Dependent Origination
The treatise's single longest topic within the hundred-gate analysis: the twelve links, examined through ten separate angles — their defining mark, their grouping into four functional stages, each link's own twofold karmic function, five distinct kinds of profundity, and a closing proof that dependent origination is neither self-caused, other-caused, both at once, nor uncaused.
1. The Defining Mark, and the Twelve Links Named
云何緣生？幾是緣生？為何義故觀緣生耶？謂相故、分別支故、略攝支故、建立支緣故、建立支業故、支雜染攝故、義故、甚深故、差別故、順逆故，是緣生義。一切皆是緣生，唯除法界法處一分諸無為法。為捨執著無因不平等因我法故，觀察緣生。
What is dependent origination? How much of everything is dependently originated? For what purpose is this examined? Ten angles make up what dependent origination means: mark, the distinguishing of its links, the condensed grouping of its links, establishing each link's own conditions, establishing each link's own karmic function, the kind of defilement each link belongs to, meaning, profundity, distinct varieties, and its forward and reverse order. Everything whatsoever is dependently originated, except for a portion of the dharma element and dharma sense field — the unconditioned dharmas. This is examined in order to abandon clinging to a self or a dharma conceived as either uncaused or produced by an unequal cause.
何等相故？謂無作緣生故、無常緣生故、勢用緣生故，是緣生相。何等分別支故？謂分別緣生為十二分。何等十二？謂無明、行、識、名色、六處、觸、受、愛、取、有、生及老死。
What is the mark? Being without any real agent doing the producing, being impermanent, and yet still having genuine efficacy — these three together are dependent origination's own mark.
What is the distinguishing of its links? Dependent origination is distinguished into twelve parts. What are the twelve? Ignorance, formations, consciousness, name-and-form, the six sense-bases, contact, feeling, craving, grasping, existence, birth, and aging-and-death.
T1606 unpacks the threefold mark through the classical scriptural formula "this existing, that exists; this arising, that arises": "this existing, that exists" displays the absence of any real agent — a result comes to be purely because its condition is present, not because that condition exercises some genuine, independent power of production. "This arising, that arises" displays impermanence — nothing that is itself uncaused could ever give rise to anything else. And the specific sequence "ignorance conditions formations," and so on through the chain, displays genuine efficacy — even though no dharma here truly acts or truly endures, the specific causal pattern by which each link generates exactly the next one, and no other, still genuinely operates. All three marks, held together, are the treatise's way of threading a needle: rejecting both a real, substantial agent behind causation and the opposite extreme of mere randomness, chaos with no reliable pattern at all.
2. Four Functional Groups, and Each Link's Own Twofold Function
何等略攝支故？謂能引支、所引支、能生支、所生支。能引支者，謂無明、行、識。所引支者，謂名色、六處、觸、受。能生支者，謂愛，取，有。所生支者，謂生、老死。
What is the condensed grouping of its links? The drawing-forth links, the drawn-forth links, the generating links, and the generated links. The drawing-forth links are ignorance, formations, and consciousness. The drawn-forth links are name-and-form, the six sense-bases, contact, and feeling. The generating links are craving, grasping, and existence. The generated links are birth and aging-and-death.
何等建立支業故？謂無明有二種業：一令諸有情於有愚癡；二與行作緣。行有二種業：一令諸有情於諸趣中種種差別；二與識作緣。由熏習故，識有二種業：一持諸有情所有業縛；二與名色作緣。名色有二種業：一攝諸有情自體；二與六處作緣。六處有二種業：一攝諸有情自體圓滿；二與觸作緣。
What is the establishing of each link's own karmic function? Ignorance has two functions: first, causing sentient beings to be deluded with respect to existence itself; second, serving as the condition for formations. Formations have two functions: first, causing sentient beings to vary across the different destinies; second, serving as the condition for consciousness. Through habitual perfuming, consciousness has two functions: first, holding fast a being's own karmic bondage; second, serving as the condition for name-and-form. Name-and-form has two functions: first, constituting a being's own physical existence; second, serving as the condition for the six sense-bases. The six sense-bases have two functions: first, bringing a being's own physical existence to completion; second, serving as the condition for contact.
