Aligning the Dependently Arisen Connections: The Exegete Rearticulates Body and Text

The Buddha rearticulated the meaning of the body by breaking it down into parts, such as form and consciousness, observing each to determine, “This is not mine, this is not I, this is not my self.”¹ In this way, Buddhist mnenomic practices of listing and enumerating facilitate a process of breaking free of the confines of the “self” to apprehend impermanence. To repeatedly break down the meaning of the body is to “anticipate an act of renaming.”² Embodiment, once transformed from an object of desire, becomes the precious opportunity to realize the true nature of reality. In imagining oneself as