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Notes on Early Buddhist Discourses
The Greater Discourse on Cause

The doctrine of ‘dependent arising’: all things are conditioned by other
things. Nothing is independent. Everything that exists belongs to a causal
nexus in which everything is mutually conditioned. (pp. 26-27, 28-30).

X is conditioned by Y just if “if Y did not exist, then X would not exist.”
Example: if there were no feeling, then there would be no craving. If feeling
ceased, craving would cease. (p. 31)

The ten causal links (nidanas) (pp. 29-30)
death => birth => becoming => attachment => craving => feeling => contact
contact => psycho-physicality => consciousness => psycho-physicality . . . .

Impermanence (anicca): nothing is permanent or unchanging. This is an
implication of dependent arising. Since everything that exists is conditioned
by other things, change anywhere in the causal nexus implies that everything
is subject to change.
The Greater Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness

The importance of meditation as a focalization technique: the bhikkhu
(Buddhist monk) lives by observing whatever state he is in, whatever
perceptions he has, whatever feelings he has, and so forth. Goal: become
aware of anicca and the five aggregates that constitute the self and their
mutability. (pp. 43-54)

Five Aggregates (skandhas):
consciousness (p. 49).

The five aggregates are modes of attachment (p. 52)

The four noble truths of Buddhism: (1) Life is suffering (p. 51), (2) Suffering
originates from craving (pp. 52-53), (3) Elimination of craving eliminates
suffering (pp. 54-55), and (4) the eightfold path (pp. 56-57).

Eightfold Path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right
livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration (pp. 56-57)
body,
feeling,
The Greater Discourse on the Destruction of Craving
perception,
disposition,

The bhikkhu named Sati claims that the Buddha taught that “it is this same
consciousness, and not another, which transmigrates, which goes through
the round of death and rebirth” (p. 60)

Other Bhikkhus challenge Sati’s understanding of the Buddha’s teaching.
They all gather around the Buddha and the Buddha clarifies his teaching (p.
61)

We should not say that it is the same consciousness that is reborn, for the
doctrine of dependent arising implies that consciousness is always changing
and ceases to exist when its preconditions (e.g., physicality) cease to exist (p.
62).

The wrong view attributed to Buddha by Sati is called a ‘pernicious’ teaching.
Why? It is pernicious because it is the wrong view and all wrong views are
suffering. Attachment also is suffering. The belief that the same
consciousness wanders through samsara implies a self-identity, a kind of
permanence to the self. This implies attachment and is the source of
suffering.