Few Buddhists would deny that ‘dependent arising’¹ (Sanskrit: pratītya-samutpāda) — the principle that all things arise in dependence upon conditions — is at the heart of Buddhism; and anyone familiar with the work of Sangharakshita will also know that it is central to his presentation of the Dharma. It therefore figures prominently in A Survey of Buddhism (hereafter, ‘the Survey’), and accordingly in this series of articles. In ‘The Transcendental Principle and Dyads of the Understanding’ (the first in the series) we saw how Sangharakshita identifies three levels on which dependent arising can be understood: as a transcendental insight, as a general formulation, and as particular applications. The second article (‘A Binocular Vision of Reality’) discussed the distinction between the cyclical and progressive trends inherent in dependent arising – the latter being one of Sangharakshita’s signature teachings. But in my second article, it was only the principle of the two trends that was explored. It is now time to return to the theme in order to see how they can be applied. Since this is terrain that has been well mapped by Sangharakshita and others, I will focus only on selected points that warrant some amplification.

Twelve Nidānas

The primary application of the cyclical trend within dependent arising is of course the well-known twelve links (nidānas), which occupy the outer rim of the bhava-chakra or ‘Wheel of Becoming’. So ubiquitous is this formulation that in some parts of the Buddhist tradition dependent arising has mistakenly come to be exclusively identified with it. This, I remind the reader, reflects what Sangharakshita saw as certain unfortunate tendencies which entered the tradition early and distorted the way the Pali scriptures were interpreted: firstly, a bias towards negative formulations of the path; and secondly a loss of an understanding of the universal nature of dependent arising.²

But while wishing to correct for the biased way in which the teaching of the twelve nidānas was interpreted, Sangharakshita in no way under-appreciates its importance, and has in fact always given it considerable weight. The account in the Survey, however, while rich in interesting detail, is also rather technical. His later treatment, especially in A Guide to the Buddhist Path, is more illuminating and spiritually helpful. We will therefore deal fairly briefly with the relevant section of the Survey itself, before proceeding to a more general discussion of the theme.

The twelve nidānas are an application of the general principle of dependent arising to the life of the individual mind-stream, and (in the traditional interpretation that Sangharakshita adopts) its movement from one life to the next in accordance with karma. This serves a twofold purpose:

Firstly, by pointing to a definite series of concrete instances it enables the disciple to develop a clearer insight into the universal law of the impermanent and conditioned nature of all phenomena. Secondly, by showing how birth, old age, disease, and death, and the rest of the woes inherent in phenomenal existence arise in dependence upon conditions, and how in the absence of those conditions they cease, it offers an intelligible explanation of human suffering, and points out a way of escape from the mundane to the Transcendental, from the bondage of saṃsāra into the state of perfect freedom which is Nirvāṇa.³

This twofold purpose reflects the distinction already referred to, between the general formulation and the particular applications of dependent arising. The first of the purposes of the twelve nidānas is to function as an example of dependent arising, to serve as a basis for an appreciation of its universality, while the second is that it is essential to Buddhist practice that we understand how this universal law applies to the bondage and the liberation of the individual.

As for the links themselves, this article being an exploration of themes rather than an exposition of basics, I must assume the reader to be familiar with them, and shall do no more than list them as a reminder, with, where possible, a quotation from the Survey briefly describing each one.

1. Avidyā (Pāli avijja): ‘ignorance in the sense of spiritual unawareness.’
2. Saṃskāra (Pāli saṅkhāra): ‘the acts of will associated with a particular state of mind or consciousness.’
3. Vijñāna (Pāli viññāṇa): ‘the arising of the first moment of consciousness of the present birth.’
4. Nāma-rūpa (same in Pāli): ‘the whole psychophysical organism‘, consisting of the five skandhas.
5. Ṣaḍāyatana (Pāli saḷāyatana): ‘the five physical sense organs and the mind considered as the organ for the perception of mental objects.’
6. Sparśa (Pāli phassa): ‘contact or impression… which is of six kinds (eye-contact, ear-contact, and so on), each kind consisting of a combination of the organ, the object, and the impression.’
7. Vedanā (same in Pāli): feeling or sensation, whether pleasant, neutral or painful.
8. Tṛṣṇa (Pāli taṇhā): ‘the fever of unsatisfied longing.’
9. Upādāna (Pāli upādāna): ‘grasping, clinging, or attachment.’
10. Bhava (Pāli bhava): ‘life in, or rebirth into, any ‘sphere’ or ‘plane’ of phenomenal existence.’
11. Jāti (same in Pāli): ‘birth, here understood not in the sense of actual parturition but as…the simultaneous appearance of the five skandhas…in the mother’s womb.’
12. Jarā-maraṇa (same in Pāli): ‘decay and death, with sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair in its train.’

