[bactrimtab]

The "going on to (another) body" can be seen as loosely corresponding to punabbhavaabhinibbatti, which is followed by birth, aging, and death, etc. These last factors are the fourth group, future effects, linked to the third group, the present-life causes. Thus in this short sutta, which fills out the bare-bones standard formula with some strips of flesh, however lean, we can discern the exegetical tools of the Commentaries already starting to take shape.

In Defense of Tradition
21. Now we can return to the opening sections of Ven. ~Naa.naviira's Note on Pa.ticcasamuppaada and examine his criticisms of the traditional interpretation.
In #3 Ven. ~Naa.naviira argues against the commentarial view that vedanaa in the standard PS formula must be restricted to kammavipaaka. For proof to the contrary he appeals to the Siivaka Sutta (SN 36:21/iv,230-31), in which the Buddha mentions eight causes of bodily pain, of which only the last is kammavipaaka. On the traditional interpretation, Ven. ~Naa.naviira says, this would limit the application of pa.ticca-samuppaada to certain bodily feelings but would exclude other types of feeling. Such a view, he holds, is contradicted by the Buddha's unrestricted declaration that pleasure and pain are dependently arisen (pa.ticca-samuppanna.m kho aavuso sukhadukkha.m vutta.m bhagavataa; SN ii,38).
This objection in no way overturns the traditional view of dependent arising. It should first be pointed out that the notion of pa.ticca-samuppaada has a twofold significance, as Ven. ~Naa.naviira himself recognizes in his Note (#18). The notion refers both to a structural principle, i.e. the principle that things arise in dependence on conditions, and it refers to various exemplifications of that structural principle, the most common being the twelvefold formula. Once we call attention to this distinction, the traditional interpretation is easily vindicated: All feelings are dependently arisen in so far as they arise from conditions, principally from contact along with such conditions as sense faculty, object, consciousness, etc. This, however, does not require that all feelings be included in the vedanaa factor of the standard PS formula. Without violating the structural principle that all feeling is dependently arisen, the Commentaries can consistently confine this factor to the feelings that result from previous kamma.
While recognizing that the Pali Commentaries do restrict vedanaa in the standard PS formula to vipaakavedanaa, we might suggest another line of interpretation different from the commentarial one, a line which is less narrow yet still respects the view that the PS formula describes a process extending over successive lives. On this view, rather than insist that the vedanaa link be understood literally and exclusively as specific resultant feelings born of specific past kamma, we might instead hold that the vedanaa link should be understood as the result of past kamma only in the more general sense that the capacity for experiencing feeling is a consequence of obtaining a sentient organism through the force of past kamma. That is, it is past kamma, accompanied by ignorance and craving, that brought into being the present sentient organism equipped with its six sense bases through which feeling is experienced. If this view is adopted, we can hold that the capacity for experiencing feeling -- the obtaining of a psycho-physical organism (naamaruupa) with its six sense bases (sa.laayatana) -- is the product of past kamma, but we need not hold that every feeling comprised in the vedanaa link is the fruit of a particular past kamma. The predominant feeling-tone of a given existence will be a direct result of specific kamma, but it would not necessarily follow that every passively experienced feeling is actual vipaaka. This would allow us to include all feeling within the standard PS formula without deviating from the governing principle of the traditional interpretation that the five links, from consciousness through feeling, are fruits of past kamma. Although the Commentaries do take the hard line that feeling in the PS formula is kammavipaaka in the strict sense, this "softer" interpretation is in no way contradicted by the Suttas. Both approaches, however, concur in holding that the five above-mentioned factors in any given life result from the ignorance, craving, and volitional activity of the preceding life.
22. In the next section (#4) Ven. ~Naa.naviira warns us that "there is a more serious difficulty regarding feeling" posed by the traditional interpretation. He refers to a sutta (AN 3:61/i,176) in which, he says, three types of feeling -- somanassa (joy), domanassa (sadness), and upekkhaa (equanimity) -- "are included in vedanaa, in the specific context of the PS formulation." These three feelings, he continues, necessarily involve cetanaa, intention or volition, as intrinsic to their structure, and therefore the Commentary must either exclude them from vedanaa in the PS formulation or else must regard them as vipaaka. Both horns of this dilemma, Ven. ~Naa.naviira contends, are untenable: the former, because it contradicts the sutta (which, he says, includes them under vedanaa in the PS context); the latter, because reflection establishes that these feelings involve cetanaa and thus cannot be vipaaka.
