The Foundation of Buddha's Teachings
It was the sight of disease, old age and death that made Prince Siddharth to leave his palace in search of the solution to these miseries of human life. It was this search that transformed Siddharth in to Buddha. The solution which he found was Pratityasamutpada or the theory of Dependent Origination that very succinctly explains that all our miseries arise from a cause for which we are responsible. Why we human beings suffer misery and pain? Why we suffer old age and death? Because we are born. Why are we born? Because of our will to be born. And this will or the desire to be born is because of our attachment to the objects of the world. But why this attachment? Because of our craving to enjoy the objects of the world. And we have this craving because of our desire for enjoyment which is a result of the sense experience. This sense experience is because of the sense-object contact resulting from our experiences gained through sense organs. Buddha talks about six senses and not the usual five, the sixth one being the mind. The six senses are because of the psycho-physical organism which is a result of initial consciousness of the embryo. This consciousness is due to our predispositions or impressions of Karma that arises due to ignorance. Thus ignorance is the root cause of all suffering.
Interestingly this is something similar to the idea of avidya of Shankaracharya's philosophy. The doctrine of dependent origination is contained in the second of the four noble truths of Buddha. The first noble truth says that there is suffering, the second says that there is a cause of suffering, the third says that there is cessation of suffering and the fourth one says that there is a way leading to this cessation. According to Buddha suffering is this mundane world, and cessation is the Nirvana. Both of these are only aspects of the same reality. Buddha's doctrine was simple. Everything has a dependent origination, that is, depending on the cause the effect arises. This has been explained in the causal wheel of dependent origination which describes the vicious circle of causation. Nothing comes out of nothing and everything has an origination. It does not end with death. Death is just the beginning of a new life. This is called the Dharmchakra that can be destroyed only when it's root cause, ignorance is destroyed. Buddha said that ignorance can only be destroyed by knowledge. Ignorance is bondage, knowledge is liberation. All teachings of Buddha can be deduced from this theory of dependent origination.
Our present life is due to the impressions of the karmas of the past life and it will shape our future life. Ignorance and Karma go in determining each other in a vicious circle. The theory of Karma is based on this idea of the law of causation. Buddha talks about the theory of momentariness or impermanence of this world. Because things depend on their causes and are relative, dependent, conditional and finite they must be momentary. When the cause is removed the thing will cease to exist. Anything that is born or produced is necessarily subject to death and destruction. And anything that is subject to death and destruction is not permanent, hence momentary. This suggests that the individual ego is also false. The original teachings of Buddha have many things in common with Shankaracharya's concept of Maya and its destructibility. This world is momentary, relative and ultimately unreal.
Wisdom explained wisely and with so much clarity!