Path of Purification

Part III · Understanding

Dependent Origination — The Chain of Conditioned Arising

This chapter explains dependent origination (paticcasamuppada) — the twelve-link chain showing how suffering arises through conditioned processes across past, present, and future lives. It covers the definition and meaning of the term, each of the twelve links and how they condition one another, the three-life interpretation, the four groups and three connections, the wheel of existence, and the practical significance for insight meditation. This is one of the most philosophically important teachings in all of Buddhism.

What this chapter covers: This chapter explains dependent origination (paticcasamuppada) — the twelve-link chain showing how suffering arises through conditioned processes across past, present, and future lives. It covers the definition and meaning of the term, each of the twelve links and how they condition one another, the three-life interpretation, the four groups and three connections, the wheel of existence, and the practical significance for insight meditation. This is one of the most philosophically important teachings in all of Buddhism.

What is Dependent Origination?

Now we come to the teaching on dependent origination itself — one of the foundational doctrines that make up the “soil” of understanding.

The states beginning with ignorance should be understood as dependent origination. The Buddha said:

“And what is dependent origination? With ignorance as condition, there are volitional formations. With formations as condition, consciousness. With consciousness as condition, mind-and-body. With mind-and-body as condition, the six sense bases. With the six sense bases as condition, contact. With contact as condition, feeling. With feeling as condition, craving. With craving as condition, clinging. With clinging as condition, becoming. With becoming as condition, birth. With birth as condition, there is ageing-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair. Thus there is the arising of this whole mass of suffering. This is called dependent origination.”

The states produced by these conditions — ageing-and-death, birth, becoming, and so on back to ignorance — are called “dependently originated states.” The Buddha described each of them as impermanent, formed, and subject to destruction, fading, and cessation.

Put simply: the conditions themselves are “dependent origination.” The states generated by those conditions are “dependently originated states.”

The Nature of This Conditionality

This teaching has four key qualities:

  • Reality (suchness): Particular states are produced by particular conditions — no more, no fewer.
  • Not unreality: Once conditions combine, they never fail to produce their results, not even for an instant.
  • Not otherness: A given state does not arise from another state’s conditions. Each has its own.
  • Specific conditionality: There is a definite total of conditions for each state, from ageing-and-death on back.

Background Note: The Buddha said: “Whether Perfect Ones arise or do not arise, there yet remains that element — relatedness of states, regularity of states, specific conditionality. The Perfect One discovers it, penetrates to it. Having done so, he announces it, teaches it, makes it known.” Dependent origination is not something the Buddha invented. It is a natural law he discovered.

What the Term Means

The Pali term “paticcasamuppada” has two components. “Paticca” means “having depended on” or “due to.” “Samuppada” means “co-arising” or “arising together.” Taken together, the term means: states that arise together, in dependence on their conditions — not singly and not without cause.

Some teachers tried to reduce “dependent origination” to merely “arising.” This is wrong for four reasons:

  • No teaching in the texts describes it as simple arising.
  • It contradicts suttas that emphasize the structure of conditions, not mere arising.
  • It fails to account for the Buddha’s statement that dependent origination is “profound.”
  • It is grammatically incorrect.

What Each Component of the Term Teaches

The word “dependent” shows that states exist only because their conditions have combined. This denies:

  • The doctrine of eternalism — that things last forever
  • The doctrine of no cause — that things arise randomly
  • The doctrine of fictitious cause — that a Primordial Essence or atoms cause everything
  • The doctrine of a power-wielder — that an Overlord or World-Soul creates things

Background Note: The Buddha and his followers were called “analysts” (vibhajjavadin) because they did not give rash, unqualified answers. They analyzed questions carefully before responding. This same analytical approach applies to understanding dependent origination.

The word “origination” shows that states do in fact arise when their conditions combine. This denies:

  • The doctrine of annihilationism — that a soul is destroyed at death
  • The doctrine of nihilism — that nothing matters
  • The doctrine of moral inefficacy — that actions have no consequences

Together, the full expression “dependent origination” represents the middle way. It rejects both “he who acts is he who reaps” (absolute identity) and “one acts while another reaps” (absolute otherness).

