DEPENDENT ARISING: 1 | 2

DEPENDENT ARISING shows that the round can be stopped. It traces the sequence of conditions to its most fundamental factors. Then it points out that these can be eliminated and that with their elimination the round of rebirths and its attendant suffering are brought to a halt...

Dependent arising does not describe a set of causes somehow underlying experience, mysteriously hidden out of view. What it describes is the fundamental pattern of experience as such when enveloped by ignorance as to the basic truths about itself. This pattern is always present, always potentially accessible to our awareness, only without the guidance of the Buddha's teaching it will not be properly attended to and thus will not be seen for what it is. It takes a Buddha to point out the startling truth that the basic pattern of experience is itself the source of our bondage, "the origin of this entire mass of suffering... (p. 5)

BECAUSE IT HAS NOT UNDERSTOOD and penetrated "this Dhamma" of dependent arising, "this generation" — the world of living beings — has become entangled in defilements and wrong views and thus cannot escape from samsara, the round of rebirths, "with it plane of misery, unfortunate destinations and lower realms." ...

The whole world of living beings revolves in the round of birth and death, repeatedly returning to the lower worlds, because of its failure to comprehend this one principle. The penetration of dependent arising therefore becomes a matter of the utmost urgency. It is the gateway to liberation through which all must pass who seek deliverance from the round. (p. 8)

THE PLACE IN THE SEQUENCE of conditions where that margin takes on the greatest importance is the link between feeling and craving. It is at that brief moment when the present resultant phase has come to a culmination in feeling, but the present causal phase has not yet begun, that the issue of bondage and liberation is decided. If the response to feeling is governed by ignorance and craving, the round continues to revolve; if the response replaces craving with restraint, mindfulness and methodical attention, a movement is made in the direction of cessation. (p. 10)

— By Bhikku Bodhi from "The Great Discourse on Causation: The Mahanidana Sutta and its Commentaries (Buddhist Publication Society, Sri Lanka)