The Pali Commentaries, which adopt the Abhidhamma classification of feeling, hold that somanassa, domanassa, and upekkhaa -- in the present context -- are kammically active rather than resultant feelings. This would exclude them from the vedanaa factor of the PS formulation, which Ven. ~Naa.naviira claims contradicts the sutta under discussion. But if we turn to the sutta itself, as Ven. ~Naa.naviira himself urges, we will find that the section dealing with these three types of feeling does not have any discoverable connection with pa.ticca-samuppaada, and it is perplexing why Ven. ~Naa.naviira should assert that it does. Pa.ticca-samuppaada is introduced later in the sutta, but the section where these three types of feeling are mentioned is not related to any formulation of pa.ticca-samuppaada at all. The entire passage reads as follows:
"'These eighteen mental examinations, monks, are the Dhamma taught by me ... not to be denied by wise recluses and brahmins.' Such has been said. And with reference to what was this said? Having seen a form with the eye, one examines a form that is a basis for joy, one examines a form that is a basis for sadness, one examines a form that is a basis for equanimity. (The same is repeated for the other five senses.) It was with reference to this that it was said: 'These eighteen mental examinations, monks, are the Dhamma taught by me ... not to be denied by wise recluses and brahmins.'"
And that is it. Thus "the more serious difficulty regarding feeling" that Ven.~Naa.naviira sees in the commentarial interpretation turns out to be no difficulty at all, but only his own strangely careless misreading of the passage.
23. In the same paragraph Ven. ~Naa.naviira derides the commentarial notion that naamaruupa in the PS formulation is vipaaka. He points out that naama includes cetanaa, volition or intention, and this leads the Commentary to speak of vipaakacetanaa: "But the Buddha has said (AN 6:63/iii,415) that kamma is cetanaa (action is intention), and the notion of vipaakacetanaa, consequently, is a plain self-contradiction."
Here again the commentarial position can easily be defended. The Buddha's full statement should be considered first:
"It is volition, monks, that I call kamma. Having willed (or intended), one does kamma by body, speech, or mind."
The Buddha's utterance does not establish a mathematical equivalence between cetanaa and kamma, such that every instance of volition must be considered kamma. As the second part of his statement shows, his words mean that cetanaa is the decisive factor in action, that which motivates action and confers upon action the ethical significance intrinsic to the idea of kamma. This implies that the ethical evaluation of a deed is to be based on the cetanaa from which it springs, so that a deed has no kammic efficacy apart from the cetanaa to which it gives expression. The statement does not imply that cetanaa (in the non-arahant) is always and invariably kamma.
In order to see that the notion of vipaakacetanaa is not self-contradictory nor even unintelligible, we need only consider the statements occasionally found in the Suttas about naamaruupa descending into the womb or taking shape in the womb (e.g. DN 15/ii,63; also #17 above). It is undeniable that the naamaruupa that "descends" into the womb is the result of past kamma, hence vipaaka. Yet this naama includes cetanaa, and hence that cetanaa too must be vipaaka. Further, the Suttas establish that cetanaa, as the chief factor in the fourth aggregate (the sa"nkhaarakkhandha), is present on every occasion of experience. A significant portion of experience is vipaaka, and thus the cetanaa intrinsic to this experience must be vipaaka. When one experiences feeling as the result of past kamma, the cetanaa coexisting with that feeling must be vipaaka too. The Commentaries squarely confront the problem of cetanaa in resultant states of consciousness and explain how this cetanaa can perform the distinct function of cetanaa without constituting kamma in the common sense of that word. (See Atthasaalinii, pp. 87-88; The Expositor (PTS trans.), pp. 116-17.)

The Problem of Time

24. The main reason for Ven. ~Naa.naviira's dissatisfaction with the traditional interpretation of pa.ticca-samuppaada emerges in #7 of his Note. The traditional view regards the PS formula as describing a sequence spread out over three lives, hence as involving succession in time. For Ven. ~Naa.naviira this view closes off the prospect of an immediate ascertainment that one has reached the end of suffering. He argues that since I cannot see my past life or my future life, the three-life interpretation of PS removes a significant part of the formula from my immediate sphere of vision. Thus pa.ticca-samuppaada becomes "something that, in part at least, must be taken on trust." But because PS is designed to show the prospect for a present solution to the present problem of existential anxiety, it must describe a situation that pertains entirely to the present. Hence Ven. ~Naa.naviira rejects the view of PS as a description of the rebirth process and instead takes it to define an ever-present existential structure of the unenlightened consciousness.
