The Cycle of Rebirth Without Discoverable Beginning for Beings Hindered by Ignorance and Fettered by Craving

An eon is long, Monk. It is not easy to count it and say it is so many years, or so many hundreds of years, or so many thousands of years, or so many hundreds of thousands of years.

Suppose, Monk, there was a great stone mountain a yojana long (12-15 km), a yojana wide (12-15 km), and a yojana high (12-15 km), without holes or crevices, one solid mass of rock. At the end of every hundred years a man would stroke it once with a piece of Kāsian cloth. That great stone mountain might by this effort be worn away and eliminated but the eon would still not have come to an end. So long is an eon, Monk.

And of eons of such length, we have wandered through so many eons, so many hundreds of eons, so many thousands of eons, so many hundreds of thousands of eons.

For what reason?

Because, Monk, this Cycle of Rebirth is without discoverable beginning. A first point is not discerned of beings roaming and wandering on hindered by ignorance (unknowing of true reality) and fettered by craving.

It is enough to experience fading away of strong feelings towards all conditions, enough to become free from strong feelings towards them, enough to be liberated from them.

(Reference: SN 15:5)

In this Teaching from Gotama Buddha, he shares how the beginning of The Cycle of Rebirth is not discoverable.

Oftentimes, people have an active interest to know when life began or the exact timeframe when something in the past occurred. In this Teaching, The Buddha is providing guidance that it is not discoverable to know when The Cycle of Rebirth first started. Therefore, if a Practitioner is contemplating the question of when The Cycle of Rebirth started, craving or desiring an answer, that question can be put aside as there is no discoverable beginning.

The Buddha encouraged all his Students to actively learn and practice these Teachings to attain Enlightenment helping them to understand how to accomplish that goal. A Teacher will oftentimes need to help Students remove obstacles, such as questions of this nature, in order to assist them in moving past those irrelevant questions the mind might crave an answer to but provides no beneficial wisdom that would lead to Enlightenment.

Gotama Buddha explains this as “it is enough to experience fading away of strong feelings towards all conditions, enough to become free from strong feelings towards them, enough to be liberated from them”.

In other words, The Buddha is encouraging Students to remain focused on the true goal of this path. That is to eliminate discontentedness from the mind through eliminating the mind basing its inner feelings on impermanent conditions, which leads to liberation of the mind.