put together is impermanent.'

Whether Tathāgatas arise or not, that element still stands: the stability of the pattern, the regularity of the pattern. All that has been put together is unsatisfactory. A Tathāgata awakens to this and breaks through to it. Once he has, he tells it, teaches it, makes it known, sets it out, reveals it, breaks it down, and makes it plain: 'All that has been put together is unsatisfactory.'

Whether Tathāgatas arise or not, that element still stands: the stability of the pattern, the regularity of the pattern. All phenomena are not-self. A Tathāgata awakens to this and breaks through to it. Once he has, he tells it, teaches it, makes it known, sets it out, reveals it, breaks it down, and makes it plain: 'All phenomena are not-self.'"

The fourth discourse is finished.

Words used in this translation (6)
bhikkhus
Buddhist monks -- those who have left household life to practise full time. The Buddha's usual way of addressing the assembly, roughly "friends" in force.
not-self
This project's rendering of "anattā". It does not claim that you don't exist. It says that, when you actually look, nothing in experience holds up as a fixed self you could own.
put together
In "all that has been put together", this project's rendering of "saṅkhārā" on its result side: anything assembled from conditions, as opposed to the activity of assembling.
regularity of the pattern
That the same conditions reliably lead to the same results. Paired with the phrase above; the two say one thing from two sides.
stability of the pattern
That the way conditions give rise to results holds steady. It names a reliable regularity, not a permanent thing standing behind events.
Tathāgata
A title for the Buddha, traditionally left untranslated. It means roughly "the one who has arrived at things as they truly are."
Source and corrections