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The Twelve Nidānas (Pali/Sanskrit nidāna "cause, foundation, source or origin") are the best-known application of the Buddhist concept of pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination), identifying the origins of dukkha (suffering) to be in tanha (craving) and avijja (ignorance).[1] The doctrine has been through a series of interpretations and re-interpretations in the many centuries of Buddhist history, and in various Buddhist cultures, with a broad range of thematic concerns that now intersect in modern interpretations; influential sources are as diverse as Tibet's Je Tsongkhapa (15th century) and Thailand's Buddhadasa (20th century). This article begins by examining the most ancient (extant) sources.
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In the Pali Suttapitaka (the most ancient canon of Buddhist writing preserved by Theravāda tradition) the first (partial) exposition of the twelve nidanas appeared in the Dīgha Nikāya (Long Discourses), Brahmajala Sutta, verse 3.71[2]. The reference is partial because it does not cover all twelve links:
In this same Nikāya, Sutta 14 describes ten links instead of twelve, and in Sutta 15 the links are described, but without the six sense-bases (for a total of nine links in that Sutta)[4].
Another account occurred in the discussion of conception and birth: "In the Mahānidāna [sutta]’s brief gloss on the term nāmarūpa... we have a very explicit reminder that the subject-matter being described in this sequence of stages is the development of the embryo... it is indisputably clear that we are reading about something that may (or may not) enter into (okkamissatha) the mother’s womb (mātukucchismiŋ). ...[T]he passage is wildly incongruent with attempts of many other interpreters to render the whole doctrine in more abstract terms (variously psychological or metaphysical).[5]
In the commentarial literature of the Theravada tradition (attributed, at least mythically, to the author Buddhaghosa, and written many centuries subsequent to the Suttapitaka passages described above) the same doctrine is instead interpreted as a sequence of three lives, thus shifting the theme from a single conception (and birth) to a sequence of "incarnations" (roughly speaking).[6]
The twelve nidānas have been employed in the analysis of phenomena according to the principle of Pratītyasamutpāda. The Twelve Nidānas reveal the origins of phenomena, and the feedback loop of conditioning and causation that leads to suffering in current and future lives. The basic principle of pratītyasamutpāda and the Twelve Nidānas is to see the conditioned causal connection of each state that supports the next in the cycle of our lives as we suffer in Samsara. It is explained in detail in the Visuddhimagga of Buddhaghosa, the central text of the Mahāvihāra commentarial tradition.
The causal chain of analysis employed in this type of analysis appears to operate from the position that individual phenomena are caused or conditioned by only a single cause. This reflects not a blanket declaration by the Buddha Śākyamuni or the Theravāda commentators that individual phenomena can have only a single cause, but rather a simplifying assumption employed to make the analytical technique more useful to the practitioner.
Like many of the techniques and theories contained in the Visuddhimagga and other commentarial works, the Twelve Nidāna analysis was intended to be used as one of many techniques available to a student of meditation, and its form reflects both the needs and experiences of Buddhist meditation practitioners.
The chain of twelve phenomena leading to future births and suffering was variously presented by the Buddha; Buddhaghosa recounts four methods: working from "bottom to top", working from the "middle to the top", working from "top to bottom", and working from the "middle to the source" (Buddhaghosa compares the teaching of the Twelve Nidānas to a creeper vine that is seized and removed in one of four different ways).
The first method begins with ignorance and proceeds to sickness, old age, and death. The second method begins with attachment and proceeds to birth. The third method begins with birth and proceeds back to ignorance. The fourth method begins with attachment and proceeds to ignorance.
Ignorance of the Four Noble Truths, the Three marks of existence, the Five Skandhas, Karma, and Pratītyasamutpāda results in a wrong assessment of reality. This narrowness of experience is the primary cause of duḥkha (suffering dissatisfaction, pain, unease, etc.)
Avidyā may be understood as "a continuous gradient characterizing not so much a particular state of being, but the quality or direction of situational patterning, experienced as a 'falling away from' the modality of pristine awareness."[7]
The impulse accumulations of saṃskāra are characterized by the energetic direction of the first motif, manifesting through body, speech, and mind as structuring forces of our being. This relationship forms the basis of our character and our personal karmic patterning.
Vijñāna represents the partially structured consciousness that results from the action of saṃskāra and the shaping of that energetic activity into a less flexible and more stagnant form.
"It is pictured as having a two-fold function: the cognition of objects that arise in our field of awareness and a structured stream that is being continually fed from the reservoir of energetic activity. The interplay between saṃskāra and vijñāna is seen as accounting for all the experiential data associated with the psychological notion of the unconscious, including memory, dreams, and the eruption of emotive complexes."[8]
Vijñāna has a quick grasping tendency, moving from sensory objects to objects of imagination rapidly. This energy may therefore crystallize and take shape into mental functions, called Nāma, or it may be represented as material forms, called Rūpa.
As a collective idea, the Nāmarūpa motif models the reciprocal relationship of bodily and mental functioning. Nāma is the naming activity of the discursive mind. Rūpa develops an internal representation of external objects, without which mind and body cannot exist.
"Nāma refers to three components of mental functioning. There is the sensation or tone-awareness of a mental situation. There is also an ideational or labeling function. And finally there is the component of dispositional orientation, the 'mood-energy' we bring to a situation."[9]
"Rūpa refers to the four dynamic structuring operations of solidity, cohesion, heat, and motility. They are represented by the elemental symbols of earth, water, fire, and air. The operation of these elemental modes goes to make up what we experience as our physical world, including our body. Rūpa embraces the static aspects of embodiment such as cellular, tissue, and organ structures, as well as the dynamic aspect of body metabolism--electro-physiological pathways, membrane transport, etc."[10]
The close relationship of bodily and mental functioning is differentiated into the six-fold bases of awareness, which contribute to the arising of all sensory experiences that make up our interpretation of reality. The six-fold bases are divided into an internal grouping (ādhyātmika) with corollary external (bāhya) supports.