Each link gives rise to the next in an endless round, and so the cycle will continue until it is broken by the application of the Dharma. In the classic canonical exposition, the stopping of the wheel is expressed through the enumeration of the links in reverse order. Each link that was previously described as arising in dependence upon its condition is now described as not arising with the cessation of its condition. So, with the cessation of birth comes the cessation of decay and death; with the cessation of becoming comes the cessation of birth, and so on until we come to volitions ceasing with the cessation of ignorance. Cessation is, however, by no means the only way of viewing dependent arising, a point we will come to shortly.

Revisionist Interpretations

But first, Sangharakshita deals with the question of why there are particularly twelve nidānas, in relation to which some interesting issues arise, especially regarding the contrast between a scholarly and a traditional approach to the study of Buddhism.

To begin, let us remind ourselves that the principle of conditionality, being universal, can be applied to any phenomenon or group of phenomena, which may then be analysed and synthesized in any number of ways. Applying this to the current subject, Sangharakshita says,

… pratītya-samutpāda is essentially the general principle of conditionedness rather than any specific sequence of conditions within this or that phenomenon. The factors conditioning the life of the individual at any given moment are innumerable. The twelve nidānas recognized by all Buddhist schools… as the standard application of the law of conditioned co-production to the birth-and-death process of the individual, are no more than a selection, from the factors operative at certain stages of his development, of those which are of crucial importance in determining the next stage.

But while neither this nor any formulation of a causal process can be exhaustive, the fact that the selection was made by ‘the super-human intelligence of the Buddha’ should, we are told, be enough to convince us to take it very seriously.

However, the question of whether the links as we have received them really are a selection made by the Buddha is a matter of dispute within scholarship. Sangharakshita addresses this question in the Survey. Indeed, while his warnings against a purely rational approach to the study of Buddhism can be found from the very start of the book, it is in relation to the twelve nidānas that his indignation reaches its height.

In yet another autobiographical discourse the Buddha’s attainment of Enlightenment is described as taking place in consequence of his understanding of the conditioned co-production not of twelve causal stages, as in the passage just quoted, but of ten only, the first two, ignorance and the karma-formations, not being mentioned at all. ‘Discrepancies’ such as this seem to have perplexed more than one non-Buddhist translator of the ancient texts, some of whom, unwilling to confess that a doctrine so profound that the Buddha himself hesitated to preach it should be beyond the reach of their understanding, take refuge in the suggestion that the simpler applications of the general formula must be the Buddha’s own, and the more elaborate ones the work of his disciples. Others go so far as to maintain that the various expositions of the principle of pratītya-samutpāda found in Buddhist literature are ‘contradictory.’ Any absurdity rather than admit their own incomprehension! Such people genuinely think it more likely that the Buddha did not understand his own doctrine than that they should have failed to understand it. Profane impertinence could hardly go further than this.

Sangharakshita is surely right to object to the description of variations as contradictions, since this betrays a shallow and literalistic understanding of the doctrine. However, more than sixty years later we find that the other view to which he is objecting — that the Buddha may not have taught the twelve links in its standardized form — is still held, even by some eminent scholars, and it seems cannot be dismissed as easily as the young Sangharakshita believed. The question of the origins and correct interpretation of this teaching is, in fact, a highly contested one. I don’t wish to take a position on this matter, except to say that I don’t see why revisionist positions should be considered inherently implausible, or incompatible with faith in the Buddha’s teaching overall.