The examination of the suttas on pa.ticca-samuppaada that we have undertaken above has confirmed that the usual twelve-term formula applies to a succession of lives. This conclusion must take priority over all deductive arguments against temporal succession in pa.ticca-samuppaada. The Buddha's Teaching certainly does show us the way to release from existential anxiety. Since such anxiety, or agitation (paritassanaa), depends upon clinging, and clinging involves the taking of things to be 'mine', 'what I am', and 'my self', the elimination of clinging will bring the eradication of anxiety. The Buddha offers a method of contemplation that focuses on things as anattaa, as 'not mine', 'not I', 'not my self'. Realization of the characteristic of anattaa removes clinging, and with the elimination of clinging anxiety is removed, including existential anxiety over our inevitable aging and death. This, however, is not the situation being described by the PS formula, and to read the one in terms of the other is to engage in an unjustifiable confounding of distinct frames of reference.
25. From his criticism of the three-life interpretation of pa.ticca-samuppaada, it appears that Ven. ~Naa.naviira entertains a mistaken conception of what it would mean to see PS within the framework of three lives. He writes (#7):
Now it is evident that the twelve items, avijjaa to jaraamara.na, cannot, if the traditional interpretation is correct, all be seen at once; for they are spread over three successive existences. I may, for example, see present vi~n~naa.na to vedanaa, but I cannot now see the kamma of the past existence -- avijjaa and sa"nkhaara -- that (according to the traditional interpretation) was the cause of these present things. Or I may see ta.nhaa and so on, but I cannot now see the jaati and jaraamara.na that will result from these things in the next existence.
In Ven. ~Naa.naviira's view, on the traditional interpretation, in order to see PS properly, I would have to be able to see the avijjaa and sa"nkhaara of my past life that brought about this present existence, and I would also have to be able to see the birth, aging, and death I will undergo in a future existence as a result of my present craving. Since such direct perception of the past and future is not, according to the Suttas, an integral part of every noble disciple's range of knowledge, he concludes that the traditional interpretation is unacceptable.
Reflection would show that the consequences that Ven. ~Naa.naviira draws do not necessarily follow from the three-life interpretation. To meet Ven. ~Naa.naviira's argument, let us first remember that the Commentaries do not treat the twelvefold formula of PS as a rigid series whose factors are assigned to tightly segregated time-frames. The formula is regarded, rather, as an expository device spread out over three lives in order to demonstrate the self-sustaining internal dynamics of sa.msaaric becoming. The situation defined by the formula is in actuality not a simple linear sequence, but a more complex process by which ignorance, craving, and clinging in unison generate renewed becoming in a direction determined by the sa"nkhaara, the kammically potent volitional activity. Any new existence begins with the simultaneous arising of vi~n~naa.na and naamaruupa, culminating in birth, the full manifestation of the five aggregates. With these aggregates as the basis, ignorance, craving, and clinging, again working in unison, generate a fresh store of kamma productive of still another becoming, and so the process goes on until ignorance and craving are eliminated.
Hence to see and understand PS within the framework of the three-life interpretation is not a matter of running back mentally into the past to recollect the specific causes in the past life that brought about present existence, nor of running ahead mentally into the next life to see the future effects of the present causal factors. To see PS effectively is, rather, to see that ignorance, craving, and clinging have the inherent power to generate renewed becoming, and then to understand, on this basis, that present existence must have been brought to pass through the ignorance, craving, and clinging of the past existence, while any uneradicated ignorance, craving, and clinging will bring to pass a new existence in the future. Although the application of the PS formula involves temporal extension over a succession of lives, what one sees with immediate vision is not the connection between particular events in the past, present, and future, but conditional relationships obtaining between types of phenomena: that phenomena of a given type B arise in necessary dependence on phenomena of type A, that phenomena of a given type C arise in necessary dependence on phenomena of type B.
Of these relationships, the most important is the connection between craving and re-becoming. Craving, underlaid by ignorance and fortified by clinging, is the force that originates new existence and thereby keeps the wheel of sa.msaara in motion. This is already implied by the stock formula of the second noble truth: "And what, monks, is the origin of suffering? It is craving, which produces re-becoming (ta.nhaa ponobhavikaa)...." The essential insight disclosed by the PS formula is that any given state of existence has come to be through prior craving, and that uneradicated craving has the inherent power to generate new becoming. Once this single principle is penetrated, the entire twelvefold series follows as a matter of course.