觸有二種業：一令諸有情於所受用境界流轉；二與受作緣。受有二種業：一令諸有情於所受用生果流轉；二與愛作緣。愛有二種業：一引諸有情流轉生死；二與取作緣。取有二種業：一為取後有，令諸有情發有取識；二與有作緣。
Contact has two functions: first, causing sentient beings to flow onward toward the objects they enjoy; second, serving as the condition for feeling. Feeling has two functions: first, causing sentient beings to flow onward toward the ripened fruit of what they enjoy; second, serving as the condition for craving. Craving has two functions: first, drawing sentient beings onward through birth and death; second, serving as the condition for grasping. Grasping has two functions: first, taking hold of future existence, causing sentient beings to give rise to a grasping-imbued consciousness; second, serving as the condition for existence.
有有二種業：一令諸有情後有現前；二與生作緣。生有二種業：一令諸有情名色六處觸受次第生起；二與老死作緣。老死有二種業：一數令有情時分變異；二數令有情壽命變異。
Existence has two functions: first, making a being's future existence actually manifest; second, serving as the condition for birth. Birth has two functions: first, causing name-and-form, the six sense-bases, contact, and feeling to arise for a being in due sequence; second, serving as the condition for aging-and-death. Aging-and-death have two functions: first, repeatedly altering a being's own span of time; second, repeatedly altering a being's own remaining lifespan.
T1606 explains the fourfold grouping as tracking a single causal chain across two complete rounds: the drawing-forth links (ignorance, formations, consciousness — ignorance regarding the four truths providing the momentum, and the karmic action it produces leaving its imprint on the mind) are what plant the seed for an entire future existence in advance; the drawn-forth links (name-and-form through feeling) are what that seed, through the mind's own habitual power, gradually causes to unfold in sequence; the generating links (craving, grasping, existence) are what, much later — typically at the very end of the present life — actually activate that dormant karmic seed into an imminent new existence; and the generated links (birth, aging-and-death) are simply that activated existence's own actual unfolding once it occurs. This is why the classical tradition reads the twelve links as spanning three lifetimes rather than a single one: the drawing-forth pair belongs to a prior life's causal setup, the drawn-forth through generating links span the present life's unfolding and eventual re-activation, and the generated pair belongs to the resulting future life.
3. Which Kind of Defilement Each Link Belongs To
何等支雜染攝故？謂若無明、若愛、若取，是煩惱雜染所攝。若行，若識，若有，是業雜染所攝。餘是生雜染所攝。
Which kind of defilement does each link belong to? Ignorance, craving, and grasping belong to the defilement of affliction. Formations, consciousness, and existence belong to the defilement of karma. The remaining links — name-and-form, the six sense-bases, contact, feeling, birth, and aging-and-death — belong to the defilement of birth itself.
T1606 notes one item here that looks initially puzzling: why does consciousness — apparently a resultant, experiential dharma rather than an active, karma-generating one — get classed under the defilement of karma rather than the defilement of birth? The answer is that "consciousness," in this specific classification, refers to consciousness precisely insofar as it carries forward the habitual traces deposited by the formations link — it is, in this technical role, still functioning as karma's own residue in transit, not yet the settled, experiential result that name-and-form and what follows represent.
4. Eleven Senses of "Dependent Origination"
何等義故？謂無作者義、有因義、離有情義、依他起義、無作用義、無常義、有剎那義、因果相續不斷義、因果相似攝受義、因果差別義、因果決定義，是緣起義。
What does "dependent origination" mean? Eleven senses: the sense of no agent, the sense of having a cause, the sense of being free of a sentient being, the sense of arising in dependence on other things, the sense of no real efficacy, the sense of impermanence, the sense of momentariness, the sense of cause and effect flowing on without interruption, the sense of cause and effect resembling and drawing forth their own kind, the sense of cause and effect's own distinct varieties, and the sense of cause and effect's fixed determinacy.
T1606 glosses each briefly: "no agent" rules out a creator god such as Īśvara standing behind the process; "having a cause" points to ignorance and the rest as genuine causes; "free of a sentient being" rules out any real, unchanging self running through the chain; "arising in dependence on other things" names the sheer fact that everything here depends on conditions outside itself; "no real efficacy" means the conditions involved have no substantial power of their own to act, only an emptiness of inherent function; "impermanence" and "momentariness" together mean nothing here endures even for two consecutive instants; "flowing on without interruption" means a cause's ceasing and an effect's arising happen in unbroken succession, timed exactly together; "resembling and drawing forth their own kind" means effects are not produced indiscriminately by every possible cause, but specifically by causes of a suitably similar kind; "distinct varieties" means a single kind of cause can still yield a range of different specific effects; and "fixed determinacy" means a cause never yields its effect in some other, unrelated continuum than the one it actually belongs to.