However, this does offer us a useful example of the limitations of a purely rational examination of spiritual ideas. While scholars can raise questions and point to evidence and counter-evidence regarding the provenance or authenticity of a particular teaching, as regards the spiritual value of that teaching they should give way to those who actually put it into practice in the recommended way, and are thereby more qualified to pronounce on its efficacy as regards the purpose for which it was, after all, originally created. As Sangharakshita says, ‘…far from being of merely theoretical interest and value, the twelvefold pratītya-samutpāda has for twenty-five centuries provided millions of human beings with a philosophy of life and served as the methodological basis of Buddhist realization’. Nor is this merely a matter of scholars and practitioners going their separate ways. From a practitioner’s point of view, however effective a particular teaching is, it would be strange if its historicity was not a matter of at least ancillary interest. But more importantly, as I explored in my previous article, the activity of scholarship is not something that can be entirely isolated from preconceptions about the object of one’s studies, and indeed of the nature of existence itself. The belief that the Buddha attained a state of transcendence and was able to communicate this to his disciples via certain doctrines and methods is the foundation of the whole Buddhist tradition. Whether a scholar shares this belief or not will inevitably influence what he or she admits as evidence for reasoned examination. Someone who accepts that the twelve nidānas have indeed ‘served as the methodological basis of Buddhist realization’ (implying a belief that such a realization is possible) will be less inclined to explain the teaching away. Rather, its very efficacy will count as rational evidence for its authenticity.

Thus, when dealing with a doctrine of such standing in the Buddhist tradition, while not necessarily being closed to revisionist accounts if the evidence leads that way, it is also appropriate to give a traditional account the strongest interpretation one can. To do so with the twelve nidānas one must, I believe, look beyond the Survey, despite its richness in technical detail. I will therefore turn to Sangharakshita’s later presentation, making clear the additional points it contains. To this I will add some reflections of my own, which, though I believe them to be implicit in Sangharakshita’s traditional presentation, I have not heard explicated before, but which I think show the nidānas in a revealing light. Again, in what follows I will assume that the reader already has some acquaintance with the links.

Three Lives

In the Survey Sangharakshita adheres to the interpretation of the nidānas as extending over three lives. In addition, by the time he wrote The Three Jewels (ten years or so after the Survey), he had begun to emphasize that some of them belong to karma, ‘action’, and some to vipaka, ‘result’. Thus, ‘ignorance’ and ‘formations’ are counted as the karma of the previous life or lives, which condition the arising of a new life. The stages from ‘consciousness’ to ‘feeling’ are the vipaka of the present life. ‘Craving’ and ‘grasping’ are the karma-creation of the present life, which result in ‘becoming’, ‘birth’ and ‘decay-and-death’ as the vipaka of future lives. Sangharakshita returned to this further elaboration in A Guide to the Buddhist Path. As well as being theoretically illuminating it helps us understand how to apply the teaching in practice, since it shows us what in our experience we must accept as a given, and what we can change through the appropriate effort.

Wheels and Rivers

My own additional reflections build on Sangharakshita’s traditional account, and are, I hope, compatible with it, except for one point which requires me to challenge the text of the Survey. Introducing the first link, he says,

The rim of the wheel cannot be said to begin at a particular point: it is continuous. So with the twelve links of the ‘chain’ of conditioned co-production. The enumeration of the whole series may begin at any one of them.

This must be true in principle if the twelve nidānas really are to be seen as a wheel. But unless we are to assume that the Buddha accompanied his teaching by drawing circles in the dust, we shouldn’t take the later symbolic depiction as necessarily reflecting the original meaning. For the links to really be cyclic we would have to see ignorance (the first link) arising in dependence upon decay-and-death (the last link), which is clearly not what is meant. I am not objecting to the symbolic depiction of the links as a wheel, as in the famous ‘Wheel of Becoming’, which is found in every Tibetan monastery. It certainly communicates something essential about the repetitive and enclosed nature of existence within samsara. My objection is to what seems to me a literalization of a metaphor.

I therefore offer another metaphor. Rather than a wheel, imagine a river with a horseshoe bend, upon the near bank of which you are standing. You can see the river stretching into the distance both to your right, whence the water comes, and to your left, whither it flows. (I choose to go from right to left to preserve the traditional clockwise succession of the links.) In the distance the valley through which the river flows is seen in its broad outlines, but the details are blurred. On the bank upon which you are standing you see more detail, but the overall shape is less clear.

In the distance, to the right are the first and second of the links, and to the left the eleventh and twelfth. The first two links sketch in broad brushstrokes the conditions from our past life that give rise to the present life. The final pair does the same with respect to the effects on our future life of conditions we set up in the present. The bank on which we stand comprises the sixth, seventh and eighth links, which are those that are experienced most directly in the present moment. The third to the fifth links, to our right, lead up to the present moment; the ninth and tenth, to our left, lead away from it.