26. Ven. ~Naa.naviira implicitly attempts to marshal support for his non-temporal interpretation of PS by quoting as the epigraph to his Note on Pa.ticcasamuppaada the following excerpt from the Cuu.lasakuludaayi Sutta:
"But, Udaayi, let be the past, let be the future, I shall set you forth the Teaching: 'When there is this, that is; with arising of this, that arises; when there is not this, that is not; with cessation of this, that ceases.'"
Here, apparently, the Buddha proposes the abstract principle of conditionality as an alternative to teachings about temporal matters relating to the past and future. Since in other suttas the statement of the abstract principle is immediately followed by the entire twelve-term formula, the conclusion seems to follow that any application of temporal distinctions to PS, particularly the attempt to see it as extending to the past and future, would be a violation of the Buddha's intention.
This conclusion, however, would be premature, and if we turn to the sutta from which the quotation has been extracted we would see that the conclusion is actually unwarranted. In the sutta the non-Buddhist wanderer Sakuludaayi tells the Buddha that recently one famous teacher had been claiming omniscience, but when he approached this teacher -- who turns out to have been the Jain leader Niga.n.tha Naataputta -- and asked him a question about the past, the teacher had tried to evade the question, to turn the discussion aside, and became angry and resentful. He expresses the trust that the Buddha is skilled in such matters. The Buddha then says: "One who can recollect his previous births back for many aeons might engage with me in a fruitful discussion about matters pertaining to the past, while one who has the knowledge of the passing away and rebirth of beings might engage with me in a fruitful discussion about matters pertaining to the future." Then, since Udaayi has neither such knowledge, at this point the Buddha states: "But, Udaayi, let be the past, let be the future," and he cites the abstract principle of conditionality. Thus the purport of the Buddha's statement, read as a whole, is that without such super-knowledges of the past and the future, there is no point discussing specific empirical factual matters concerning the past and the future. The Buddha's dismissal of these issues by no means implies that the twelvefold formula of PS should not be understood as defining the conditional structure of sa.msaara throughout successive lives. It must also be remembered that this discussion takes place with a non-Buddhist ascetic who has not yet gained confidence in the Buddha. It would thus not have been appropriate for the Buddha to reveal to him profound matters that could be penetrated only by one of mature wisdom.
Ven. ~Naa.naviira tries to buttress his non-temporal interpretation of PS with a brief quotation from the Mahaata.nhaasa"nkhaya Sutta. In that sutta, at the end of a long catechism that explores the twelvefold series of PS in both the order of origination and the order of cessation, the Buddha says to the monks:
"I have presented you, monks, with this Dhamma that is visible (sandi.t.thika), immediate (akaalika), inviting one to come and see, accessible, to be personally realized by the wise."
Ven. ~Naa.naviira supposes that "this Dhamma" refers to pa.ticca-samuppaada, and that the description of it as akaalika must mean that the entire formula defines a non-temporal configuration of factors.
If we turn to the sutta from which the quotation comes, we would find that Ven. ~Naa.naviira's supposition is directly contradicted by the sequel to the statement on which he bases his thesis. In that sequel (MN i,265-70), the Buddha proceeds to illustrate the abstract terms of the PS formula, first with an account of the life process of the blind worldling who is swept up in the forward cycle of origination, and then with an account of the noble disciple, who brings the cycle to a stop. Here temporal succession is in evidence throughout the exposition. The life process begins with conception in the womb (elsewhere expressed as "the descent of consciousness" into the womb and the "taking shape of name-and-form" in the womb -- DN 15/ii,63). After the period of gestation comes birth, emergence from the mother's womb, followed in turn by: the gradual maturation of the sense faculties (=the six sense bases), exposure to the five cords of sensual pleasure (=contact), intoxication with pleasant feelings (=feeling), seeking delight in feelings (=craving). Then come clinging, becoming, birth, and aging and death. Here a sequence of two lives is explicitly defined, while the past life is implied by the gandhabba, cited as one of the conditions for conception of the embryo to occur. The gandhabba or "spirit," other texts indicate (see MN ii,157), is the stream of consciousness of a deceased person coming from the preceding life, and this factor is just as essential to conception as the sexual union of the parents, which it must utilize as its vehicle for entering the womb.
