Page 69 - Because I know, I can let go

This, then, is dependent co-origination, paticca samupāda:
(1) avijjā – not knowing about the four noble truths - not knowing about dukkha, its

arising, its quenching, or the way to its quenching.
(2) sankhāra – three kinds: kāyasankhāra, vajisankhāra, and cittasankhāra, which are
what concoct the body, speech, and mind, into performing their respective duties.
(3) viññāna – six kinds of consciousness, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind

consciousnesses.
(4) nāmarūpa – mind and body.
(5) salāyatana – the six sense bases: the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind.
(6) phassa – contacts between the various things (the outer āyatana) and the eyes,

ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind (the inner āyatana) causes the arising of viññāna.
(7) vedanā – feelings arising in the mind which will be sukha, pleasant, dukkha,
unpleasant, or adukkhamasukha, neither, nor.
(8) tanhā – three kinds of desire: kāmatanhā, bhavatanhā, vibhavatanhā; desire

for forms, sounds, smells, tastes touches, mind objects, plus desire for existence or non-
existence.
(9) upādāna – four kinds of clinging: to objects of sensuality, to the things we like
and desire, to views and opinions, to rites and rituals, to superstitious beliefs, to the ‘self.’

(10) bhāva – becoming, three kinds: kāmabhāva, rūpabhāva, arūpabhāva.
(11) jāti – birth, the birth of the ‘me’ thought - mental birth.
(12) jarā, marana, dukkha – the ‘me’ who will age and die, who has dukkha, the
dukkha which arises from clinging, the dukkha of the noble truths.

Paticcasamupāda, if we treat it as a theory, will be a long, drawn-out affair requiring one or
two months of study, because, theoretically, it will then extend into the areas of psychology
and philosophy. But paticcasamupā as a form of practice amounts to, one might say, just

a small handful, as the Buddha once pointed out, thus: when there’s contact with a form,
with a smell, or with a flavor, or whatever, by way of the eye, or whatever, that’s called
phassa, contact.

Contact concocts feeling, vedanā,
Feeling concocts desire, tanhā,
Tanhā concocts upādāna, clinging,

...I can let go 69