Before looking at this in more detail I would like to highlight two essential points:

1)         The links are not merely showing the movement from a past life to the present life, and from the present to the future. They are also showing the movement to and from the present moment within the present life.

2)         Concomitant with the movement from the past to the present, and then to the future, is the movement from outline to detail – from ‘macro’ to ‘micro’ – and back to outline.

This second point clarifies why the links have to start with ignorance, since this term denotes the most general condition standing behind the whole predicament. I categorise this link along with formations, its ugly sibling, as ‘past life/background conditions’.

With the next three links we see the background conditions that obtain within the present life. Driven by formations, consciousness arises in a new psycho-physical organism in which is found a subjective pole (nāma) and an objective pole (rupa), and senses that mediate the interaction between them. These three links I call ‘present life/background conditions’. 

The next three links, of contact, feeling, and craving, describe the most pertinent conditions that arise in the present moment. They also detail the mechanism of stimulus and response, innumerable instances of which drive the whole process. I therefore call these the ‘present moment/immediate conditions’.

With ‘grasping’ begins the extension of conditions into the future. For although we do grasp onto things in the present moment, that grasping entails an expectation of duration, of continuity into the future of the object we have grasped. ‘Becoming’ expresses the indefinite prolongation of such grasping into the future, in characteristic patterns that determine the kind of person we are and will become in future lives. I therefore call these two links (grasping and becoming) the ‘present life/future conditions’ (though I acknowledge that becoming could be classified as a present condition also, and in fact is the connection between present and future).

The last two links, ‘birth’ and ‘decay-and-death’ I call the ‘future life/outline conditions’, because they describe succinctly the cyclic and unsatisfactory condition of our future lives, the ‘endless round’ of rebirth, and thus complete the process of extension from the present into the future and from detail back to outline.

Seeing the links in this way has some subtle implications, especially as regards the notion of time.⁴ Though the links in a sense describe the relations of time — as is implied by their distribution between past, present and future lives — we nonetheless do not pass through them in a temporal sequence as though they were the twelve hours of a clock face. Rather, we remain anchored to conditions belonging to the present moment. We are always positioned at the point where sense-contact and feeling give rise to craving and grasping. All that changes is the specific content of those links — the particular sensations that we experience at any moment, the feelings of pleasure, pain or boredom they give rise to, and our volitional responses to them. The other links serve only to describe how that content is conditioned by the past and in turn conditions the future.

One implication of this is that, although the links may be distributed across three lives, all twelve are also operative in the present life, just as they all were operative in the past, and will be operative in the future. This is implied by Sangharakshita here:

Each existence, therefore, may be regarded as possessing two or eight or a second pair of two causal stages, as it is viewed as past, present, or future.

Certain links are ascribed to the past because they are the links that give rise to the present moment, not because the other links were absent. Certain conditions are ascribed to the present because they more specifically describe the nature of present-moment experience (especially as regards the transition from vipaka to karma), not because the other links are inactive. And certain conditions are ascribed to the future because they predict the effects in the future from present action, not because the other links will not be found there too.

Hopefully it is now clear why I think we need to be careful not to misuse the metaphor of the wheel, since it implies the unworkable interpretation that we move around the links one after another. Rather, we are by necessity pegged to the present, where the phenomena of experience rise and fall. From this ‘still point in the turning world’, we expand our understanding both forward and backward in time by switching our attention from detail to outline — to the background conditioning of the past that created the present, and to the outline conditioned state of the future, towards which the present leads.

This perspective preserves the profundity of this doctrine both in theory and in practice. The present-moment experience of contact, feeling and craving is where we live and have our being. But we usually do so in ignorance both of the true nature of that present moment, and of a vaster perspective of human existence that includes the ignorance and formations that have led us to this point, and the endless series of births and deaths that will ensue unless we find our way to a state of release. Sangharakshita calls the juncture between feeling and craving the ‘battlefield of the spiritual life’, but it is a battle that can only be fought with an awareness of the conditions that extend indefinitely into both past and future. An understanding of this juncture is also essential to how we transition from the cyclical conditionality of the twelve nidānas to the spiral conditionality that leads to liberation. To this we now turn.