How the Buddha Taught Dependent Origination

The Buddha taught this teaching in four different ways, like four people gathering a creeper:

  1. From the beginning forward: Starting with ignorance and proceeding to ageing-and-death. Like someone who finds the root of a creeper, cuts it, and pulls the whole thing out.

  2. From the middle forward: Starting from feeling or craving and proceeding to ageing-and-death. Like someone who finds the middle of a creeper and pulls out the upper part.

  3. From the end backward: Starting with ageing-and-death and tracing causes back to ignorance. Like someone who finds the tip of a creeper and follows it down to the root.

  4. From the middle backward: Starting from nutriment or craving and tracing causes back to ignorance. Like someone who finds the middle and traces it down to the root.

He used these different approaches depending on what his listeners needed. For those confused about the laws of the process, he taught it forward from the beginning.

Why Start with Ignorance?

Ignorance is not a causeless first cause, like the “Primordial Essence” that some philosophers assert. Ignorance itself has a cause: “With the arising of the mental defilements (asava), there is the arising of ignorance.”

However, ignorance serves as a useful starting point because it and craving for becoming (bhavatanha) are the two outstanding causes of the actions that drive the cycle of rebirth.

  • Ignorance is the outstanding cause of actions leading to unhappy destinies. Like a cow maddened by torment who drinks scalding water that does her no good, the ordinary person gripped by ignorance performs harmful actions that cast him into suffering.

  • Craving for becoming is the outstanding cause of actions leading to happy destinies. Like that same cow who, craving cool water, starts drinking it and finds relief, the ordinary person gripped by craving performs wholesome actions that bring him to favorable rebirths.

Ignorance (avijja) is not-knowing. It fails to find what should be found — good conduct — and finds what should not be found — misconduct. It prevents knowing the true meaning of the aggregates, sense bases, elements, faculties, and the Four Noble Truths. Through all kinds of rebirth, it drives beings on. It conceals the true nature of things.

Formations (sankhara) are volitional activities. They are threefold:

  • Formations of merit — wholesome intentions
  • Formations of demerit — unwholesome intentions
  • Formations of the imperturbable — intentions connected with the formless absorptions

All of these are essentially mundane profitable and unprofitable volition. They “form the formed” — that is, they shape future experience through intentional action.

Background Note: The word “formations” (sankhara) has several distinct uses in the texts. It can mean: (1) all conditioned things (“formations are impermanent”), (2) states generated by kamma, (3) the act of intentional kamma-forming itself, or (4) bodily and mental energy as momentum. In the context of dependent origination, it specifically means the third kind — intentional action.

How Ignorance Conditions Formations

Ignorance is not the only condition for formations, but it is the representative cause — highlighted because it is basic, obvious, and distinctive.

No single fruit arises from a single cause. Multiple fruits always arise from multiple causes, like a shoot with its colour, scent, and taste arising from temperature, soil, seed, and moisture combined. But the Buddha names one representative cause and one representative fruit for elegance and clarity.

Although ignorance has entirely undesirable fruit, it can still condition formations of merit. In the world, a condition does not have to resemble its result. Light, for example — which is the opposite of darkness — is a condition for seeing. Milk, which is liquid, conditions curd, which is solid.

How Ignorance Leads to All Three Kinds of Formations

When a person is confused about death, he imagines a lasting being that dies and transmigrates. When confused about rebirth, he imagines a lasting being appearing in a new body. When confused about the round of rebirths, he imagines a lasting self travelling between worlds. When confused about the nature of formations, he imagines them as self, as permanent, as pleasant, as beautiful. When confused about conditioned arising, he imagines a self that knows, acts, and is reborn — or that atoms, an Overlord, or fate shape his existence.

As one born blind, who gropes along Without assistance from a guide, Chooses a road that may be right At one time, at another wrong, So while the foolish man pursues The round of births without a guide, Now to do merit he may choose And now demerit in such plight. But when the Dhamma he comes to know And penetrates the truths besides, Then ignorance is put to flight At last, and he in peace may go.

