[^161]: This sutta with its commentary was translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi in his The Great Discourse on Causation. It is the longest and most complex discourse on dependent origination in early Buddhism.
[^162]: The Kurukṣetra was an ancient Brahmanical kingdom situated in the region around modern Delhi, bordered by the Ganges in the east, the Sarasvatī in the west, the Himalayas in the north, and the hills of the Aravalli Range in the south. The Mahābharata climaxes with the battle fought there between the Kurus and the Pāṇḍavas. These events, to the extent that they can be established historically, took place several centuries before the Buddha. Kuru marks the north-western extent of the Buddha's travels. Kammāsadamma is identified with modern Kumashpur in Haryana, about 40 km north of Delhi.
[^163]: While we cannot date this text, the fact that Ānanda has evidently been studying deep matters for a long time, that it takes place outside the Buddha's accustomed locales, and that it builds on teachings found elsewhere, suggests that it happened rather late in the Buddha's life. At SN 12.60 we find the same introduction to a much shorter discourse.
[^164]: At SN 6.1:1.6 (and DN 14:3.1.6 in the case of Vipassī), the Buddha hesitated to teach the Dhamma because dependent origination is so hard to see. Ānanda was not only learned and wise, he was a stream enterer who had directly experienced dependent origination (AN 10.92:6.1), yet he still underestimates it.
[^165]: The sutta introduce subtle variations in the standard formula as a means to illuminate hidden implications and dimensions.
[^166]: The Buddha establishes the primary purpose of dependent origination: to understand transmigration so as to be free from it.
[^167]: Dependent origination is here taught in "reverse order" (paṭiloma, Ud 1.2:1.4), starting with the existential problem: we are all going to die. This factor and the next are resultant, so we cannot solve them directly.
[^168]: With this the Buddha denies the promise of immortality in this or any other realm.
[^169]: "Continued existence" (or "life") is an encompassing term, including both resultant and causal dimensions.
[^170]: "Grasping" and "craving" (together with "ignorance" in the full sequence) are the defilements that drive the process on. It is here that the practice of the path takes effect, uprooting them entirely.
[^171]: The next three factors spell out the process of sense experience that unfolds automatically. Meditation slows it down so it can be seen clearly, but the process remains even for the perfected ones.
[^172]: Here we encounter the first unique feature of this sequence, as normally the six sense fields appear as the condition for contact. The reason for this special presentation becomes clear later on.
[^173]: The mutual conditioning of consciousness with name and form is a further subtlety of this presentation. We have met this idea before in DN 14:2.18.43; it also occurs in SN 12.65 and SN 12.67. Again, implications of this are explored below.
[^174]: The sequence is recapped in forward order (anuloma, Ud 1.1:1.4).
[^175]: The Buddha now takes up each of the terms in more depth.
[^176]: This emphatic phrasing drives home that "cessation" (nirodha) is not simply temporary suppression or non-arising, but permanent and complete absence.
[^177]: "Rebirth" (jāti) is defined as the birth of a new life, not as simple arising.
[^178]: The various terms for "cause" are used as synonyms (hetu, nidāna, samudaya, paccaya). The purpose of using different terms is not to add nuances, but to reinforce the central meaning and guard against the corruption of meaning; if one word is lost or misunderstood, the meaning of the sentence as a whole is not changed.
[^179]: These realms relate to the kamma that projects consciousness into them. The realms of "luminous form" (rūpabhava) and the "formless" (arūpabhava) are generated by the form and formless attainments respectively. Any other kamma, good or bad, pertains to the sensual realm (kāmabhava). All rebirth takes place in one or other of these realms.
[^180]: "Grasping" (upādāna) begins with the primal desire of the senses, but the three other graspings are rather intellectual and sophisticated. Only a grown human being with a developed linguistic ability is able to formulate a view to become attached to, and likewise with attachment to religious observances and vows, and to theories of a self. This is why the bulk of kamma is produced by adult humans, rather than by, say, animals or children, for whom these dimensions of grasping are nascent.
[^181]: "Craving" (taṇhā) is a fundamental desire or urge. Unlike grasping, it is fully active in children and animals. Often it has a threefold definition, which we find below, but in dependent origination it is usually defined in terms of the six senses, which relates it to the items to come.
[^182]: The usual threefold definition of feeling (pleasant, painful, neutral) is reframed in terms of the six senses.