In the contrasting passage on the wise disciple, we see how an individual who has taken birth through the same past causes goes forth as a monk inthe Buddha's dispensation, undertakes the training, and breaks the link between feeling and craving. Thereby he puts an end to the future renewal of the cycle of becoming. By extinguishing "delight in feelings," a manifestation of craving, he terminates clinging, becoming, birth, aging, and death, and thereby arrives at the cessation of the entire mass of suffering. Thus here, in the very sutta from which the description of PS as "timeless" is drawn, we see the sequence of PS factors illustrated in a way that indubitably involves temporal succession.
27. In order to determine what the word akaalika means in relation to PS, we must carefully examine its contextual usage in the suttas on PS. Such suttas are rare, but in the Nidaana Sa.myutta we find one text that can help resolve this problem. In this sutta (SN 12:33/ii,56-59), the Buddha enumerates forty-four "cases of knowledge" (~naa.navatthu) arranged into eleven tetrads. There is knowledge of each factor of PS from jaraamara.na back to sa"nkhaaraa, each defined according to the standard definitions; then there is knowledge of its origination through its condition, of its cessation through the cessation of its condition, and of the Noble Eightfold Path as the way to cessation. With respect to each tetrad, the Buddha says (taking the first as an example):
"When the noble disciple understands thus aging and death, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation, this is his knowledge of the principle (or law: dhamme ~naa.na). By means of this principle which is seen, understood, akaalika, attained, fathomed, he applies the method to the past and the future. When he does so, he knows: 'Whatever recluses and brahmins in the past understood aging and death (etc.), all understood them as I do now; whatever recluses and brahmins in the future will understand aging and death (etc.), all will understand them as I do now.' This is his knowledge of the consequence (anvaye ~naa.na)."
If we consider the word akaalika as employed here, the meaning cannot be "non-temporal" in the sense either that the items conjoined by the conditioning relationship occur simultaneously or that they altogether transcend temporal differentiation. For the same sutta defines birth and death with the stock formulas -- 'birth' as birth into any of the orders of beings, etc., 'death' as the passing away from any of the orders of beings, etc. (see #7 above). Surely these events, birth and death, cannot be either simultaneous or extra-temporal. But the word akaalika is here set in correlation with a series of words signifying knowledge, and this gives us the key to its meaning. Taken in context, the word qualifies, not the factors such as birth and death themselves, but the principle (dhamma) that is seen and understood. The point made by calling the principle akaalika is that this principle is known and seen immediately, that is, that the conditional relationship between any two terms is known directly with perceptual certainty. Such immediate knowledge is contrasted with knowledge of the consequence, or inferential knowledge (anvaye ~naa.na), by which the disciple does not grasp a principle by immediate insight but by reflection on what the principle entails.
Exactly the same conclusion regarding the meaning of akaalika would follow if we return to the passage from MN i,265 quoted above (#25) and examine it more closely in context. We would then see that the Buddha does not link the statement that the Dhamma is sandi.t.thiko akaaliko to the formulation of PS in any way that suggests the factors or their relationships are non-temporal. The statement does not even follow immediately upon the catechism on PS. Rather, after questioning the monks in detail about the PS formula, the Buddha asks them whether they would speak as they do (i.e. affirming the connections established by the formula) merely out of respect for him as their Teacher; the monks answer in the negative. He then asks, "Isn't it the case that you speak only of what you have known for yourselves, seen for yourselves, understood for yourselves?" To this the monks reply, "Yes, venerable sir." At this point the Buddha says: "I have presented you, monks, with this Dhamma that is visible, immediate..." Each of the terms in this stock formula conveys, from a slightly different angle, the same essential point: that the Dhamma is something that can be seen (sandi.t.thiko); that it is to be known immediately (akaaliko); that it calls out for personal verification (ehipassiko); that it is accessible (opanayiko); that it is to be personally realized by the wise (paccatta.m veditabbo vi~n~nuuhi). The terms all highlight, not the intrinsic nature of the Dhamma, but its relation to human knowledge and understanding. They are all epistemological in import, not ontological; they are concerned with how the Dhamma is to be known, not with the temporal status of the known.
