Apologies for missing this post previously.porpoise wrote:I'm still not clear what you mean by "structural" - could you briefly explain? Also I'm not clear about your objection to a temporal view, given that birth, aging and death are clearly temporal events ( see the nidana definitions in MN9, SN12.2, etc ).retrofuturist wrote: In other words, structural not temporal.
By structural I mean...
From a as a requisite condition comes b.
From b as a requisite condition comes c.
From c as a requisite condition comes d.
... and so on. There is a relationship at play between the nidanas, but the relationship that has been delineated in the suttas is a structural one, rather than one demarcated in temporal units (such as "moments", "minutes", "years", "lifetimes", or "aeons")
Hence, non-time-delimited.
Metta,
Retro.