With formations as condition, consciousness (vinnana) arises. This means the thirty-two kinds of mundane resultant consciousness:

  • Ten sense-consciousnesses: Eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body consciousness, each in two forms — profitable-resultant and unprofitable-resultant
  • Twenty-two kinds of mind-consciousness: Including receiving, investigating, registration, rebirth-linking, life-continuum, and death consciousnesses across the sense sphere, fine-material sphere, and immaterial sphere

How do we know consciousness has formations as its condition? Because there is no kamma-result when there is no stored-up kamma. If results could arise without prior kamma, then all kinds of resultant consciousness would arise in all kinds of beings — and they clearly do not.

Which formations condition which consciousness?

  • Sense-sphere formations of merit condition sixteen kinds of resultant consciousness — the five profitable-resultant sense consciousnesses, plus eleven kinds of mind-consciousness.
  • Fine-material formations of merit condition five kinds of fine-material resultant consciousness.
  • Formations of demerit condition seven kinds — the five unprofitable-resultant sense consciousnesses, plus two kinds of mind-consciousness.
  • Formations of the imperturbable condition four kinds of immaterial resultant consciousness.

How Resultant Consciousness Occurs

Resultant consciousness occurs in two ways:

In the course of a life: Thirteen kinds occur only during an ongoing existence. The ten sense-consciousnesses perform the functions of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. After each, a mind element arises to perform the function of receiving, followed by a mind-consciousness element performing investigation.

At rebirth-linking: Nineteen kinds of consciousness can serve as rebirth-linking consciousness, connecting one life to the next.

Rebirth-Linking: How Consciousness Passes Between Lives

There are nineteen kinds of rebirth-linking consciousness, occurring in different realms:

  • Unprofitable-resultant consciousness links to the states of loss (hells, animal realm, ghost realm)
  • Profitable-resultant consciousness without root-cause links to unfortunate human births — those born blind, deaf, or mentally impaired
  • Eight principal resultant consciousnesses with root-cause link to the human world and sense-sphere heavens
  • Five fine-material resultant consciousnesses link to the Brahma worlds
  • Four immaterial resultant consciousnesses link to the formless realms

Rebirth-linking consciousness has three kinds of objects: past, present, or not-so-classifiable.

The Death-Rebirth Process

When a person lies on his deathbed, one of three things comes into focus:

  • The kamma itself — a significant action performed during life
  • The sign of the kamma — the circumstances surrounding that action
  • The sign of the destiny — a vision of the place where rebirth will occur

Background Note: When hell appears as the sign of destiny, it appears like a metal cauldron. When the human world appears, the mother’s womb appears like a woollen slipper. When a heavenly world appears, wishing trees, divine palaces, and couches appear.

For example, an evildoer in a happy destiny: his evil kamma or its sign comes into focus at the mind door. Death consciousness arises next, and then rebirth-linking consciousness arises in an unhappy destiny, driven there by uncut defilements. In another case, visions of fire and flames may appear, signalling rebirth in a hell realm.

For one with stored-up good kamma, the process works in reverse — good kamma, its sign, or the sign of a happy destiny comes into focus, and rebirth-linking consciousness arises in a happy destination.

No Transmigration — Yet Not Without Cause

A mere state that has got its conditions Ushers in the ensuing existence; While it does not migrate from the past, With no cause in the past it is not.

The rebirth-linking consciousness does not travel from the old life to the new one. There is no lasting being or soul that transmigrates. And yet, the new life does not arise without cause from the old one.

This is like an echo: the echo does not travel from the sound, yet it arises because of the sound. Or like a seal impression: the pattern does not physically move from seal to wax, yet it appears because of the seal. Or like a flame passed from one candle to another: the new flame is neither the same as the old one nor completely different.

With a stream of continuity, there is neither identity nor otherness. If there were absolute identity, milk could never become curd. If there were absolute otherness, curd would not be derived from milk.

When a fruit arises in a single continuity, it belongs neither to someone else nor to other kamma. The formative processes of a mango seed eventually produce a mango fruit — that fruit does not come from other seeds, and those seeds do not physically travel to where the fruit appears.

