Comments

Comm. NT: 47. Avyāpāra—“uninterest”: here the equivalent of anābhoga, see IV.171 and IX.108. The perhaps unorthodox form “uninterest” has been used to avoid the “unselfish” sense sometimes implied by “disinterestedness.” Vyāpāra is clearly intended throughout this work as “motivated action” in contrast with “blind action of natural forces.” The word “interest” has therefore been chosen to bring out this effect.

Comm. NT: 48. The dependent origination, or structure of conditions, appears as a flexible formula with the intention of describing the ordinary human situation of a man in his world (or indeed any conscious event where ignorance and craving have not entirely ceased). That situation is always complex, since it is implicit that consciousness with no object, or being (bhava—becoming, or however rendered) without consciousness (of it), is impossible except as an artificial abstraction. The dependent origination, being designed to portray the essentials of that situation in the limited dimensions of words and using only elements recognizable in experience, is not a logical proposition (Descartes’ cogito is not a logical proposition). Nor is it a temporal cause-and-effect chain: each member has to be examined as to its nature in order to determine what its relations to the others are (e.g. whether successive in time or conascent, positive or negative, etc., etc.). A purely cause-and-effect chain would not represent the pattern of a situation that is always complex, always subjective-objective, static-dynamic, positive-negative, and so on. Again, there is no evidence of any historical development in the various forms given within the limit of the Sutta Piṭaka (leaving aside the Paṭisambhidāmagga), and historical treatment within that particular limit is likely to mislead, if it is hypothesis with no foundation.
Parallels with European thought have been avoided in this translation. But perhaps an exception can be made here, with due caution, in the case of Descartes.

Comm. NT: The revolution in European thought started by his formula cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”) is not yet ended. Now, it will perhaps not escape notice that the two elements, “I think” and “I am,” in what is not a logical proposition parallel to some extent the two members of the dependent origination, consciousness and being (becoming). In other words, consciousness activated by craving and clinging as the dynamic factory, guided and blinkered by ignorance (“I think” or “consciousness with the conceit ‘I am’”), conditions being (“therefore I am”) in a complex relationship with other factors relating subject and object (not accounted for by Descartes). The parallel should not be pushed too far. In fact it is only introduced because in Europe the dependent origination seems to be very largely misunderstood with many strange interpretations placed upon it, and because the cogito does seem to offer some sort of reasonable approach. In this work, for convenience because of the special importance attached here to the aspect of the death-rebirth link, the dependent origination is considered from only one standpoint, namely, as applicable to a period embracing a minimum of three lives. But this is not the only application. With suitable modifications it is also used in the Vibhaṅga to describe the structure of the complex in each one of the 89 single type- consciousnesses laid down in the Dhammasaṅgaṇī; and Bhadantācariya Buddhaghosa says: “This structure of conditions is present not only in (a continuity period consisting of) multiple consciousnesses but also in each single consciousness as well” (Vibh-a 199–200).

Comm. NT: Also the Paṭisambhidāmagga gives five expositions, four describing dependent origination in one life, the fifth being made to present a special inductive generalization to extend what is observable in this life (the fact that consciousness is always preceded by consciousness, cf. this Ch. §83f.—i.e. that it always has a past and is inconceivable without one) back beyond birth, and (since craving and ignorance ensure its expected continuance) on after death. There are, besides, various other, differing applications indicated by the variant forms given in the suttas themselves.

пали	660.Yasmā panettha ekattanayo, nānattanayo, abyāpāranayo, evaṃdhammatānayoti cattāro atthanayā honti, tasmā nayabhedatopetaṃ bhavacakkaṃ viññātabbaṃ yathārahaṃ.
Nyanamoli thera	309.6. [As to methods:] Then [585] there are four methods of treating the meaning here. They are (a) the method of identity, (b) the method of diversity, (c) the method of uninterest,47 and (d) the method of ineluctable regularity. So this Wheel of Becoming should also be known accordingly “as to the kinds of method. ”48