[^183]: Here the Buddha introduces another, even more radical, departure from the typical sequence. Rather than continue back to contact and name and form, he branches out in an entirely new direction. These "nine things rooted in craving" are found independently at AN 9.23:1.2 and DN 34:2.2.31, but only here are they integrated with the standard dependent origination.
[^184]: While the purpose of the main dependent origination is to disclose the web of conditions that generates the suffering of transmigration, here the Buddha looks at the arising of social conflict and disorder.
[^185]: In DN 27 Aggaññasutta the Buddha narrates a legend showing how these things arise. The point is not that we should not safeguard (ārakkha) our possessions. It is, rather, that so long as we live in a world where safeguarding possessions is necessary, there will be conflict and violence.
[^186]: "Stinginess" is macchariya.
[^187]: There are many words in Pali that approximate the English word "attachment". Here it is ajjhosāna.
[^188]: "Evaluation" is vinicchaya. We like to weigh up and consider the pros and cons of different objects of desire.
[^189]: Those who have nothing are grateful for any small thing, and do not indulge in picking and choosing.
[^190]: Our senses are tuned to hunt out and acquire pleasure.
[^191]: This is the normal definition of craving in the four noble truths, supplementing the previous definition in terms of the six senses. Both are included in this sutta to show that they do not contradict, but rather reveal different aspects of the same thing. It is not just sensual desire that drives acquisition. For example, religious people fight over sacred ground or holy objects to gain a place in heaven; or else those driven by nihilism go to any lengths for alcohol or drugs to erase existence.
[^192]: The threefold analysis of feeling leads to the process of acquisition, while the sixfold analysis of feeling leads to dependent origination.
[^193]: And now we rejoin the main sequence.
[^194]: People mostly want to enjoy pleasant sensations, in this life and the next, but those sensations depend on a constant supply of the appropriate stimuli.
[^195]: Name and form are said to be conditions for contact also at Snp 4.11:11.1.
[^196]: The "set of mental phenomena known as name" is nāmakāya. Its function depends not any underlying essence, but on the "features" by which it is "made known"; this is a phenomenological analysis. | "Labeling contact" is adhivacanasamphassa; it is the active process by which the mind makes sense of the world by attaching labels to experience. This passage reinforces the linguistic significance of nāma.
[^197]: The "set of physical phenomena known as form" is rūpakāya. | "Impingement contact" is paṭighasamphassa. Here paṭigha refers to the "striking" of physical phenomena against each other, such as light "hitting" the eye. It most commonly appears in this sense in the formula that begins the formless attainments.
[^198]: Labeling moves from the mind to the world; impingement moves from the world to the mind. Together they create a dynamic two-way process by which we learn about the world and how to make sense of it.
[^199]: Contact is fundamentally a meeting, normally expressed as the coming together of the sense stimulus (light), the sense organ (eye), and sense consciousness. By skipping the direct mention of the six senses, the Buddha opens another perspective on this process: mental labeling meets sense impingement, each essential to the other, and together making contact possible. The analysis itself exemplifies this process, as it starts by looking at the process from each side, and moves towards integration, seeing them both together.
[^200]: Consciousness in dependent origination is normally defined as the six kinds of sense consciousness (SN 12:6.3). The purpose of this is to emphasize that the process of rebirth and transmigration is an empirical process, which depends on the same ordinary consciousness we are experiencing now. Here, once again, by skipping the six senses, a new mode of analysis opens up, which emphasizes the organic growth of the individual.
[^201]: "Conceived" is okkamissatha, literally "descend" or "arrive". | "Coagulate" assumes the PTS reading samucchissatha (Sanskrit sammurch). I believe this echoes the belief that the embryo is "coagulated" from the mix of blood and semen. | Linguistically, this passage through to DN 15:22.2 is marked with the extremely rare verbal ending -issatha, which is the middle form of the third person singular conditional.
[^202]: "Miscarried" is vokkamissatha. | "State of existence" is itthattā, which is most commonly found in the declaration of the arahant that they will no longer be reborn into "this state of existence". | Here "born" is abhinibbatti, which is listed along with jāti, okkanti, and other terms as a synonym in the standard definition of rebirth (SN 12.2:4.2, MN 9:24--26.7, DN 22:18.4).
[^203]: The connection between dependent origination and childhood development is further explored in MN 38:28.1.