“But whose is the fruit, since there is no experiencer?” Just as we say “the tree fruits” when tree-fruit appears — though no one separate from the tree is fruiting — so we say “a being experiences pleasure or pain” when the aggregate called experience arises. There is no need for a separate experiencer.

Formations are conditions for their fruit because they have been performed — not because they are present or absent at the time of the result. Like an agent who completes a business transaction: it is the fact of performing the transaction that produces the result, not the transaction’s continued presence afterward.

Link 4: Mind-and-Body

With consciousness as condition, mind-and-body (namarupa) arises. “Mind” here means the three mental aggregates: feeling, perception, and mental formations. “Body” means the four great elements and materiality derived from them.

At the moment of rebirth-linking, consciousness gives rise to both mental and material states simultaneously. In a typical human rebirth, two or three groups of material states arise at minimum — amounting to a tiny drop, no bigger than a smear of cream on a single fibre of new-born kid’s wool. This is what the texts call the “embryo in the first stage.”

The kamma-born materiality that first takes hold in a new life cannot sustain itself alone. It must be consolidated by materiality originating from consciousness, temperature, and nutriment. Likewise, that supporting materiality cannot sustain itself without kamma-born materiality. Together, propping each other up like sheaves of reeds leaning on one another, they can last a full lifetime.

How Consciousness Conditions Mind-and-Body

Consciousness conditions mind-and-body in two ways:

  • As resultant consciousness — conditioning the mental and material states that arise with it at rebirth and throughout life
  • As kamma-formation consciousness — the prior intentional consciousness whose kamma generates the material states of non-percipient beings and kamma-born materiality generally

Even materiality that we cannot directly observe being produced by consciousness can be inferred from what we can observe. Certain material states visibly arise in conformity with consciousness — whether consciousness “likes it or not.” From this visible evidence, we can infer that consciousness also conditions the unseen materiality of rebirth-linking.

With mind-and-body as condition, the six sense bases (salayatana) arise — eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. A given sense base exists only when the corresponding kind of mentality and materiality exists, not otherwise.

In immaterial existence, only mentality serves as a condition, and only for the mind base. In five-aggregate existence, both mentality and materiality serve as conditions for all six bases.

With the six sense bases as condition, contact (phassa) arises. Briefly, there are six kinds: eye-contact, ear-contact, nose-contact, tongue-contact, body-contact, and mind-contact. In detail, contact is thirty-two-fold, matching the thirty-two kinds of resultant consciousness.

Each kind of contact arises not from a single base but from several. Eye-contact, for example, arises from the eye base, the visible-data base, eye-consciousness as the mind base, and the associated mental states. So although the text says “with the sixfold base as condition, contact” in the singular, each contact actually arises from multiple bases working together.

With contact as condition, feeling (vedana) arises. Named by door, feelings are six kinds: eye-contact-born feeling, ear-contact-born feeling, and so on. Classified by association with the eighty-nine types of consciousness, they are eighty-nine kinds. But only the thirty-two kinds associated with resultant consciousness are meant here in the context of dependent origination.

With feeling as condition, craving (tanha) arises. Craving is sixfold according to its object: craving for visible forms, sounds, odours, flavours, tangible objects, and mental objects. Each of these can occur in three modes:

  • Craving for sense pleasures — enjoying an object with sensual delight
  • Craving for becoming — wanting that object to be permanent and eternal (greed accompanied by the eternity view)
  • Craving for non-becoming — wanting that object to be annihilated (greed accompanied by the annihilation view)

These six, multiplied by three modes, make eighteen. Eighteen regarding one’s own experience and eighteen regarding external things make thirty-six. Thirty-six in each of the three times — past, present, future — make one hundred and eight kinds of craving.

Out of selfish affection for feeling, beings honour those who furnish pleasant sense experiences — painters, musicians, perfumers, cooks, weavers — just as they reward a child’s nurse out of affection for the child. This is why craving has feeling as its condition.

A man in pain longs for pleasure, And finding pleasure, longs for more; The peace of equanimity Is counted pleasure too; therefore The Greatest Sage announced the law “With feeling as condition, craving,” Since all three feelings thus can be Conditions for all kinds of craving. Though feeling is condition, still Without inherent tendency No craving can arise, and so From this the perfected saint is free.

