And, it is astounding to me if someone implies rebirth cannot or should not be part of the PS. From your signature:SDC wrote:Any PS model that includes rebirth can be nothing more than a broad snapshot of samsara lacking both specificity and functionality. Why would the "origin of this whole mass of suffering" need more than this lifetime to be explained? Let's not forget that the entire point of the PS is to explain how dukkha arises. How rebirth ever made it into the scheme is astounding to me.
Obviously, for Buddha the "whole mass of suffering" means the whole suffering in having birth again and again (not just the suffering of this life).Through many of samsara’s births I hasten seeking, finding not the builder of this house - pain is birth again, again.
O builder of this house you’re seen, you shall not build a house again, all your beams have given away, rafters of the ridge decayed, mind to the unconditioned gone, exhaustion of craving has it reached.
(to me, birth (again) == (re)birth)
Also from the Maha-nidana Sutta:
"'From birth as a requisite condition come aging and death.' Thus it has been said. And this is the way to understand how from birth as a requisite condition come aging and death. If there were no birth at all, in any way, of anything anywhere — i.e., of devas in the state of devas, of celestials in the state of celestials, of spirits in the state of spirits, of demons in the state of demons, of human beings in the human state, of quadrupeds in the state of quadrupeds, of birds in the state of birds, of snakes in the state of snakes, or of any being in its own state — in the utter absence of birth, from the cessation of birth, would aging and death be discerned?"
"No, lord."
"Thus this is a cause, this is a reason, this is an origination, this is a requisite condition for aging and death, i.e., birth.