September 18, 2009
When the Buddha awakened, he awakened to something. With the stilling of his mind and the dropping of his attachments, he awoke to Dependent Origination and attained liberation. This insight is the foundation of everything else he subsequently taught. The principle of Dependent Origination is that when anything arises dependent on particular conditions, it ceases with the ceasing of those conditions. So, for example, rain is dependent on clouds; when the clouds vanish, the rain stops.