With craving as condition, clinging (upadana) arises. Clinging is craving that has become firm — like a thief who first stretches out his hand in the dark (craving) and then grasps his objective (clinging). There are four kinds:

  • Sense-desire clinging — firm attachment to sense pleasures
  • False-view clinging — grasping wrong views such as “there is no giving, no offering, no fruit of actions”
  • Rules-and-vows clinging — the belief that purification comes through rituals and practices alone, such as ox-practice or dog-practice
  • Self-doctrine clinging — the twenty-fold view of a self in relation to the five aggregates

These four are abandoned in a specific order. False-view clinging, rules-and-vows clinging, and self-doctrine clinging are eliminated by the path of stream-entry. Sense-desire clinging is eliminated only by the path of full awakening.

With clinging as condition, becoming (bhava) arises. Becoming is twofold:

  • Kamma-process becoming — the intentional actions (and associated mental states) that generate future existence
  • Rebirth-process becoming — the aggregates generated by that kamma

Rebirth-process becoming is ninefold: sense-desire becoming, fine-material becoming, immaterial becoming, percipient becoming, non-percipient becoming, neither-percipient-nor-non-percipient becoming, one-constituent becoming, four-constituent becoming, and five-constituent becoming.

Why is this link repeated, since formations were already discussed? Because “formations” at the beginning of the chain referred to past kamma as a condition for the present life. “Becoming” here refers to present kamma as a condition for the future life. Also, “formations” covered only volition, while “becoming” includes the associated mental states and the resultant aggregates as well.

Any kind of clinging can condition any kind of becoming. The ordinary person is like a madman who, without considering whether it is right or not, aspires through any form of clinging to any form of existence and performs whatever kamma results.

With becoming as condition, birth (jati) arises. Only kamma-process becoming is the condition here — it is intentional action, not the resultant aggregates, that conditions birth. How do we know? Because of the observable differences among beings. Even twins, with the same parents and circumstances, show differences in quality. These differences have no cause other than kamma.

With birth as condition, ageing-and-death (jaramarana) arises, along with sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair. When there is no birth, none of these come about. When there is birth, ageing and death inevitably follow.

The states of sorrow and so on arise in a fool who is affected by ageing and death, or in anyone affected by any painful state. So birth is a condition for the entire mass of suffering.

The Wheel of Becoming

Becoming’s Wheel reveals no known beginning; No maker, no experiencer there; Void with a twelvefold voidness, and nowhere It ever halts; forever it is spinning.

No Known Beginning

When sorrow and the other painful states are established, they establish the mental defilements that cause ignorance. When ignorance is established, formations follow, then consciousness, and so on without end. The succession of cause and fruit never stops. This is why the Wheel of Becoming has no known beginning.

But this does not mean ignorance is a causeless first cause. The Buddha said: “No first beginning of ignorance is made known, before which there was no ignorance. And while it is said thus, nevertheless ignorance has its specific condition.”

Ignorance is like a snake’s head. When a fool grasps it, his whole arm gets caught in the coils of the snake’s body — the remaining rounds of defilements and kamma. But when ignorance is cut off, he is liberated from them all, just as the arm is freed when the snake’s head is severed.

No Maker, No Experiencer

This Wheel of Becoming consists in the occurrence of formations, consciousness, and so on with ignorance and the other factors as their respective reasons. There is no maker beyond these conditions — no creator god performing the function of maker of the round of rebirths. And there is no self as an experiencer of pleasure and pain.

Void with Twelvefold Voidness

Each of the twelve factors — ignorance, formations, consciousness, and so on — is:

  • Void of lastingness — because each rises and falls
  • Void of beauty — because each is defiled or causes defilement
  • Void of pleasure — because each is oppressed by rising and falling
  • Void of self — because each depends on conditions and cannot be controlled at will

The Three Times

Its roots are ignorance and craving; Its times are three as past and so on, To which there properly belong Two, eight, and two, from its twelve factors.

