Beings Roaming and Wandering on Through this Beginning‑less Cycle of Rebirth

Monks, this Cycle of Rebirth is without discoverable beginning. A first point is not identifiable of beings roaming and wandering on, hindered by ignorance (unknowing of true reality) and fettered by craving. One person, roaming and wandering on, hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving, would leave behind a stack of bones, a heap of bones, a pile of bones as large as this Mount Vepulla, if there were someone to collect them and what is collected would not perish.

For what reason?

Because, Monks, this Cycle of Rebirth is without discoverable beginning. A first point is not identifiable of beings roaming and wandering on, hindered by ignorance (unknowing of true reality) and fettered by craving. For such a long time, Monks, you have experienced discontentedness, misery, and disaster, and swelled the cemetery.

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.

This is what The Perfectly Enlightened One said. Having said this, The Fortunate One, The Teacher, further said this:

The heap of bones one person leaves behind with the

passing of a single eon

Would form a heap as high as a mountain; So said the

Great Sage.

This is declared to be as massive as the tall

Vepulla Mountain

Standing north of Vulture Peak in the Magadhan

mountain range.

But when one sees with correct wisdom the truths of

the Noble Ones — Discontentedness and its cause,

The elimination of discontentedness, and

The Noble Eight Fold Path

That leads to discontentedness’s calming —

Then that person, having wandered on

For seven more times at most,

Makes an end to discontentedness

By destroying all the fetters.

(Reference: SN 15.10)

In this Teaching from Gotama Buddha, he shares how the beginning of The Cycle of Rebirth is not discoverable and that we have all been countless beings in the past.

Once a dedicated Student “sees with correct wisdom the truths of the Noble Ones” (i.e. The Four Noble Truths), that person can then make an end to discontentedness by “destroying all the fetters” (i.e. The Ten Fetters). Having eliminated The Ten Fetters, a being will no longer be reborn in The Cycle of Rebirth.