Reflection on the cause and its cessation

By Dr.Tawachai Onsanit

“The Perfect One has told the cause
of causally arisen things;
And what brings their cessation, too:
Such is the doctrine preached by the Great Monk.”

The above is quoted from “The Life of the Buddha” by Venerable Nanamoli. It is the answer that one of the first five disciples of the Buddha, Venerable Assaji, gave to a very curious wanderer when asked what the Buddha taught. The wanderer eventually became the right-hand disciple of the Buddha, the Venerable Sariputta.

This answer goes to the heart of the Buddha’s teaching about suffering when he declared the Four Noble Truths in his first sermon. It points to cause and effect in every thing, tangible or intangible. I would like to quote briefly what appears in “the Great Discourse on causation” by Bhikkhu Bodhi:

“Suffering includes not just personal unhappiness, discontent or psychological stress……but also existential suffering……which is the suffering of bondage to the round of repeated birth and death.——It requires nothing short of total liberation from the round.——In order to end the round, the conditions that sustain it have to be eliminated; and to eliminate them it is necessary to know what they are; how they hold together and what must be done to extinguished their causal force.”

The first Noble Truth states there is suffering. The second Noble Truth explains the cause of suffering, i.e. craving. The Truth can be recognized or otherwise ignored, confused or shoved aside intentionally due to a complex set of our spiritual faculties. It can be quite uncomfortable to hear that the causes of our suffering are conditioned mainly by craving and unawareness. This kind of statement admittedly is quite disconcerting in our modern world of scientific progress and accomplishments. But the third Noble Truth can give us some comfort since it identifies the cessation of suffering, i.e. the ending of craving. This Truth should not be perceived as a promise but it is still something that anyone can achieve with effort.

The question everybody wants to know is how suffering can be brought to an end. This is where the fourth Noble Truth can be applied to our daily lives. It entails the path of practice leading to the end of suffering. This practice is comprised of moral discipline, concentration and discernment. By practicing meditation, we can develop the necessary skills to see cause and its cessation and thus bring the path of practice to completion. We are taught to focus our attention first on our bodies. Contemplation of the breath is the most wellknown example. The task is to see clearly what, in the act of breathing is related to cause and effect. For many of us it requires a certain degree of conviction since the results seem uncertain. So confidence in a teacher through direct instruction or reading is important.
Our thoughts are fleeting and usually scattered. They are described as being conceptual and conventional. Each thought can proliferate without stopping according to what we want, how we perceive and how we compare. But it all follows the same process of arising and cessation on and on until we either slow it down or stop it. The practice of meditation helps us see the ultimate truth of arising and its cessation in every phenomenon. As the Buddha said, “All formations are impermanent, strive for perfection with diligence.”

Everything conditioned has a cause. It is transient because it comes to cessation. We strive to see it for ourselves the arising of that cause along with its cessation. We are taught to begin by observing the breath properly. The result is the concentration of the mind. Next will be the insight into how the body and mind work together to solve the problem by the ability to see things as they are instead of the way we want them to be. When we practice, we shift our attention from our unfocused thinking to the cause of problems confronting us here and now.
In order to find true happiness, the Buddha has laid out for us the four duties of the Four Noble Truths. First, the truth of suffering needs to be comprehended. This can be one of the most difficult tasks any one can have. We simply cannot shoot the target we do not see. Second, the cause of suffering needs to be abandoned. This is where the process of the cause of suffering has to be confronted. Third, the cessation of suffering needs to be realized by dealing with craving and unawareness or ignorance. And lastly, the path of practice leading to the cessation of suffering needs to be cultivated. The Path is called the Noble Eightfold Path. Meditation is an important part of this path.

How can realizing the cause of suffering and its cessation affect our daily lives? And how is meditation related to it? More often than not, when any problem becomes intolerable in our lives, it has multiple causes, all occurring at the same time. Meditation helps us to develop the calm and concentration needed to see things more clearly. We start by observing and evaluating the breath. This skill will develop into “appropriate attention”, the ability to ask the right questions as to what is going on. As we develop the skills of the Noble Eightfold Path, we are able to see the causal chain of conditioning( the dependent co-arising) underlying our suffering more clearly. The insight into conditionality concerning impermanence, suffering and not-self can unfold to help us cope with the situation.

With confidence in the teaching, we can use our energy in the practice to achieve mindfulness and concentration. We can gain increasing discernment or wisdom and are able to see the truth for ourselves. The quality of equanimity developed from the practice will enable us to see both the gratification and the danger in every situation we encounter. This is the path to the release from different levels of suffering and to liberation.