Ignorance and craving are the twin roots of this wheel. From the derivation in the past, ignorance is the root and feeling is the end. From the continuation into the future, craving is the root and ageing-and-death is the end.

The twelve factors are distributed across three time periods:

  • Past: Ignorance and formations (2 factors)
  • Present: Consciousness through becoming (8 factors)
  • Future: Birth and ageing-and-death (2 factors)

Between the four groups of factors, there are three connections:

  1. Cause-to-fruit link: Between formations (past cause) and rebirth-linking consciousness (present fruit)
  2. Fruit-to-cause link: Between feeling (present fruit) and craving (present cause)
  3. Cause-to-fruit link: Between becoming (present cause) and birth (future fruit)

Four Groups

The twelve factors divide into four sections:

  1. Past causes: Ignorance and formations
  2. Present fruits: Consciousness, mind-and-body, six sense bases, contact, and feeling
  3. Present causes: Craving, clinging, and becoming
  4. Future fruits: Birth and ageing-and-death

Twenty Spokes

The wheel has twenty qualities distributed as five causes and five fruits in each direction:

Five past causes producing five present fruits:

Though only ignorance and formations are explicitly named as past factors, three more are implied. One who is ignorant also craves, clings, and acts. So the five past causes are:

  1. Delusion (ignorance)
  2. Accumulation (formations)
  3. Attachment (craving)
  4. Embracing (clinging)
  5. Volition (becoming)

These five condition the five present fruits:

  1. Rebirth-linking (consciousness)
  2. Descent into the womb (mind-and-body)
  3. Sensitivity (the sense bases)
  4. What is touched (contact)
  5. What is felt (feeling)

Five present causes producing five future fruits:

Though only craving, clinging, and becoming are explicitly named as present causes, two more are implied. Where there is becoming, there are formations. Where there is craving and clinging, there is ignorance. So the five present causes are:

  1. Delusion (ignorance)
  2. Accumulation (formations)
  3. Attachment (craving)
  4. Embracing (clinging)
  5. Volition (becoming)

These five condition the five future fruits:

  1. Rebirth-linking (consciousness)
  2. Descent into the womb (mind-and-body)
  3. Sensitivity (the sense bases)
  4. What is touched (contact)
  5. What is felt (feeling)

“Birth” expresses all five future fruits. “Ageing-and-death” is the ageing and death of those five themselves.

The Triple Round

The twelve factors revolve through three rounds:

  • The round of kamma: Formations and becoming
  • The round of defilements: Ignorance, craving, and clinging
  • The round of results: Consciousness, mind-and-body, the six sense bases, contact, and feeling

This Wheel of Becoming, with its triple round, keeps spinning as long as the round of defilements is not cut off.

Six Ways to Understand the Wheel

1. Through the Four Noble Truths

Each link of dependent origination can be mapped to the first two truths — the truth of suffering and the truth of its origin:

  • Formations due to ignorance are the origin (second truth) with the origin as source
  • Consciousness due to formations is suffering (first truth) with the origin as source
  • The factors from mind-and-body through feeling are suffering with suffering as source
  • Craving due to feeling is the origin with suffering as source
  • And so on through the chain

2. Through Function

Each link has a specific function:

  • Ignorance confuses beings and conditions formations
  • Formations shape future experience and condition consciousness
  • Consciousness cognizes objects and conditions mind-and-body
  • Mind-and-body mutually consolidate and condition the six sense bases
  • The six sense bases operate in their respective fields and condition contact
  • Contact touches objects and conditions feeling
  • Feeling experiences the stimulus of the object and conditions craving
  • Craving lusts after things and conditions clinging
  • Clinging grasps at things and conditions becoming
  • Becoming flings beings into various destinies and conditions birth
  • Birth generates the aggregates and conditions ageing-and-death
  • Ageing-and-death ensures decay and dissolution, and conditions the next round

3. Through What It Prevents

Each clause in the formula prevents a specific wrong view:

  • “With ignorance as condition, formations” prevents seeing a maker — since conditions produce results, no creator god is needed
  • “With formations as condition, consciousness” prevents seeing the transmigration of a self
  • “With consciousness as condition, mind-and-body” prevents the perception of compactness — it shows analysis of what is falsely assumed to be a “self”
  • The remaining clauses prevent seeing any self that sees, feels, craves, clings, becomes, is born, or dies