[^204]: Now we turn to the mirror side of the pair of conditions.
[^205]: Just as name and form---the organic, sensual, and sense-making body---cannot grow without consciousness, so too consciousness must acquire a landing or grounding place to be "planted" in name and form. | Dukkhasamudayasambhavo ("the coming to be of the origin of suffering") might be rendered "the coming to be and origin of suffering". However, dukkhasamudaya occurs some hundreds of times in the sense "origin of suffering" so I take it in the same way here. This is supported by the PTS variant reading dukkhasamudayo sambhavo.
[^206]: This passage continues to employ rare middle forms, this time -etha, the third person singular optative.
[^207]: This passage explains why the sequence ends here rather than proceeding in the usual way to choices and ignorance. Any state of being ultimately depends on the codependency of name and form with consciousness. Within this key relationship is the extent not only of language, but also of wisdom, and the secret to the undoing of transmigration itself. One of the many profound implications of this is that there is no such thing as a state of pure consciousness independent of concepts. | Ettāvatā vaṭṭaṁ vattati itthattaṁ paññāpanāya should be read with such passages as SN 22.56:5.3: ye kevalino vaṭṭaṁ tesaṁ natthi paññāpanāya ("For consummate ones, there is no cycle of rebirths to be found"). | The Mahāsaṅgīti reading aññamaññapaccayatā pavattati is spurious, since it inserts an Abhidhamma concept from the commentary.
[^208]: The text now turns to an analysis of theories of "self" (attā), which is comparable to some of the passages of DN 1. The Buddha began his discourse by stating that it is the failure to understand dependent origination that keeps beings trapped in transmigration. Dependent origination explains transmigration in a purely empirical way by inferring from the mental and physical phenomena we experience here and now. Self theorists, on the other hand, explain transmigration by introducing a new metaphysical principle, the "self" or "soul", by which they assume that the individual has an eternal underlying essence.
[^209]: "Formed" is rūpī ("possessing form"), identifying the self with the first of the five aggregates. If something were really the core essence of a person, you would think it is readily knowable. But the Buddha shows that theorists describe the self in multiple different and incompatible ways. Each of these draws on some more-or-less arbitrary aspect of empirical reality, such as "form", to describe an unknowable metaphysical entity that is in fact just pure supposition.
[^210]: An example of a self that is "physical and limited" would be the body.
[^211]: Such as the cosmos.
[^212]: Perhaps this is the self of "limited perception" (DN 1:2.38.13). This would be where the mind is aware of something limited, and the self is identified with the mental dimension of that awareness.
[^213]: Such as the formless dimensions.
[^214]: The three options ("it is", "it will be so", and "I will make it be so") illustrate how the theorist resorts to ever more convoluted means to justify the lack of empirical support for their pet theory. | Bhāviṁ ("sure to become") is the root bhū with the primary affix -ī, which connotes an inevitable future state. | Tattha ("in some other place", literally "there") is explained by the commentary as paraloke ("in the next world").
[^215]: Their surface differences rest on the same underlying assumption, so if the assumption is disproved there is no need to refute each individual theory. | Iccālaṁ resolves to iti alaṁ.
[^216]: This is the Buddha, who does not theorize a metaphysical self. Implicit in this argument is Occam's razor, "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity". Since the self theorists want to prove the existence of the "self", it is up to them to supply the grounds to support their suppositions. Since they fail to do so, the rational position is that there is no self. The Buddha is not under a similar obligation to prove the non-existence of the "self", since it is reasonable to assume that things do not exist until the evidence says otherwise.
[^217]: Having asserted a metaphysical "self", the theorists go on to make certain observations and interpretations regarding it.
[^218]: The Buddha moves from theories of the self as form to feeling, the second of the five aggregates.
[^219]: For example, identifying the self with the supposed eternal bliss of heaven. As with the description of self in physical terms, the theorist proceeds from a simple assertion of identity to more complicated hypotheses.
[^220]: This is the inverse of the previous. The self is still defined in relation to feeling, but it is a negative relation. Such theories are commonly found in the Upaniṣads, where a prominent thread of analysis systematically rejects all the things that are not the self (neti), before finally arriving at what is the self (eg. Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.5.15).
[^221]: Here the theorist describes feeling as a function of the self: it is not what the self is, but what the self does. At MN 38:5.11 (= MN 2:8.8), Sāti describes the self as consciousness, "the speaker and feeler who experiences the results of good and bad deeds in all the different realms".