Spiral Nidānas

Earlier I mentioned how liberation may be expressed by means of the cessation of the twelve links of dependent arising. Rather than being listed ‘forwards’, with each link conditioning the one that succeeds it, they may be listed ‘backwards’, with the cessation of each link resulting from the cessation of the one that precedes it. This is the most common treatment of this teaching as we have received it from the early tradition.

But as Sangharakshita always emphasised, Nirvana is not a state of non-existence, and has what he called a ‘spiritually positive residue’, which, however much it transcends any possibility of conceptual expression, is more than a mere cessation. Surely, then, if the goal is spiritually positive and not a mere negation, the path can be similarly seen, and a positive counterpart of the cessation of the twelve nidānas identified. In Sangharakshita’s words,

…it should be possible to speak, not only of a cessation of this or that condition making for rebirth, and hence for suffering, but also of the production of positive factors which progressively augment one another until with the realization of sambodhi the whole process reaches its climax.

With this Sangharakshita introduces what has become known in the Triratna Buddhist Community as the ‘positive’ or ‘spiral’ nidānas, the unearthing of which from the Pali Canon he credits to Caroline Rhys Davids, and the stages of which are as follows:

1. Duḥkha (Pāli dukkha) — ‘suffering’.
2. Śraddhā (Pāli saddhā) — ‘faith’.
3. prāmodya (Pāli pamojja) — ‘joy’.
4. prīti (Pāli pīti) — ‘rapture’.
5. praśrabdhi (Pāli passaddhi) — ‘tranquility’.
6. sukha (same in Pāli) — ‘bliss’.
7. samādhi (same in Pāli) — ‘concentration’.⁵
8. yathābhūta-jñāṇadarśana (Pāli yathābhūta-ñāṇadassana) — ‘knowledge and vision of things as they really are’.
9. nirveda (Pāli nibbidā) — ‘withdrawal’.
10. vairagya (Pālivirāga) — ‘disgust’.
11. vimukti (Pāli vimutti) — ‘liberation’.
12. āsravakṣaya-jñāṇa (Pāli āsavakkhaya-ñāṇa) — ‘knowledge of the destruction of the taints’.

As with the ‘cyclical’ nidānas, these ‘spiral’ nidānas have been explained fully by Sangharakshita on a number of occasions, and I shall confine myself to a few comments here.

The first point to make is that there are various recensions of the positive nidānas. The version to which Sangharakshita refers, and which has become such a central part of his teaching, is from the Upanisā Sutta of the Saṃyutta Nikāya, and is given such prominence not because of any inherent superiority over other versions as regards the positive factors listed, but for one important reason only: it is the sole instance in the Pali Canon of both the standard cyclical and the less common spiral nidānas appearing together in the same Sutta, with the spiral nidānas represented as arising out of the last link of the cyclical set. The two sets combined give us a total of twenty-three links — not twenty-four as Sangharakshita states, and is commonly supposed. The inaccuracy arises from the fact that the twelfth link of the standard twelve nidānas is decay-and-death, but in the twenty-three nidānas this is changed to suffering, in dependence upon which arises faith, the first link in the positive series. So while twenty-four terms are used, the twelfth link is referred to by different terms in the two different recensions, meaning that there are twenty-three links overall. 

Duḥkha to śraddhā

As is the case with the cyclical nidānas, although all the links are significant, some transitions are more crucial than others. The first of these is between duḥkha (suffering) — the last link of the cycle — and śraddhā (faith) — the first of the spiral. Suffering being a universal feature of sentient existence, it is a necessary but obviously not a sufficient condition for the arising of faith in a higher path. What the other conditions are is a crucial question, and there would seem to be two of particular importance. One is a certain spiritual sensitivity or receptivity on the part of the individual. The other is some manner of contact of that individual with some expression, in whatever form, of a higher possibility. This is depicted in the mythical life-story of the Buddha by the well-known account of the Four Sights, in which the young Bodhisattva sees first an old man, then a sick man, then a corpse, which between them represent his realisation of the reality of suffering; then finally he sees a mendicant, a spiritual ascetic, ‘gone forth’ into the homeless life, and this last sight points him towards a possible solution.