4. Through Similes

Two sets of similes illuminate the chain:

The blind man simile:

  • Ignorance is like a blind man — he cannot see things as they are
  • Formations are like the blind man’s stumbling
  • Consciousness is like the stumbler’s falling
  • Mind-and-body is like a tumour appearing on the fallen man
  • The six sense bases are like a gathering in the tumour that makes it burst
  • Contact is like hitting that gathering
  • Feeling is like the pain from the blow
  • Craving is like longing for a remedy
  • Clinging is like seizing an unsuitable remedy
  • Becoming is like applying that unsuitable remedy
  • Birth is like the tumour worsening from the bad remedy
  • Ageing-and-death is like the tumour bursting

The caterpillar simile:

  • Ignorance befogs beings as a cataract does the eyes
  • The fool befogged by ignorance spins formations like a caterpillar spinning its cocoon
  • Consciousness guided by formations establishes itself in the destinies like a prince guided by a minister taking his throne
  • Mind-and-body is generated in rebirth like an illusion conjured by a magician
  • The six sense bases grow like a forest thicket planted in good soil
  • Contact is born from the impingement of bases like fire from rubbing fire-sticks together
  • Feeling is like the burning felt when touched by fire
  • Craving increases like thirst in one who drinks salt water
  • Clinging to becoming is like a fish biting the hook through greed for the bait
  • Where there is becoming, there is birth — as where there is a seed, there is a shoot
  • Death is certain for one who is born — as falling is certain for a tree that has grown

5. Through the Four Kinds of Profundity

The Buddha said: “This dependent origination is profound, and profound it appears.” It is profound in four ways:

  • Profound in meaning: The fruit of each cause is difficult to understand. Ageing-and-death neither fails to arise from birth nor arises from something else — it arises only from birth, with precisely the nature of ageing-and-death.
  • Profound in law (cause): How ignorance is a condition for formations — in what mode and on what occasion — is difficult to understand.
  • Profound in teaching: It needs to be taught in various ways for various reasons. None but omniscient knowledge fully masters it.
  • Profound in penetration: The individual essences of ignorance, formations, consciousness, and so on are each difficult to fathom in their specific characteristics.

6. Through the Four Methods

There are four methods for understanding the dependent origination:

  • The method of identity: The continuity from seed to shoot to tree is unbroken. Seeing this correctly abandons the annihilation view. Seeing it wrongly leads to the eternity view by assuming permanent identity in an unbroken stream.

  • The method of diversity: Each factor — ignorance, formations, consciousness — has its own distinct characteristic. Seeing this correctly abandons the eternity view. Seeing it wrongly leads to the annihilation view by mistaking distinct moments for a broken continuity.

  • The method of non-agency: Ignorance does not think, “I must produce formations.” Formations do not think, “We must produce consciousness.” There is no intentional agency. Seeing this correctly abandons the self view. Seeing it wrongly leads to the moral-inefficacy view by failing to recognize the natural causal function.

  • The method of ineluctable regularity: Ignorance produces only formations — nothing else. Just as milk produces only curd, not butter directly. Seeing this correctly abandons the no-cause view. Seeing it wrongly, by thinking nothing can produce anything, leads to fatalism.

The Practical Urgency

The Buddha said:

“This dependent origination is profound, and profound it appears. And it is through not knowing, through not penetrating it, that this generation has become a tangled skein, a knotted ball of thread, root-matted as a reed bed, and finds no way out of the round of rebirths, with its states of loss, unhappy destinies, and perdition.”

No one — not even in a dream — has escaped the fearful round of rebirths unless he has severed this Wheel of Becoming with the knife of knowledge, well sharpened on the stone of deep concentration.

Let a wise man with mindfulness So practice that he may begin To find a footing in the deeps Of the dependent origin.

This is the seventeenth chapter, “The Soil of Understanding — Conclusion: Dependent Origination,” in the section on the Development of Understanding in the Path of Purification, composed for the purpose of gladdening good people.

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