The same patterns, the heartaches, the headaches, the same senses of loss and deprivation keep coming back around. The Buddha got to the bottom of this a long time ago. His profound exposition is called the twelve links of dependent origination.
This teaching, known as paticca-samuppāda in Pali, is often presented as a wheel, watched over by the demon of impermanence, that describes how our actions and thoughts create the ever-oppressive cycle of suffering (samsara). It's not just an ancient concept we're up against here, but a very practical blueprint for how our minds get tangled up in misery every single day.
Breaking down the cycle, link by link, the cycle begins and ends with ignorance and suffering, creating a closed loop. If you trace the chain forward, you can see how suffering arises. If you trace it backward, you see how to break free.
1 Ignorance (Avidya): The entire process starts here, with our fundamental misunderstanding of reality and the way things work. We don't see the world as it truly is—impermanent and without a fixed self (anatta). Instead, we project our own lofty ideals onto things, believing that certain feelings or objects are permanent and will provide lasting happiness.
Now, of course, we don't really think that the bad boss we hate or the misfortunes we face are indeed forever. But in our minds, they might as well be. We go through life and refuse to recall the temporality of every challenge we face. Ignorance is indeed the mother of all suffering.
2 Volitional Formations (Sankhara): This ignorance gives rise to intentional, karmic actions in our thoughts, speech, and body. These are the seeds we plant for the future, whether skillful or unskillful. We begin to really believe that all of this crap we are up against is real and matters. We forget that even with all that we cannot change, what little we can change (with understanding) makes us capable of breaking every link here.
3 Consciousness (Vinnana): Your past actions shape your stream of consciousness now. This isn't a permanent "soul," but a continuous process of knowing and experiencing. It carries the imprints of your karma forward. Just as someone is good at math or or good at reading people or mechanically-minded (or not), you inherit what makes you...you. You are born with certain features, abilities, proclivities, and therefore, have your predicaments pretty much laid out for you to discover them as you go.
No need to segment what you received as chance or genetics, etc. It all breaks down to the very same sense of you being at the center of your own universe. This conscious sense of being is the result.
4 Name and Form (Nama-Rupa): The combination of your physical and mental faculties arise from that consciousness. "Form" is your body, and "name" is your mental components like feelings, perception, and intention. You accept the aforementioned limitations and are trapped as a result.
5 Six Sense Bases (Salayatana): With a mind and body, you develop the five physical sense organs and the mind as the sixth sense on this journey. These are the gateways through which you perceive the world. And all the while, you have no idea just how limited you are. Tables and walls feel hard, but it's only a perspective from where you are. In actuality, they are made of particles like anything else. Thus, what we experience can't really be said to represent truth or reality.
6 Contact (Phassa): This is the moment your senses meet an object. When your eyes see something, your ears hear a sound, or your mind has a thought, contact is made. Contact is the tool by which you interact with all other things and beings (ultimately the same thing). Both links five and six are what allow us to become wholly lost in this world of forms.
7 Feeling (Vedana): Immediately after contact, a feeling arises, which can be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. This is an automatic, gut-level reaction. If not understood, you are deceived into more illusion.
8 Craving (Tanha): Based on that feeling, a desire arises. We crave to prolong pleasant feelings and to escape unpleasant ones. Craving, or "thirst," is a central link and a key cause of suffering identified in the Four Noble Truths. "You suffer because you clink," the Buddha said.
9 Grasping (Upadana): This is a stronger form of craving, where we actively hold on to things. It's not just wanting a pleasant experience to continue, it's making a determined effort to possess it. Greed is right here.
10 Becoming (Bhava): Our grasping creates further momentum and potential for existence. It's the engine that prepares the ground for a new life, solidifying our karma and setting the stage for what comes next. But it's nice to at least know that we have the power to shape what is to come, merely by wanting!
11 Birth (Jati): This is the literal birth into a new life, conditioned by the patterns and habits of the past. And here you are again! How many times has it been, old friend?
12 Old Age and Death (Jaramarana): The inevitable result of birth is aging, decay, and death, which in turn leads to sorrow, lamentation, and despair. And from that, the cycle often begins again with renewed ignorance. Feels like a movie where you start out at the end and work backward to see how you ended up there, no? That's exactly what it is.
Ending the Bad Movie of Your Life
If you want to metaphorically walk off the filming set of this rotten razzie that is your life, the Buddha's insight is that you can break this chain at any point. But one of the most powerful places to intervene is between Feeling (link 7) and Craving (link 8). This is where Buddhist practice comes in. Our instinctive reaction to pleasant and unpleasant feelings is what drives the whole mess. By becoming mindful of these feelings as they arise and practicing non-reactivity, we can weaken the tendency to crave or cling. The practice is to simply observe the feeling—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—without getting swept up in the automatic desire for it to stay or go away. With wisdom and practice, we can learn to respond to life with less grasping, which slowly dismantles the momentum of the cycle.
This is the very heart of the Dharma: to see the interconnectedness of all things and to recognize that nothing, not even our sense of self, is independent. As the Majjhima Nikāya states, "One who sees dependent origination sees the Dhamma." It's a teaching that empowers us to realize our own liberation, right here and now.
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