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How the World Arises—and Ends

SN 12.44, the Loka Sutta — set 4, Not-Self and Dependent Arising

Reading time: about 2 min · 345 words

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Before you read

What happens

The Buddha traces the experienced world through seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and thinking, then traces how the same process can end.

Central question

How does an experienced world become a chain of dissatisfaction, and where can that chain stop?

Main point

Sense experience conditions feeling; feeling can condition ignorant wanting; wanting can lead to taking experience personally and to the rest of the chain of dissatisfaction. When that wanting fades and quenches, the dependent chain no longer continues in the same way.

Reading tip

The arising and ending halves deliberately mirror one another. First follow the eye example, then treat the other five senses as parallel starting points for the same sequence.

This text is not saying

The text is not describing the physical creation or destruction of a planet. Here, world means the lived world that forms through the senses, the mind, and the responses that follow.

Key words

These definitions are here so you do not need to know Pali or Buddhist vocabulary before reading.

world
A word whose scope shifts with the teaching. It can mean the lived world we build through the senses and the mind, or the wider physical cosmos. The surrounding passage shows which sense it has.
contact
This project's rendering of "phassa" -- the meeting of a sense, its object, and the knowing of it. A technical link in the dependent-arising sequence, not physical touch specifically.
felt experience
This project's rendering of "vedanā", often translated "feeling". It is the immediate pleasant, painful, or mixed tone of an experience, before any story we build on top of it.
ignorant wanting
Wanting something you can't have right now. This project's rendering of "taṇhā", often translated "craving". We call it ignorant because it comes from not seeing clearly; ordinary, sensible wanting is something else.
taking personally
This project's rendering of "upādāna" -- treating some piece of experience as "me" or "mine" and holding on to it. Usually translated "clinging" or "attachment."
quenching
An extinguishing image for dissatisfaction and its causes going out. Different Pali words use this image on different pages, so the exact scope comes from the sentence.

Translation

How the World Arises

At Sāvatthī, the Buddha said:

"Bhikkhus, I will teach you how the world arises and how it ends. Listen and pay close attention. I will speak."

"Yes, Bhante," the bhikkhus replied.

The Buddha said this:

"And how does the world arise?

Dependent on the eye and visible forms, eye-knowing arises. The meeting of the three is contact.

The same sequence begins at each of the other sense doors:

  • dependent on the ear and sounds, ear-knowing arises
  • dependent on the nose and smells, nose-knowing arises
  • dependent on the tongue and tastes, tongue-knowing arises
  • dependent on the body and touchable things, body-knowing arises
  • dependent on the mind and ideas, mind-knowing arises

In every case, the meeting of the three is contact.

With contact as condition, felt experience; with felt experience as condition, ignorant wanting; with ignorant wanting as condition, taking personally; with taking personally as condition, becoming; with becoming as condition, birth; with birth as condition, ageing and dying, sorrow, lamentation, dissatisfaction, distress, and despair come to be.

This is how the world arises.

How the World Ends

And how does the world end?

Dependent on the eye and visible forms, eye-knowing arises. The meeting of the three is contact.

The same sequence begins at each of the other sense doors:

  • dependent on the ear and sounds, ear-knowing arises
  • dependent on the nose and smells, nose-knowing arises
  • dependent on the tongue and tastes, tongue-knowing arises
  • dependent on the body and touchable things, body-knowing arises
  • dependent on the mind and ideas, mind-knowing arises

In every case, the meeting of the three is contact.

With contact as condition, felt experience; with felt experience as condition, ignorant wanting.

With the complete fading and quenching of that very ignorant wanting, taking personally is quenched; with the quenching of taking personally, becoming is quenched; with the quenching of becoming, birth is quenched; with the quenching of birth, ageing and dying, sorrow, lamentation, dissatisfaction, distress, and despair are quenched.

That is how this whole heap of dissatisfaction quenches.

This is how the world ends."

The fourth discourse is finished.

Words used in this translation (15)
ageing and dying
Growing old and dying, treated in these texts as one linked process and as the end point of the dependent-arising sequence.
becoming
This project's rendering of "bhava" -- the settling of experience into a way of being that feels like somebody being something. Often translated "existence."
Bhante
A respectful way of addressing a senior monastic, roughly "venerable sir." Left untranslated because English has no natural equivalent.
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.
birth
This project's rendering of "jāti": birth, coming into being. In the dependent-arising sequence, ageing and dying depend on it. In MN 141 the word appears once in its everyday sense instead, in a simile about a mother.
body
The physical body, as distinct from speech and the mental side of experience.
contact
This project's rendering of "phassa" -- the meeting of a sense, its object, and the knowing of it. A technical link in the dependent-arising sequence, not physical touch specifically.
dissatisfaction
This translation's rendering of "dukkha," the Buddhist term for the unsatisfying, unstable quality of ordinary experience. Often translated "suffering," but that can sound more dramatic than the everyday sense of things not quite being right.
fading
The fading away of attraction and investment in experience, as passion cools.
felt experience
This project's rendering of "vedanā", often translated "feeling". It is the immediate pleasant, painful, or mixed tone of an experience, before any story we build on top of it.
ignorant wanting
Wanting something you can't have right now. This project's rendering of "taṇhā", often translated "craving". We call it ignorant because it comes from not seeing clearly; ordinary, sensible wanting is something else.
knowing
This project's rendering of "viññāṇa" (often translated "consciousness") -- bare awareness of an object through one of the senses or the mind.
quenching
An extinguishing image for dissatisfaction and its causes going out. Different Pali words use this image on different pages, so the exact scope comes from the sentence.
taking personally
This project's rendering of "upādāna" -- treating some piece of experience as "me" or "mine" and holding on to it. Usually translated "clinging" or "attachment."
world
A word whose scope shifts with the teaching. It can mean the lived world we build through the senses and the mind, or the wider physical cosmos. The surrounding passage shows which sense it has.
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