5. Five Kinds of Profundity
何等甚深故？謂因甚深故、相甚深故、生甚深故、住甚深故、轉甚深故，是甚深義。又諸緣起法雖剎那滅而住可得，雖無作用緣而有功能緣可得，雖離有情而有情可得，雖無作者而諸業果不壞可得，是故甚深。又諸緣起法，不從自生、不從他生、不從共生，非不自作他作因生，是故甚深。
What is profundity? Profundity of cause, profundity of mark, profundity of arising, profundity of abiding, and profundity of transformation — these five together are what profundity means.
Dependently arisen dharmas are profound because, although each perishes in a single instant, a kind of abiding is still found within them; although the conditions involved have no real efficacy of their own, a genuine functional capacity is still found; although no real sentient being is present, sentient beings are still found; and although there is no real agent, unspoiled karmic results are still found. Dependently arisen dharmas are further profound because they arise from none of self, other, or both together — and yet are not produced without any cause, self and other both playing some part.
T1606 matches the five kinds of profundity to the eleven senses just given: profundity of cause counters both the theory of an unequal, external cause (a creator god) and the theory of no cause at all; profundity of mark displays the selfless nature running through the whole chain; profundity of arising shows that, although a result genuinely arises from its conditions, it is not literally "made" by them the way a craftsman makes a pot; profundity of abiding shows that nothing here is genuinely, statically established, even though it appears to persist; and profundity of transformation, drawing on all four senses concerning cause and effect, shows how difficult the whole flowing process actually is to fully understand. T1606 then works out the famous self/other/both/neither-cause tetralemma explicitly: not self-caused, since everything here depends on conditions outside itself; not other-caused either, since without its own seed already present, no external condition could produce anything on its own; not caused by both together, since neither self-cause nor other-cause, examined separately, actually has the efficacy the "combination" theory would need to borrow from; and yet not uncaused, since both a thing's own seed and its supporting conditions genuinely do have functional capacity. The formula T1606 gives to hold all four together: "since one's own seed exists, it is not from another; since it depends on many conditions, it is not self-made; since there is no [substantial] agency, it is not co-made; since there is genuine capacity, it is not uncaused."
6. Eight Distinct Varieties, and Forward-Reverse Order
何等差別故？謂識生差別故、內死生差別故、外穀等生差別故、成壞差別故、食持差別故、愛非愛趣分別差別故、清淨差別故、威德差別故，是差別義。何等順逆故？謂雜染順逆故、清淨順逆故，是說緣起順逆義。
What are its distinct varieties? Eight: the arising of consciousness (as in eye and form producing eye-consciousness); the sentient world's own birth and death; the outer world's arising, as in crops (seed conditioning sprout, sprout conditioning stalk, and so on through branch, leaf, flower, and fruit); the container world's own formation and destruction; sustaining continuity through the four nutriments; the branching into agreeable and disagreeable destinies through wholesome and unwholesome conduct; purification's own gradual unfolding, from the aids to liberation through the aids to penetration, the path of seeing, and onward to arhatship; and the manifestation of majestic qualities such as the supernormal powers, arising through direct realization.
What is its forward and reverse order? Defilement's own forward and reverse order, and purification's own forward and reverse order. Defilement in forward order runs "ignorance conditions formations" and onward in sequence; defilement in reverse order runs through the framework of the established truths — "aging-and-death is suffering, aging-and-death has an origin, aging-and-death has a cessation, aging-and-death has a path to that cessation" — reasoning backward from effect to cause. Purification in forward order runs "with ignorance's cessation, formations cease" and onward in sequence; purification in reverse order asks, at each step, "through the absence of what does aging-and-death not occur, and through the cessation of what does aging-and-death cease?" — again reasoning backward.
Part 21 Complete
Dependent origination has now been examined through all ten of its angles — mark, grouping, function, defilement-type, meaning, profundity, varieties, and order — closing with the treatise's own resolution of the classical tetralemma on causation. Part 22 turns to the treatise's account of conditions themselves: the four classical conditions, and the causal-condition's own twenty named varieties of efficient causation.
Continue to Part 22 — The Four Conditions →