What is dependent origination?

Dependent origination (in Pali, paṭicca samuppāda) is the Buddhist teaching that things arise in dependence on causes and conditions. Nothing comes from nowhere, and nothing exists entirely on its own. The Buddha used this principle above all to explain how suffering arises and how it can end.

The basic principle

The teaching is often summed up in a short formula: when this exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises. When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the ending of this, that ends.

This is a simple idea with deep consequences. It means there is no need for a first cause or a creator to explain the world. It also means that if we change the conditions, the results will change too.

The twelve links

The Buddha applied this principle to the cycle of rebirth in a series of twelve links. Ignorance conditions volitional formations. These condition consciousness, which conditions name and form, the six senses, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, becoming, birth, and finally ageing and death, with sorrow and grief.

Each link depends on the one before. The chain is often read across several lives, but many teachers also show how it plays out from moment to moment: a sight or sound is felt as pleasant, craving for it arises, we cling, and a new round of wanting and disappointment begins.

Where to break the chain

The hopeful side of the teaching is that the chain can be broken. When ignorance ends, the rest of the chain ends with it. In practice, many teachers point to the link between feeling and craving. If you can notice a pleasant or unpleasant feeling clearly, without at once reaching for it or pushing it away, craving does not have to follow.

A central teaching

According to tradition, the Buddha reflected on dependent origination around the time of his awakening, and a well-known saying in the texts links seeing dependent origination with seeing the Dharma. In Mahayana philosophy, the teacher Nāgārjuna identified dependent origination with emptiness: because things depend on conditions, they lack a fixed essence of their own.

The teaching can seem technical at first. But its message is practical: suffering has causes, and when those causes are understood and let go of, suffering ends.