Eko ’mhi sammasambuddho, sītibhūto ’smi nibbuto.
Dīgha-Nikāya, XXVI.
[f57] Ordinarily, the Chain runs as follows: 1. Ignorance (avijjā, avidyā), 2. Disposition (sankhāra, saṁskāra), 3. Consciousness (viññāna, vijñāna), 4. Name and Form (nāmarūpa), 5. Six Sense-organs (saḷāyatana, saḍāyatana), 6. Touch (phassa, sparśa), 7. Feeling (vedana), 8. Desire (taṇhā, tṛshṇā), 9. Clinging (upādāna), 10. Becoming (bhāva), 11. Birth (jāti), and 12. Old Age and Death (jarāmaranaṁ).
[f58] The Buddhacarita, Book XIV.
[f59] Nānañ ca pana me dassanaṁ udapādi akuppā me ceto-vimutti ayaṁ antimā jāti natthi dāni punabbhavo.
[f60] “Thus knowing, thus seeing,” (evam jānato evam passato) is one of the set phrases we encounter throughout Buddhist literature, Hinayana and Mahayana. Whether or not its compilers were aware of the distinction between knowing and seeing in the sense we make now in the theory of knowledge, the coupling is of great signification. They must have been conscious of the inefficiency and insufficiency of the word “to know” in the description of the kind of knowledge one has at the moment of enlightenment. “To see” or “to see face to face” signifies the immediateness and utmost perspicuity and certainty of such knowledge. As was mentioned elsewhere, Buddhism is rich in terminology of this order of cognition.
[f61] Tassa evam jānato evam passato kāmāsavāpi cittaṁ vimuccati bhavāsavāpi cittaṁ vimuccati avijjāsavāpi cittaṁ vimuccati, vimuttasmiṁ vimuttamit ñāṇaṁ hoti. Khina jāti vusitaṁ brahmacariyaṁ kataṁ karanīyam nāparaṁ itthattāyāti pajānāti.
[f62] The Brahmajāla Sutta, p. 43. Translation by Rhys Davids.
[f63] The idea of performing miracles systematically through the power acquired by self-concentration seems to have been greatly in vogue in India even from the earliest days of her civilisation, and the Buddha was frequently approached by his followers to exhibit his powers to work wonders. In fact, his biographers later turned him into a regular miracle-performer, at least as far as we may judge by the ordinary standard of logic and science. But from the Prajñā-pāramitā point of view, according to which “because what was preached by the Tathagata as the possession of qualities, that was preached as no-possession of qualities by the Tathagata, and therefore it is called the possession of qualities,” (yaishā bhagavan lakshaṇasampat tathāgatena bhāshitā alakshaṇasampad eshā tathāgatena bhāshita; tenocyate lakshaṇasampad iti), the idea of performing wonders acquires quite a new signification spiritually. In the Kevaddha Sutta, three wonders are mentioned as having been understood and realised by the Buddha: the mystic wonder, the wonder of education, and the wonder of manifestation. The possessor of the mystic wonder can work the following logical and physical impossibilities: “From being one he becomes multiform, from being multiform he becomes one: from being visible he becomes invisible: he passes without hindrance to the further side of a wall or a battlement or a mountain, as if through air: he penetrates up and down through solid ground as if through water: he walks on water without dividing it, as if on solid ground: he travels cross-legged through the sky like the birds on wing: he touches and feels with the hand even the moon and sun, beings of mystic power and potency they be: he reaches even in the body up to the heaven of Brahma.” Shall we understand this literally and intellectually? Cannot we interpret it in the spirit of the Prajñā-pāramitā idealism? Why? Taccittam yacittam acittam. (Thought is called thought because it is no-thought.)
[f64] The questions are: Is the world eternal? Is the world not eternal? Is the world finite? Is the world infinite? Potthapāda-Sutta.