Again, the conclusion is established: The Dhamma (inclusive of pa.ticca-samuppaada) is akaalika because it is to be known immediately by direct inspection, not by inference or by faith in the word of another. Thus, although birth and death may be separated by 70 or 80 years, one ascertains immediately that death occurs in dependence on birth and cannot occur if there is no birth. Similarly, although the ignorance and sa"nkhaaraa that bring about the descent of consciousness into the womb are separated from consciousness by a gap of lifetimes, one ascertains immediately that the descent of consciousness into the womb has come about through ignorance and sa"nkhaaraa. And again, although future becoming, birth, and aging and death are separated from present craving and clinging by a gap of lifetimes, one ascertains immediately that if craving and clinging persist until the end of the lifespan, they will bring about reconception, and hence engender a future cycle of becoming. It is in this sense that the Buddha declares pa.ticca-samuppaada to be sandi.t.thika, akaalika -- "directly visible, immediate" -- not in the sense that the terms of the formula have nothing to do with time or temporal succession.

The Knowledge of Final Deliverance
28. I will conclude this critique by highlighting one particularly disquieting consequence entailed by Ven. ~Naa.naviira's assertion that pa.ticca-samuppaada has nothing to do with rebirth, with temporal succession, or with kamma and its fruit. Now the Suttas indicate that the arahants know that they have terminated the succession of births; this is their knowledge and vision of final deliverance (vimutti~naa.nadassana). Everywhere in the texts we see that when they attain liberation, they exclaim: "Destroyed is birth, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more (coming back) to this world," or: "This is my last birth; now there is no more re-becoming." These statements, found throughout the Canon, indicate that the arahants know for themselves that they are liberated from the round of rebirths.
Investigation of the texts will also show that the ground for the arahant's assurance regarding his liberation is his knowledge of pa.ticca-samuppaada, particularly in the sequence of cessation. By seeing in himself the destruction of the aasavas, the "cankers" of sensual craving, craving for becoming, and ignorance, the arahant knows that the entire series of factors mentioned in PS has come to an end: ignorance, craving, clinging, and kammically potent volitional activities have ended in this present life, and no more compound of the five aggregates, subject to birth and death, will arise in the future. Perhaps the clearest example of this is the Ka.laara Sutta (SN 12:32/ii,51-53). When the Buddha asks Venerable Saariputta how he can declare "Destroyed is birth," he replies in terms of the destruction of its cause, bhava, and the Buddha's questioning leads him back along the chain of conditions to vedanaa, for which he no longer has any craving.
Since knowledge of pa.ticca-samuppaada in its aspect of cessation is the basis for the arahant's knowledge that he has destroyed birth and faces no more re-becoming in the future, if this formula does not describe the conditional structure of sa.msaara it is difficult to see how the arahant could have definite knowledge that he has reached the end of sa.msaara. If arahants have to accept it on trust from the Buddha that sa.msaara exists and can be terminated (as Ven. ~Naa.naviira would hold of those arahants who lack direct knowledge of past births), then those arahants would also have to accept it on trust from the Buddha that they have attained release from sa.msaara. Such a denouement to the entire quest for the Deathless would be far from satisfactory indeed.
It seems that Ven. ~Naa.naviira, in his eagerness to guarantee an immediate solution to the present problem of existential anxiety, has arrived at that solution by closing off the door to a direct ascertainment that one has solved the existential problem that the Suttas regard as paramount, namely, the beginningless problem of our beginningless bondage to sa.msaara. Fortunately, however, the Suttas confirm that the noble disciple does have direct knowledge that all beings bound by ignorance and craving dwell within beginningless sa.msaara, and that the destruction of ignorance brings cessation of becoming, Nibbaana. Consider how Venerable Saariputta explains the faculty of understanding (and I stress that this is the faculty of understanding (pa~n~nindriya), not the faculty of faith):
"When, lord, a noble disciple has faith, is energetic, has set up mindfulness, and has a concentrated mind, it can be expected that he will understand thus: 'This sa.msaara is without discoverable beginning; no first point can be discerned of beings roaming and wandering on, obstructed by ignorance and fettered by craving. But with the remainderless fading away and ceasing of ignorance, a mass of darkness, this is the peaceful state, this is the sublime state: the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all acquisitions, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, Nibbaana.' That understanding, lord, is his faculty of understanding."
The Buddha not only applauds this statement with the words "Saadhu, saadhu!" but to certify its truth he repeats Ven. Saariputta's words in full.