But note, it is not that Shakyamuni had to become sick or old himself in order to set out on his quest. This points us to an essential principle for understanding how it is that faith can arise from suffering, one that often seems to be overlooked. It is not duḥkha in general that gives rise to śraddhā, but duḥkha of a particular kind. The tradition distinguishes three levels of duḥkha. Duḥkha-duḥkha (Pāli dukkha-dukkha)means the brute fact of pain, whether physical or mental. Vipariṇāma-duḥkha (Pāli vipariṇāma-dukkha) is the suffering that arises from change. Saṃskāra-duḥkha (Pāli saṅkhāra-dukkha) is the most subtle form, and refers to the duḥkha of being a conditioned being as such. It is only saṃskāra-duḥkha that can give rise to śraddhā.⁶ Unless one realises this, one is in danger of falling into what one might call the ‘duḥkha fallacy’, or the view that suffering is itself valuable, since it is the motor of progress on the path. While the lower forms of duḥkha might be the occasion for śraddhā, they will be so only insofar as saṃskāra-duḥkha is activated. For example, physical pain may bring to more vivid awareness the treacherous nature of attachment to sense experience. But more likely is that one merely reaches for the easiest way of alleviating the pain. For this reason the ideal condition for the arising of śraddhā is one that is relatively free from the lower forms of duḥkha and from grosser attachment to its causes, as is found particularly in samādhi. For this reason also, the humanitarian concern to alleviate the grosser forms of suffering should be acutely felt by Buddhists, since in addition to the obvious worldly value of freeing people from such conditions, doing so also enables them to practice the Dharma.

Remaining with this transition between the wheel and the spiral, I want now to explain another important theoretical point relating to it. I have mentioned the change in nomenclature of the twelfth link, about which Sangharakshita says, ‘By the figure of speech known as synecdoche ‘decay and death’ stands for all those unpleasant and painful experiences of life which are collectively called duḥkha or suffering.’ The change is significant, because it is only when we begin to see the human situation for what it is that the possibility of a higher alternative opens up. For this reason duḥkha can be seen as ‘amphibious’, in the sense of not belonging fully to either the cyclical or the spiral set — which gives eleven nidānas of the wheel, eleven of the spiral, and one that is intermediary between the two sets.

But we are left with a problem to resolve. We are told that decay-and-death and duḥkha are the same link described by two terms. We have also seen how in the twelve cyclical nidānas both birth and decay-and-death are links belonging to the future life. How, then, can we apply the teaching in the present? The answer returns us to the juncture between feeling and craving, which, as we have seen, Sangharakshita described as ‘the battlefield of the spiritual life.’ With this transition there enters the possibility of the choice to change one’s volitional responses, thereby altering the whole pattern of the succeeding conditions. For this reason, in A Guide to the Buddhist Path Sangharakshita identifies this juncture as the point where the wheel has the potential to lift into the spiral. Seen thus, there is a correspondence between feeling and duḥkha on the one hand, and craving and faith on the other. When the feeling of the wheel is seen as unsatisfactory (the experience of which is equivalent to saṃskāra-duḥkha), we can change our emotional response from one of craving to one of faith, out of which the rest of the positive factors grow.

I am not aware of this presentation being traditional, but it makes sense methodologically. It is clearly compatible in principle with the account of the links in the Upanisā Sutta (in which duḥkha arises after birth) if we again bear in mind that the last two of the cyclical nidānas belong to the future life, but implicitly contain the links belonging to the present life. ‘Decay-and-death’ may indeed serve as a synecdoche for all painful aspects of human existence; but it is to the direct experience of craving in response to feeling that we must apply the Dharma in practice.

Samādhi to ‘Knowledge and Vision’

The second crucial transition is between samādhi and ‘knowledge and vision of things as they really are’. With śraddhā we enter the spiral path, and the positive factors that follow describe the gradual transformation of the mind as it moves into the state of meditative absorption known as samādhi. We need not get hung up on the fact that some of the factors listed (e.g. ‘bliss’) may be seen as constituents of samādhi as well as preconditions for it. Words are used in different ways, and we should be on guard against the kind of literal-mindedness that sees contradictions where in fact there is merely flexibility regarding terminology. The point is that here samādhi describes a high state of mental development which is nonetheless mundane. But just as duḥkha is a necessary but not sufficient condition for śraddhā, so samādhi is a necessary but not sufficient condition for ‘knowledge and vision’. Something else has to enter the picture, in the form of an understanding of the nature of things, especially as expressed through the truth-teachings particular to the Buddha-Dharma. When deep reflection on Buddhist doctrine is combined with the powerful concentration, emotional positivity, and cognitive clarity that jointly constitute samādhi, insight into the nature of things can arise. This is the crucial transition to transcendental understanding, and the succeeding links are a working out of its implications. From insight into the truth of things comes aversion to samsāra, followed by withdrawal from it, resulting in liberation of the mind, and finally knowledge that the taints — the unwholesome tendencies that trap us in cyclic existence — have been destroyed.

