Paticca-samuppada · Pāli: paṭicca-samuppāda; Skt: pratītyasamutpāda

Paṭicca-samuppāda teaches that nothing arises on its own; each thing comes to be in dependence on conditions. The Buddha set out the bare principle in the third watch of the night after his awakening, giving “close attention to dependent co-arising in forward and reverse order”: “When this is, that is. From the arising of this comes the arising of that. When this isn’t, that isn’t. From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that” (Ud 1.3).

Its classical form is the twelve links, described and analysed in the Paṭicca-samuppāda-vibhaṅga Sutta (SN 12.2): “From ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications”, and then consciousness, name-and-form, the six sense media, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, becoming and birth, until, “From birth as a requisite condition, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair come into play”. Because each link stands on the one before it, the same chain read in reverse is an account of release rather than of suffering.

The texts do not pretend this is easy. In the Mahānidāna Sutta (DN 15) Ānanda says the teaching “seems as clear as clear can be” to him, and the Buddha checks him: “Deep is this dependent co-arising, and deep its appearance.”

Every tradition builds on it. In Mahayana philosophy it became the ground of emptiness: Nāgārjuna rejects svabhāva, which would mean “to be part of the basic furniture of the world, independent of anything else that also happens to exist”, and his Sixty Stanzas on Reasoning is described as “discussing the notions of emptiness and dependent origination” side by side.