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The Great Sutra Treasury - Southern Transmission 06
The teaching of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) is not only applied to all phenomena in nature, but also illuminates the life and suffering of human beings. In the Mahānidāna Sutta (“The Great Discourse on Origination”), the Buddha taught the chain of the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination:
- avidyā (delusion)
- saṃskāra (formations)
- vijñāna (consciousness)
- nāma-rūpa (name-and-form)
- ṣaḍ-āyatana (the six sense bases)
- sparśa (contact)
- vedanā (feeling)
- tṛṣṇā (craving)
- upādāna (grasping)
- bhava (becoming)
- jāti (birth)
- jarā-maraṇa (old age and death)
This chain expresses the relationship of cause and effect: delusion gives rise to formations, formations give rise to consciousness, …, grasping and becoming lead to birth and old age and death. But the Buddha advised us not to look at this mechanically, but to contemplate deeply each link.
Two common ways of interpretation are “three lifetimes and two layers” (three times: past–present–future; two layers of cause and effect), and the “momentary dependent arising” teaching in Northern Buddhism (in a single instant, all twelve links are present, suggesting that the one contains the all, and the all is present in the one). This idea corresponds to the teaching of interbeing, showing that each link cannot be separated from the others, transcending the usual concepts of time, cause, and effect.
Applying this to the Buddha himself, he also had six sense organs, six sense objects, contact, feeling, craving… but they were completely pure because delusion and craving had been transformed into wisdom, compassion, and letting go. The relationships of arising and ceasing are no longer a chain of bondage, and the Buddha abides continuously in the state of nirvana—birthless and deathless—beyond the notions of “being” and “non-being.”