The transition from the mundane to the transcendental represented by‘knowledge and vision’ is inherent in the Dharma and will therefore have equivalents in any account of the stages of the path. The most obvious doctrine in which such an equivalence may be found is that of the Threefold Way consisting of ethics, meditation, and wisdom, in relation to which it will be clear that the positive nidānas from rapture to samādhi belong to the second stage, and those from knowledge-and-vision onwards to the third. But what of the stage of ethics? Faith and joy, the first and second links of the positive series, are certainly related to ethics, but only by implication, not explicitly. Some of the alternative formulations of the positive nidānas do include reference to ethics, but the Suttas from which these are drawn do not include the standard cyclical nidānas, which makes them in that sense less complete.  

Fortunately, help is at hand. Comparative studies between the Pali Suttas and the Chinese Āgamas have unearthed something of great significance in relation to this issue: namely, an Āgama containing reference to both the wheel and the spiral, with the latter in an extended form that includes a number of links related directly to the practice of ethics. Thus, faith gives rise not directly to joy, but first to ‘right attention’, then ‘right knowledge’, ‘right mindfulness’, ‘guarding the senses,’, ‘observing the precepts’, and ‘freedom from remorse’, after which the familiar sequence resumes with ‘joy’. It is generally considered that the more elaborate versions are likely to be later developments — that as the teachings were handed down through the generations they tended to accrue rather than discard material. It may therefore be that the Pali version is closer to what was taught by the historical Buddha. This doesn’t really matter, so long as any elaboration that took place was helpful and in accordance with the Buddha’s overall teaching, which in this case it clearly is.  

Variation of this kind also serves to remind us not to take any particular formulation as definitive, since they are all different illustrations of a general principle whose ultimate meaning cannot be grasped by the rational mind. Sangharakshita says,

If we learn to pass from a knowledge of the conditioned nature of particular groups of phenomena to an understanding of conditionedness as a universal law, and from an understanding of this law to a realization of the supra-logical Truth which it represents, then we shall see the texts dealing with the doctrine of conditioned co-production not as a tangle of ‘contradictions’ but as the complementary aspects of a wonderfully consistent and profound teaching.

Through distinguishing the general principle from its particular applications in such passages in the Survey, Sangharakshita has recovered dependent arising as a universal principle, and placed it more firmly back at the doctrinal centre of Buddhism. In addition, he has shown how both principle and application are expressions of two trends, the reactive and the progressive, within reality itself. In this article our focus has been the particular applications of both trends. Selective though it has been, I hope the points of interest that I have highlighted along the way have given some indication of how ‘wonderfully consistent and profound’ this teaching really is.

1. For reasons I have never understood, Sangharakshita favours the unnecessarily obscure ‘Conditioned Co-production’ as a translation of pratītya-samutpāda. I have chosen not to follow him in this.
2. I have also written of this, in ‘The Impartite Dharma and its Doubleness of Aspect’, in terms of a blurring of the distinction between doctrine and method, which, for reasons I won’t dwell on, amounts to the same thing.
3. All quotes are from Sangharakshita, A Survey of Buddhism
4. In Who Is the Buddha? Sangharakshita says, ‘In my opinion, the traditional doctrine [of karma and rebirth] needs a thorough reformulation, taking account of various matters that have not so far, apparently, been considered in the East. For instance, there is the whole question of the relation between karma and rebirth and time.’ He goes on to say that such a reformulation ‘will perhaps be one of the works of Western Buddhism.’
5. I regard concentration as a weak translation of samādhi, and will generally leave it untranslated in what follows.
6. I am indebted to Dharmachari Subhuti for this insight, though he was not able to provide any scriptural referent.