[Zdfjpbth]

http://www.buddhistlibraryonline.net...ahapadana.html

I read in another source (I don't know where) basically the same hierarchy of causation and it brought to mind certain feelings and questions which I'd like to discuss.

I'm zooming in on this basic part of the text:

20. ' Then to Vipassi the Bodhisat, brethren, this occurred : — " What now being absent, is decay and dying also absent ; by the ceasing of what does decay and dying cease ? " Then, brethren, from attention to the cause arose the conviction through reason : — " Where birth is absent, decay and dying are absent ; when birth ceases, decay and dying cease . . . Where becoming is absent, birth is absent ; when becoming- ceases, birth ceases . . . Where grasping is absent, becoming is absent ; when grasping ceases, becoming ceases . . . Where craving is absent, grasping is absent ; when craving ceases, grasping ceases . . . [34] Where feeling is absent, craving is absent ; when feeling ceases, craving ceases . . . Where contact is absent, feeling is absent ; when contact ceases, feeling ceases . . . Where the sixfold field is absent, contact is absent ; when the sixfold field ceases, contact ceases . . . Where name-and-form is absent, the sixfold field is absent ; when name-and-form ceases, the sixfold field ceases . . . W T here cognition is absent, name-and-form is absent ; when cognition ceases, name-and-form ceases . . . Where name-and-form is absent, cognition is absent ; when name-and-form ceases, cognition ceases." There's a lot of different things that arise in me as I read this. I know they can't be the most proper interpretations but I need to be honest with how I am taking this discourse.

I get feelings of Nihlism and as well a longing for something beyond the cycle of birth and death. The only thing I know that exists outside of my paradigm is death - so I basically long for something that can only be expressed in the word death.

I basically conclude we exist because we longed to exist as an entity. I see name-and-form as ego. Suffering comes from the need to exist as a person with a name and attributes.

The problem is - we are still here. We all have names and forms. We already have been born.

The questions that arise in my mind are - do we want to exist? to exist to me is to suffer. To have passion - is to suffer.

I personally want to exist. I want to have passion. I want to have drive. These things bite back at me if I take in what I'm learning by surveying Buddhist thought.

Contradictory to what I want to do, I feel a beautiful solace in this idea of nirvana where birth and death cease to exist. I just can't wrap my mind around what it is - and it seems I'm not even supposed to be able to. So I just equate Nirvana with death even though Nirvana is something beyond death.

I'm sorry if I'm not making sense as I'm touching on areas that don't really have words to express them properly.

Thanks for reading,