So the dependent origination of all outer phenomena can be understood through the example of a seed developing into a sprout, with seven related causes and six related conditions:<br> The following seven are the perpetuating causes, the stages of development:<br>

1. seed
2. sprout
3. leaves
4. stamen
5. stalk
6. bud
7. flower

The six related conditions are:<br>

1. the earth element which supports
2. the water element which binds
3. the fire element which ripens
4. the wind element which expands
5. the space element which accommodates
6. time which gradually changes

These six act as cooperating conditions and assist in the growth from seed to flower.

In the case of inner phenomena, the related causes are the twelve links:<br>

1. Ignorance - An old blind person groping for his way with a cane
2. Karmic formations - A potter shaping a vase on a wheel The pots the potter makes symbolise the actions of body, speech and mind with which he moulds his karma in the wheel of life. Karmic imprints or traces from actions in previous lives affect our present and future lives in the form of certain propensities, just as the potter’s wheel keeps turning after a single push.
3. Consciousness - A monkey swinging from a tree The monkey represents our consciousness, the way we tend to spring from one thought to another in an uncontrolled manner.
4. Name and form - A person (or people) on a boat. The five skandhas that make up our sense of ‘self’ need a physical body: form (the boat) and a psyche: name (the mental skandhas: feeling, perception, mental formations, consciousness).
5. Six sense organs - A house with five windows and a door. This symbolises the six senses by which the outer world is perceived. In the wheel of life they are represented by an empty house because this is a time when the organs of the embryo are developing but not yet functioning.
6. Contact - A couple embracing
7. Sensation - A person with an arrow in their eye
8. Craving - A woman offering a drink to a man
9. Grasping - A man plucking fruit from a tree
10. Becoming - A beautiful bride (sometimes depicted as a couple making love or a pregnant woman)
11. Birth - A woman giving birth
12. Old age and death - Bearers with a corpse

• Steven D. Goodman, 'Situational Patterning', in Crystal Mirror III, Emeryville: Dharma Publishing, 1974, pp. 93-101
• The Dalai Lama, The Meaning of Life, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins, Wisdom, 2000

Key Terms Enumerations 12-Twelve </noinclude>

There are several related conditions:

Ignorance, craving and grasping—the three links that are disturbing emotions—arise with the co-operating conditions of the six faculties and their respective objects.

The same conditions assist in the arising of the two links of karma—formations and becoming.

The other seven links, which are known as the ‘bases of suffering’, arise with the assistance of the six elements as co-operating conditions:<br>

1. earth element which is solidity<br>
2. water element of liquids<br>
3. fire element through which digestion occurs<br>
4. wind element of the respiratory system<br>
5. space element of the body’s cavities<br>
6. consciousness<br>

For a consciousness, such as eye consciousness, to occur, five things must come together:<br>

1. the support which is the particular sense faculty<br>
2. the object<br>
3. its actual presence<br>
4. unobstructed space<br>
5. the intention of apprehension<br>

The Dependent Origination of causes and effects has five special features:<br>

1. The sprout, for example, arises after the seed has ceased and not while the seed is present unceasingly. Phenomena, therefore, are not permanent.<br>
2. The sprout does not arise from discontinuance, the seed having ceased completely. The cessation of the seed and the growth of the sprout occur simultaneously like the two sides of a set of scales, or a see-saw: one goes up as the other goes down. Since there is not interruption of the continuum, there is no discontinuance.<br>
3. The seed and the sprout are not one in terms of their identity or their function, so the former is not transferred into the latter.<br>
4. Tiny seeds can grow into enormous trees, so therefore small causes can produce large effects.<br>
5. Wheat seeds produce wheat crops and virtue produces happiness, so there is a correlation between cause and effect: they are of a similar continuum.<br>

The twelve links can be explained as a process occurring over three lifetimes:<br>

(i) The past cause of ignorance and karmic formations lead to the result of (ii) one’s consciousness of the present life and the links up until becoming, through which one accumulates the karma through the negative emotions of craving and attachment, that will lead to (iii) a future rebirth. One takes birth according to one’s karma and experiences the sufferings of old age and death and so one.

Or over two lifetimes:<br>

(i) The ignorance of one’s previous incarnation, and the karma created through the power of craving and attachment, cause (ii) one to take another birth, and in that present life there arise the links from consciousness through to becoming and old age and death.

It is also shown how the twelve links are complete in a given act:<br>

In the case of killing, for example:<br>

1. Ignorance is the ignorance through which one engages in the act.<br>
2. The action itself is the karmic formation.<br>
3. Then there is the consciousness of that particular time.<br>
4. The name-and-form<br>
5. And six sense-sources<br>
6. Produce the contact with the weapon.<br>
7. One’s own pleasure and the pain of the other are sensations.<br>
8. Joyfully engaging in that is craving.<br>
9. From this comes grasping, which is enthusiasm for similar acts in future.<br>
10. The aggregates at the time of the act are becoming.<br>
11. Their present and future aspects are birth.<br>
12. Their changing is “aging” and conclusion is “death”.<br>

1. The three links of ignorance, formation and consciousness are the propelling links.<br>
2. The four from name-and-form to sensation are the propelled result.<br>
3. The three links of craving, grasping and becoming are the fully establishing links.<br>
4. Birth and old age and death are the fully established links.<br>

• The links of formations and becoming are karma.<br>
• The links of ignorance, craving and attachment are disturbing emotions.<br>
• The remaining seven links are the bases of suffering.<br>

From the three links of disturbing emotions, the two links of karma arise. And from them, the seven bases of suffering arise. From these seven, further disturbing emotions and karma are created forming a continuous cycle.

From among the twelve links, the two links of karma and the three of disturbing emotions, in addition to consciousness, are the causes that bring about the other links:<br>

1. Ignorance<br>
2. Karma (including formations and becoming)<br>
3. Craving (includes both craving and grasping)<br>
4. Consciousness<br>

Consciousness is like a seed. Karma is like a field. Craving is like moisture. Ignorance is like the act of planting and the fertilizer. Through these four the fresh shoots of name-and-form develop in the various states of existence.

In progressive order, the two links of karma and three of disturbing emotions are included under the truth of origin. And the seven bases of suffering fall under the truth of suffering.

In reverse order, the reversal of the links of karma and disturbing emotions is the truth of the path. And the ceasing of the seven bases of suffering is the truth of cessation.

• Dependent Arising

<small><references/></small>

• Mipham Rinpoche, Gateway to Knowledge, vol. I, Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 1997
• The Dalai Lama, The Meaning of Life, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000 (Revised edition)

• Tendrel Nyesel

Key Terms Khenjuk