Akvan, firewrns:
There are many suttas in the “Anamatagga Saṃyutta” that has the following verse describing the fact that there is no “discernible beginning”:
“Anamataggoyaṃ, bhikkhave, saṃsāro. Pubbā koṭi na paññāyati“.
Translated: “There is no end to samsara (unless one attains Nibbana). I do not see a discernible beginning either“.
“Discernible beginning” means a Buddha can go back and look at past lives at a very high rate, but cannot see a “beginning”.
In a hetu-phala (cause and effect) process, logically there cannot be a “beginning”. Whatever the “beginning” status, it must have arisen due to a cause.
We can look at it this way too: avijja and tanha cannot arise in a vacuum. They are in the mind of a living being. The mind of a living being (i.e., thoughts or citta) arise in the hadaya vatthu.
– A hadaya vatthu itself cannot arise unless that living being had done kamma (abhisankhara) because of avijja and tanha.
– This is why there is no “beginning”.
When one attains Nibbana, both avijja and tanha are removed from the mind. Then, at Parinibbana (death of the physical body), no new bhava can be grasped.
– That is the ONLY WAY to stop samsaric suffering.