On Awakening

^{Kd.1.1.1 Vin.1.1 Vin.1 BD.4.1} At one time^[1] the awakened one, the Lord, being recently fully awakened, was staying at Uruvelā on the bank of the river Nerañjarā at the foot of the Tree of Awakening.^[2] Then the Lord sat cross-legged in one (posture)^[3] for seven days at the foot of the Tree of Awakening^[4] experiencing the bliss of freedom.^[5]

^Kd.1.1.2 Then the Lord during the first watch of the night paid attention to^[6] causal uprising in direct and reverse order: conditioned by ignorance^[7] are the habitual tendencies^[8]; conditioned by the habitual tendencies is consciousness^[9]; conditioned by consciousness is psycho-physicality^[10]; conditioned by psycho-physicality are the six (sense-) spheres; conditioned by the six (sense-) spheres is awareness^[11]; conditioned by awareness is feeling; conditioned by feeling^[12] is craving; conditioned by craving is grasping; conditioned by grasping is becoming; conditioned by becoming is birth; conditioned by birth, old age and dying, grief, sorrow and lamentation, suffering, dejection and despair come into being.

^BD.4.2 Such is the arising of this entire mass of ill. But from the utter fading away and stopping of this very ignorance (comes) the stopping of habitual tendencies; from the stopping of habitual tendencies the stopping of consciousness; from the stopping of consciousness^[13] the stopping of psycho-physicality; from the stopping of psycho-physicality the stopping of the six (sense-) spheres; from the stopping of the six (sense-) spheres the stopping of awareness; from the stopping of awareness the stopping of feeling; from the stopping of feeling the stopping of craving; from the stopping of craving the stopping of grasping; from the stopping of grasping the stopping of becoming; from the stopping of becoming the stopping of birth; from the stopping of birth, old age and dying, grief, sorrow and lamentation, suffering, dejection and despair are stopped. Such is the stopping of this entire mass of ill. ^Vin.1.2

^Kd.1.1.3 Then the Lord, having understood this matter, at that time uttered this (solemn) utterance:

“Truly, when things^[14] grow plain
to the ardent meditating brahmin,
His doubts all vanish
in that he comprehends thing-with-cause.”

^Kd.1.1.4 Then the Lord during the middle watch of the night paid attention to causal uprising in direct and reverse order: conditioned by ignorance are the habitual tendencies; conditioned by the habitual tendencies is consciousness … Such is the arising … Such is the stopping of this entire mass of ill.

^Kd.1.1.5 Then the Lord, having understood this matter, at that time uttered this (solemn) utterance:

“Truly, when things grow plain
to the ardent meditating brahmin,
His doubts all vanish
in that he discerns destruction of cause.”

^{Kd.1.1.6 BD.4.3} Then the Lord during the last watch of the night paid attention to causal uprising in direct and reverse order: conditioned by ignorance are the habitual tendencies; conditioned by the habitual tendencies is consciousness … Such is the arising … Such is the stopping of this entire mass of ill.

^Kd.1.1.7 Then the Lord, having understood this matter, at that time uttered this (solemn) utterance:

“Truly, when things grow plain
to the ardent meditating brahmin,
Routing the host of Māra does he stand
Like as the sun when lighting up the sky.”

^Kd.1.1.8 Told is the Talk on Awakening.^[15]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

From here to the end of Kd.1.2.3 cf. Ud.p.1. I largely follow translation at Verses of Uplift, which also see for notes.

[2]:

bodhirukkha is the Bo-tree, ficus religiosa. Vin-a.952 says “bodhi is knowledge of the four ways; the lord attained that awakening here, so the tree acquired the name of the tree of awakening.” Cf. MN-a.iii.326 and MN-a.i.54.

[3]:

eka-pallaṅkena.

[4]:

bodhirukkhamūle; cf. bodhiyā mūle at Ps.i.174 = Mnd.458; and bodhimūle at Snp-a.32, Snp-a.391.

[5]:

vimuttisukha.

[6]:

manasākāsi, worked with the mind.

[7]:

The “causal chain” occurs, with explanations of its terms, at SN.ii.1ff. See also Mrs. Rhys Davids, Manual of Buddhism, p.76ff.

[8]:

sankhāra.

[9]:

viññāṇa. See Mrs. Rhys Davids, Manual of Buddhism, p.77, p.150; Indian Religion and Survival, p.66; Original Gospel, p.63, p.112, p.114; Dialogues of the Buddha ii, 2nd edition, Preface, p.ix for the view that viññāṇa has a meaning of “man as surviving.”

[10]:

nāmarūpa, name and shape.

[11]:

phassa, perhaps contact. It is the known or realised impingement of a sense-datum on its appropriate sense-organ.

[12]:

From here to “dejection and despair come into being”, cf. DN.i.45.

[13]:

From here to the end of the paragraph cf. DN.ii.35.

[14]:

dhammā. According to Vin-a.954–5 the (thirty-seven) things helpful to awakening and the four ariyan true things. These last are not necessarily the four truths of ill, for see AN.v.56 (the four stations of mindfulness) and Minor Anthologies 1, Introduction, p.2ff. But see also Points of Controversy, p.118, n.1. This verse and the two following occur at Kv.186.

[15]:

This is probably an abbreviation for “Told is the Talk at the Tree of Awakening”: see titles of 2, 3 and 4.