[^222]: The Buddha goes on to develop specific arguments addressing each position.
[^223]: The Buddha points out the universal experience of feeling, thus establishing his argument on common ground. This same argument is found at MN 74:10.1.
[^224]: The idea that only one kind of feeling can be experienced at a time became an adage of Buddhist psychology, but it is not obvious to me that it is the case. Here and at MN 74 it is assumed to be a shared belief with non-Buddhists.
[^225]: Feeling is part of the fundamental structure of consciousness. This argument comes through more clearly in Pali, for the word for "feeling" (vedanā) is derived from and still lies close to the sense of "knowing, experiencing". Thus the question is, "If there was no mind, would there be the thought 'I am this'?" The commentary explains that this refers to the bare material realm which is devoid of consciousness. The commentary appears to support the variant reading ahamasmī here. This makes sense in context, for "I am" is the first and most primordial assertion of a self, while "I am this" is a more sophisticated identification of the self in relation to the aggregates.
[^226]: The theorist avoids identifying feeling as the self, but they must identify something as the self (as for example, Sāti said the self was viññāṇa). Feeling, however, is deeply wound into the structure of consciousness, so if feeling were to be utterly absent, no other mental phenomena could continue, and there would therefore be no possibility of forming a theory of self.
[^227]: Letting go is not just a conceptual matter, it has immediate emotional consequences. Paritassati conveys the twin senses of desire and agitation, for which "anxiety" seems the best fit.
[^228]: This recalls the similar statement at DN 15:22.6. Whereas there it was a statement about name and form with consciousness, here it is a description of the arahant who has fully realized it. Unlike the theorists whose views do not withstand empirical scrutiny, the arahant's liberation is based on a direct understanding of reality.
[^229]: The Buddha returns once more to the question of rebirth, describing various states of rebirth in terms of consciousness. The seven planes are also mentioned at DN 33:2.3.28, DN 34:1.8.11, and AN 7.44:1.1.
[^230]: "Plane of consciousness" is viññāṇaṭṭhiti, which could also be rendered "station".
[^231]: In the first of these dimensions there is no consciousness at all, and in the second there is no consciousness in the normal sense, which is why they cannot be called "planes of consciousness".
[^232]: Abhinandituṁ, to "take pleasure in", to "relish", or to "delight in" appears in the standard formula for the second noble truth, where craving "takes pleasure in various realms" (tatratatrābhinandinī).
[^233]: One "freed by wisdom" has wisdom as the dominant faculty.
[^234]: The eight liberations (vimokkhā) are an alternative way of describing the meditative experiences of jhāna. Elsewhere they are listed at DN 16:3.33.1, DN 33:3.1.168, DN 34:2.1.191, AN:8.66, MN 77:22.1, and referred to at AN 4.189:1.8 and Thag 20.1:33.1. At AN 8.120 and MN 137:27.1 they are listed but not called the eight liberations.
[^235]: Someone sees a meditative vision based on the perception of their own body, such as through mindfulness of breathing or one's own body parts. The first three liberations all cover the four jhānas.
[^236]: A meditator grounds their practice on some external focus, such as a light, the sight of a corpse, or an external element such as earth.
[^237]: This is a practice based on wholly pure and exalted meditation, such as the meditation on love, or the sight of a pure brilliant color like the sky.
(*saññāvedayitanirodha*) is a culminating meditation
state of supreme subtlety that often leads directly to awakening
(but see [AN 5.166](https://suttacentral.net/an5.166/en/sujato)).
The state itself, like all meditation states, is temporary, but
afterwards the defilements can be eliminated forever. This
liberating insight is the consequence of the balanced development of
all eight factors of the path.
[^239]: This passage emphasizes that this person is fully adept and has mastered all the states of meditation. The Buddha claimed such mastery (AN 9.41:16.1), and retained the ability even on his deathbed (DN 16:6.8.1).
[^240]: Here we see the terms "one who is freed" used in two ways. All arahants have "freedom of heart" (by means of samādhi) and "freedom by wisdom" (the realization of the Dhamma). At the same time, one who emphasizes samādhi is said to have "freedom of heart" in contrast with one who emphasizes wisdom, who has "freedom by wisdom". One who has consummate mastery of both samādhi and wisdom is said to be "freed both ways".