Reading guide
The same three cases, the same conclusion
Exactly as in SN 12.38, intending and planning present leads to suffering's arising, underlying tendency alone is equally sufficient, and only the complete absence of all three breaks the chain — nothing about the three-case logic itself has changed.
Name and form's descent named explicitly
Where SN 12.38 skipped straight to regeneration, this discourse names the specific step in between: once consciousness is established and grows, name and form are conceived, connecting intention's role directly to the language used elsewhere for a being's descent into a new existence.
The familiar chain resumed from its usual point
From name and form onward, the discourse runs through exactly the links familiar from SN 12.1 and SN 12.2 — the six sense fields, contact, feeling, craving, grasping, continued existence, rebirth, old age and death — elided here just as it is elsewhere, trusting the reader's familiarity.
Two discourses at two resolutions
SN 12.38 and this discourse aren't presenting different teachings; they're the same account of how intention sustains rebirth, one compressed to name only the outcome, the other expanded to show the specific chain of links that produces it.
The same reversal governs cessation here too
Exactly as in SN 12.38, it's the complete absence of intending, planning, and underlying tendency together — not merely two of the three — that removes consciousness's support and brings the entire downstream chain, now spelled out in full, to cessation.
Key terms
The text
§1At Sāvatthī.
§2“Mendicants, what you intend or plan, and what you have underlying tendencies for become a support for the continuation of consciousness. When this support exists, consciousness becomes established. When consciousness is established, name and form are conceived. Name and form are requirements for the six sense fields. The six sense fields are requirements for contact. Contact is a requirement for feeling. … craving … grasping … continued existence … rebirth … old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress come to be. That is how this entire mass of suffering originates.
§3If you don’t intend or plan, but still have underlying tendencies, this becomes a support for the continuation of consciousness. When this support exists, consciousness becomes established. When consciousness is established, name and form are conceived. Name and form are requirements for the six sense fields. … That is how this entire mass of suffering originates.
§4If you don’t intend or plan or have underlying tendencies, this doesn’t become a support for the continuation of consciousness. With no support, consciousness is not established. When consciousness is not established and doesn’t grow, name and form are not conceived. When name and form cease, the six sense fields cease. … That is how this entire mass of suffering ceases.”
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