In the Buddha's Words - Bhikkhu Bodhi [245]
43. Spk: Actuality (tathatā) means the occurrence of each particular phenomenon when its assemblage of appropriate conditions is present. Inerrancy (avitathatā ) means that once its conditions have reached completeness there is no non-occurrence, even for a moment, of the phenomenon due to be produced from those conditions. Invariability (anaññathatā) means that there is no production of one phenomenon by another’s conditions.
44. Dhamme ñāṇa. This is the direct knowledge of the Four Noble Truths arisen through penetration of Nibbāna as the truth of cessation.
45. Anvaye ñāṇa. This is an inference extending to the past and the future, based on the immediate discernment of the conditional relationship obtaining between any pair of factors.
46. Spk: The idea of existence (atthitā) is eternalism (sassata); the idea of nonexistence (natthitā) is annihilationism (uccheda). Spk-pṭ: The idea of existence is eternalism because it maintains that the entire world (of personal existence) exists forever. The notion of nonexistence is annihilationism because it maintains that the entire world does not exist (forever) but is cut off.
In view of these explanations it would be misleading to translate the two terms, atthitā and natthitā, simply as “existence” and “nonexistence.” In the present passage atthitā and natthitā are abstract nouns formed from the verbs atthi and natthi. It is thus the metaphysical assumptions implicit in such abstractions that are at fault, not the ascriptions of existence and nonexistence themselves. I have tried to convey this sense of metaphysical abstraction, conveyed in Pāli by the termination -tā, by rendering the two terms “the idea of existence” and “the idea of nonexistence,” respectively.
Unfortunately, atthitā and bhava both had to be rendered by “existence,” which obscures the fact that in Pāli they are derived from different roots. While atthitā is the notion of existence in the abstract, bhava is concrete individual existence in one or another of the three realms. For the sake of marking the difference, bhava might have been rendered “being,” but this English word is too likely to suggest “Being,” the absolute object of philosophical speculation. It does not sufficiently convey the sense of concreteness intrinsic to bhava.
47. Spk: The origin of the world: the production of the world of formations. There is no idea of nonexistence in regard to the world: there does not occur in him the annihilationist view that might arise in regard to phenomena produced and made manifest in the world of formations, holding “They do not exist.” Spk-pṭ: The annihilationist view might arise in regard to the world of formations thus: “On account of the annihilation and perishing of beings right where they are, there is no persisting being or phenomenon.” It also includes the wrong view, having those formations as its object, that holds: “There are no beings who are reborn.” That view does not occur in him; for one seeing with right understanding the production and origination of the world of formations in dependence on such diverse conditions as kamma, ignorance, craving, etc., that annihilationist view does not occur, since one sees the uninterrupted production of formations.
Spk: The cessation of the world: the dissolution of formations. There is no idea of existence in regard to the world: There does not occur in him the eternalist view that might arise in regard to phenomena produced and made manifest in the world of formations, holding “They exist.” Spk-pṭ: The eternalist view might arise in regard to the world of formations, taking it to exist at all times, owing to the apprehension of identity in the uninterrupted continuum occurring in a cause-effect relationship. But that view does not occur in him; because he sees the cessation of the successively arisen phenomena and the arising of successively new