PTS cs 3 The king said: ‘When you say that the ultimate point is not apparent, what do you mean by “ultimate point”?’
‘Of whatsoever time is past. It is the ultimate point of that, O king, that I speak of.’
‘But, if so, when you say that it is not apparent, do you mean to say that of everything? Is the ultimate point of everything unknown?’
‘Partly so, and partly not.’
‘Then which is so, and which not?’
‘Formerly, O king, everything in every form, everything in every mode, was ignorance. It is to us as if it were not. In reference to that the ultimate beginning is unknown. But that, which has not been, becomes; as soon as it has begun to become it dissolves away again. In reference to that the ultimate beginning is known.’ PTS vp Pali 52
‘But, reverend Sir, if that which was not, becomes, and as soon as it has begun to become passes again PTS vp En 82 away, then surely, being thus cut off at both ends, it must be entirely destroyed ?’
‘Nay, surely, O king, if it be thus cut off at both ends, can it not at both ends be made to grow again ?’
‘Yes, it might. But that is not my question. Could it grow again from the point at which it was cut off?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Give me an illustration.’
Then the Elder repeated the simile of the tree and the seed, and said that the Skandhas (the constituent elements of all life, organic and inorganic) were so many seeds, and the king confessed himself satisfied.