Dependent origination

How suffering arises

“And what is dependent origination?

Ignorance is a requirement for choices.

Choices are a requirement for consciousness.

Consciousness is a requirement for name and form.

Name and form are requirements for the six sense fields.

The six sense fields are requirements for contact.

Contact is a requirement for feeling.

Feeling is a requirement for craving.

Craving is a requirement for grasping.

Grasping is a requirement for continued existence.

Continued existence is a requirement for rebirth.

Rebirth is a requirement for old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress to come to be.

That is how this entire mass of suffering originates.

The twelve factors

Definitions from the same discourse, arranged here in the order of arising.

Ignorance

Not knowing about suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering.

This is called ignorance.

Choices

There are three kinds of choices.

Choices by way of body, speech, and mind.

These are called choices.

Consciousness

There are these six classes of consciousness.

Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind consciousness.

This is called consciousness.

Name and form

Feeling, perception, intention, contact, and application of mind.

This is called name.

The four principal states, and form derived from the four principal states.

This is called form.

Such is name and such is form.

These are called name and form.

The six sense fields

The sense fields of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind.

These are called the six sense fields.

Contact

There are these six classes of contact.

Contact through the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind.

This is called contact.

Feeling

There are these six classes of feeling.

Feeling born of contact through the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind.

This is called feeling.

Craving

There are these six classes of craving.

Craving for sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and ideas.

This is called craving.

Grasping

There are these four kinds of grasping.

Grasping at sensual pleasures, views, precepts and observances, and theories of a self.

This is called grasping.

Continued existence

There are these three states of existence.

Existence in the sensual realm, the realm of luminous form, and the formless realm.

This is called continued existence.

Rebirth

The rebirth, inception, conception, regeneration, manifestation of the aggregates, and acquisition of the sense fields of the various sentient beings in the various orders of sentient beings.

This is called rebirth.

Old age and death

The old age, decrepitude, broken teeth, grey hair, wrinkly skin, diminished vitality, and failing faculties of the various sentient beings in the various orders of sentient beings.

This is called old age.

The passing away, passing on, disintegration, demise, mortality, death, decease, breaking up of the aggregates, and laying to rest of the corpse of the various sentient beings in the various orders of sentient beings.

This is called death.

Such is old age, and such is death.

This is called old age and death.

How suffering ceases

When ignorance fades away and ceases with no residue left behind, choices cease.

When choices cease, consciousness ceases. …

That is how this entire mass of suffering ceases.”

Right view without the two extremes · SN 12.15

Kaccāna asks what right view means. The Buddha describes the extremes that everything exists or that nothing exists, and teaches the arising and cessation of suffering through conditions. Seeing arising undermines the view of nonexistence; seeing cessation undermines the view of existence. The account also concerns relinquishing attachment and fixation on a self.

SN 12.15 then presents dependent origination and its cessation. The twelve factors belong here to an explanation of suffering and release, rather than a position to cling to about the world.

Kaccānagotta · SN 12.15

Conditions supporting liberation · SN 12.23

SN 12.23 continues from the arising of suffering into a sequence supporting release: suffering, confidence, joy, rapture, tranquility, pleasure, concentration, knowledge and vision of things as they are, disenchantment, dispassion, liberation, and knowledge of the ending of the effluents.

Its image is rain flowing from mountains into streams, rivers and finally the ocean. Each development has supporting conditions. This account makes the cultivation of the path part of the teaching on conditionality; it does not say that suffering automatically brings liberation.

SN 12.23 · Prerequisites · Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu