Buddha reflecting on his own motives for embarking on his quest. “When I was still a bodhisatta,” he recalls, “it occurred to me: ‘What is the delight (assādo) of life? What is the tragedy (ādhinavo) of life? What is the emancipation (nissaranaṃ) of life?’ Then, bhikkhus, it occurred to me: ‘the happiness and joy that arise conditioned by life, that is the delight of life; that life is impermanent, dukkha and changing, that is the tragedy of life; the removal and abandonment of grasping (chandarāga) for life, that is the emancipation of life.’”26 Only when he had understood all three of these
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