Dependent Origination
Paṭiccasamuppāda — how each moment of experience depends on the previous, creating chains of suffering or liberation.
📜 From SN 12.2 — Vibhaṅga Sutta ↓“Contact is a condition for feeling. Feeling is a condition for craving. Craving is a condition for grasping.”
🎯 Core practice sequence
Links 3 to 9 are the essential ones for daily mindfulness practice — each conditions the next:
- Consciousness creates the conditions for mind-body to function together
- Mind-body enables the six sense doors to operate and receive information
- The senses make contact possible when they meet sense objects
- Contact immediately produces a feeling tone — pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral
- Feeling naturally triggers craving — we want more pleasure, less pain
- Craving solidifies into clinging and attachment
Ignorance
Avijjā
Fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of reality, impermanence, suffering, and non-self.
- ↓ Conditions the next link
- Ignorance conditions mental formations because lack of understanding creates reactive patterns
Mental Formations
Saṅkhāra
Volitional activities and mental constructions that shape our experience and future births.
- ↓ Conditions the next link
- Mental formations condition consciousness because our habitual patterns shape awareness
Consciousness
Viññāṇa
The basic awareness that arises with sense contact. The foundation of experience.
- ↓ Conditions the next link
- Consciousness conditions mind-body because awareness enables psychophysical processes
Mind-Body
Nāma-rūpa
The psychophysical organism — mental factors (name) and physical form (body) working together.
- ↓ Conditions the next link
- Mind-body conditions six sense bases because the organism enables sensory capacity
Six Sense Bases
Saḷāyatana
The six sense doors: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind through which we perceive.
- ↓ Conditions the next link
- Six sense bases condition contact because senses make meeting with objects possible
Contact
Phassa
The meeting of sense organ, object, and consciousness. Where experience begins.
- ↓ Conditions the next link
- Contact conditions feeling because meeting produces pleasant/unpleasant/neutral experience
Feeling
Vedanā
The pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral quality that arises from contact — see the three feelings.
- ↓ Conditions the next link
- Feeling conditions craving because we naturally want more pleasure, less pain
Craving
Taṇhā
The thirst or desire that arises in response to feeling — wanting more, less, or different. See the three types of craving.
- ↓ Conditions the next link
- Craving conditions clinging because repeated wanting develops into attachment
Clinging
Upādāna
Grasping and attachment that develops from craving — holding onto experiences, views, or identity. See the four types of clinging.
- ↓ Conditions the next link
- Clinging conditions becoming because attachment fuels continued existence
Becoming
Bhava
The process of existence and rebirth driven by our attachments and actions.
- ↓ Conditions the next link
- Becoming conditions birth because the process of existence manifests new experience
Birth
Jāti
The arising of a new existence, whether as rebirth or moment-to-moment arising of experience.
- ↓ Conditions the next link
- Birth conditions aging and death because what arises must pass away
Aging & Death
Jarāmaraṇa
The inevitable decay and cessation that follows birth, completing the cycle of suffering.
📜 The source of this teaching
This page is grounded in one of the Buddha’s discourses. Read it in full, in Bhikkhu Sujato’s translation.
SN 12.2 — Vibhaṅga SuttaAnalysis of Dependent OriginationRead the sutta →