"The internal grouping refers to the integration of five sensory capabilities (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body) and a sixth capability, termed non-sensuous or mental, which refers to the capability of all acts of memory, imagination, visualization, etc. These internal bases are not to be confused with the corresponding physical organs ... They are simply loci of sensitivity structured such that there arises the experience of seeing, hearing, etc."[11]
"The six external bases, which always work in conjunction with the corresponding internal base, refer to the six types of possible object awareness. These bases are the means by which the differentiated aspects, which are fleeting stabilizations in the field character of our awareness, stand out long enough to be appropriated as this-or-that specific object. The external and internal bases should be pictured as working together in pairs. In any given moment there is the two-fold working of a particular modality of awareness (eye-sensitivity and color-forms, ear-sensitivity and sounds, etc.)."[12]
The sparśa motif refers to the relationship or rapport between the internal and external āyatana. Impressions of tone arise in conjunction with the specific modality of awareness that is operating.
There are six types of feeling tone awareness that arise from contact of the āyatana. The feeling tone or sensation of each of the six āyatana is uniquely different. For example, the feeling tone and felt experience of sensations in the body are distinct from the feeling tones generated from experiencing sight or sound.
"Each modality is experientially separable on the basis of (a) the place of sensitivity (internal base), (b) the corresponding structure of its field (external base), (c) the manner of articulation or relatedness between (a) and (b), termed rapport, and (d) the resulting distinctive tone."[13]
Following the arising of tone-awareness is an unconditioned or habitually patterned experience of craving or attachment. The type of craving or attachment that follows depends upon which of the six āyatanas is involved, and which of the following three "motivations" is present.
"The motivation of sensual gratification (kāma-tṛṣṇā) is perhaps the most common. It results in simple attachment to whatever arises in one's field of awareness. It is not an overt appropriation, one that we consciously activate. It refers rather to the habitual structuring of experience such that one is compulsively caught up in one situation after another through a process of identification and clinging.
"One can also be motivated with regard to the desire for 'eternals' (bhava-tṛṣṇā). It is the habitual structuring of any sensory impression, any momentary awareness, such that it might be the occasion for securing an eternal realm of peace and contentment.
"Finally there is the annihilatory motivation (vibhava-tṛṣṇā). It is the automatic structuring of experience such that any sensory activation might be the cause of a compulsive thirst to annihilate and destroy. What is commonly regarded as psychopathic behavior might be linked particularly with this type of motivation."[14]
If the object of one's desires comes to fruition, then these craving desires of tṛṣṇā may solidify and manifest as the quality of attachment, or upādāna. This condition of fulfilled desires and attachment is always fleeting and momentary, as new cravings arise once old cravings are satisfied.
Attachment may take many forms, for example, emotional attachment to persons, to life, material comfort, routines, pleasant or unpleasant sensations, beliefs, thoughts, judgements, etc. We may not have attachment to things like wealth or success in society, but we are typically very strongly attached to our feelings and constructed identity of the self.
One may become fixated on a mental "story" or representation of reality, or a mental version of an object or event, preferring and craving for an unrealized internal version of external reality. Once this fixation shapes behavior in a way that internal desires are satiated, then the craving of tṛṣṇā may be said to have shifted to the attachment of upādāna.
"Once the direction of situational patterning has proceeded to the point of overt clinging, a process of becoming, termed bhava, is initiated. It refers to the new formation of karmic tendencies."[15]
This creation of new habits and karmic tendencies, called bhava, will come to fruition through future experiences. Bhava, therefore, differs from Saṃskāra in temporal nature. "Saṃskāra refers to tendencies from past situational patternings (lives) which act on the present situation."[16]
The jāti motif refers to the process of karmic tendencies of bhava coming to fruition, through the birth of new patternings. That which was desired and conditioned now comes to be.
"In a psycho-biological model, jāti refers to the birth or emergence of a newborn being, appearing, according to the specific history of patterning, in one of six 'lifestyles'. These lifestyles indicate the general character of experience. They are symbolized by the terms gods, titans, hungry ghosts, animals, denizens of hell, and human. These embrace all the general ways of being-in-a-situation."[17]
"Once a new situation or a new being has emerged, it is inevitable that the conditions which brought about its appearance will change. This, the last of the twelve motifs, points to the inevitability of decay and death. Decay affects all structures, which are but fleeting stabilizations fed by the energy flow of habitual patterning. When the cessation of the continuity of experience occurs, we speak of death. It is the total breakdown and dissolution of experience and experiencer.
"The process of disintegration, destructuring, and entropic scattering yields a nexus of vibratory murkiness which is the condition of avidyā, the first motif. Thus the entire structure of patterning feeds back on itself, and is often pictured as a circle of twelve sections, called the Wheel of Life (bhavacakra, srid-pa'i-'khor-lo)."[18]
Traditionally, the twelve nidānas describe a process that unfolds over at least three consecutive lifetimes.[19] Contemporary teachers often teach that it can also be seen as a daily cycle occurring from moment to moment throughout each day. There is scriptural support for this as a tertiary explanation in the Abhidharmakosa of Vasubandhu.[20]
Conditions, reason, source, are described by the Visuddhimagga as the same. Conditioning an agent means to cause it, being taken as an object by it, to occur in the same time. The full list helps to consider many sorts of conditions as the causal condition is only one of them. Examples are explained to understand these conditions, but they are included in the next section in order not to repeat them.
This section considers which conditions apply to which part of the dependent origination.