Conditioned Arising and Nirvana

In The Noble Quest, which scholars regard as probably the earliest account of the awakening that has come down to us, Gotama speaks of it as a radical shift in perspective rather than an arrival at a set of answers to existential questions. He describes the shift as leading him to the dharma itself:

This dharma I have reached is deep, hard to see, difficult to awaken to, quiet and excellent, not confined by thought, subtle, sensed by the wise. But people love their place: they delight and revel in their place. It is hard for people who love, delight, and revel in their place to see this ground: "because-of-this" conditionality, conditioned arising. And also hard to see this ground: the stilling of inclinations, the relinquishing of bases, the fading away of reactivity, desirelessness, ceasing, nirvana.* 

The dharma Gotama talks of reaching was thus a ground with two dimensions, one that he calls conditioned arising and another that he calls nirvana. These two dimensions are equally fundamental and primordial. Whereas conditioned arising discloses the causal unfolding of life, nirvana discloses the possibility of a life no longer determined by reactivity or habitual inclinations.

---Stephen Batchelor, in after buddhism---

* Majjhima Nikaya 26