Patichcha Samuppadaya (Dhamma Of The Cause And Effects)

Buddha has rejected the creationism and the existence of the soul.No one create or control this universe and there is nothing called as the soul. Even in reincarnation a soul doesn't exist. So then you have a question. What is it? Who we are? How this all things happen? The answer is the Patichcha Samuppadaya. All the living beings exist due to the Patichcha Samuppadaya. It is an endless cause and effects circle. Patichcha Samuppadaya  is a very rare thing to hear in this Sansara. Only a Buddha can discover this and tell to the world.

Patichcha Samuppadaya is a very deep teaching. Only the wise people can understand this.Once Ananda Thero (Who is the chief of the keeping the Buddhism teachings in the mind among the Bikkhu ) before become Arhath, he had  a discussion with the Buddha. He told the Buddha that "My lord, even thought  Patichcha Samuppadaya is very deep, it seems that it is easy to understand this to me.". Then Buddha replied "Ananda! don't tell like this. Patichcha Samuppadaya is very deep.The living beings in the Sansara can not understand this and therefore they have stuck into this Sansara and can not get away with it. ". So it is very hard to understand this to us even. If we really understand this then we become Arhath.

Since it is a circle there is no a start point or an end point to Patichcha Samuppadaya. There are lot of ways to explain this. But either way it is hard to explain and also hard to understand. It depends on the wisdom which each individual person have. In this post I'm not going to give a deep explanation. I'll just try to summarize the Patichcha Samuppadaya.

There are 12 features in this circle (See the above image). I'm going to start it with Ignorance. Every feature is a result (effect) of the previous reasons(causes) of it. But to reduce the complexity it is described with the previous closest cause.So lets see it like this.

Because of the reason Ignorance then the Volitional Formations arises.
Because of the reason Volitional Formations then the Consciousness arises.

Because of the reason Consciousness then the Body-Mind arises.

Because of the reason Body-Mind then the Sixfold Base arises.

Because of the reason Sixfold Base then the Contact arises.

Because of the reason Contact then the Feeling arises.

Because of the reason Feeling then the Craving arises.

Because of the reason Craving then the Clinging arises.
Because of the reason Clinging then the Becoming arises.
Because of the reason Becoming then the Birth arises.
Because of the reason Birth then the aging,death arises.

Because of the reason Ignorance (Avijja) then the Volitional Formations (Sankara) arises

Ignorance means not knowing about the reality of the universe as it is. Simply not knowing about the noble truths. There is no such a thing called a 'Person'. It is a combination of the five Skandha (eyes,ears,nose,tongue,body). So we are going to keep telling I'm AAA, this is my mother, this is my father, this is my son, this is my wife etc. So we do love to keep continuing these Skandha  as a person in the Sansara without knowing that it is a Dukkha (see here)  and the reason for that is our desires. So keep this continuing we have to do actions (Volitional Formations). Those can be good or bad. It makes us to gather the Karma.So We gather Karma due to the Ignorance.

Because of the reason Volitional Formations (Sankara) then the Consciousness (Wigngnana) arises

There is nothing called the soul. We have a mind. But it is a pack of thoughts. This thoughts arise and die rapidly. It happens in a nano second.May be less than it. This continues and we tell it as the mind. It is like this. We see the river. But it is a continuing flow of water drops in every second. But if we take a single water drop out. then it is not the river. But as a flow of vast amount of them is called as the river. So our mind is same as this and mind+body we call as a 'person'.

When we dying then our last thoughts (consciousness) bind with our Karma or Karma Nimiththa or Gathi Nimithta. Karma is the things what we have done in the previous (good or bad). So if our mind is fill with them then it binds with the Karma. Karma Nimiththa means the things or the living beings related with our Karma. As an example if you are a butcher then you will have the thoughts about the knifes or the chickens you killed. Then that mind binds with the Karma Nimiththa. Sometimes some person can see the next birth place related things when he is dying.That is called  Gathi Nimiththa. If we are going to birth in the human womb, we can see it like a red cloth, If we are going to birth in the hell we can see the fire etc.

The last thought (consciousness) of a person in this life is called as the Chuth Chiththa and the help of the Karma and craving we get our next birth place's first consciousness(Prathisandhi Chiththa) just after the Chuthi Chiththa. After the Chuthi Chiththa then there is nothing as a  person for this world. It is just a dead body to us. But that person's consciousness has continuing in another place as a new birth.

Because of the reason Consciousness (Wigngnana) then the Body-Mind (Namaroopa) arises

As mentioned above, our consciousness continuing to the next birth and get a Prathisandhi Chiththa. Then we get again the bunch of thoughts and we call it as the 'mind'. Also we get the body according to our birth. Note that when we get a birth in the Aroopa Brahma worlds then we don't get a body. we get only the mind.

There are 4 ways which the body can occurs.

• Andaja - birth in the eggs (ex: bird,fish)
• Jalabuja - birth in the womb (ex:human,dog)
• Sansedaja - birth in the things (ex: bacteria)
• Opapathika - birth in a just a moment with a perfect full completed body (ex: gods, Brahma, Pretha, Asura, Living beings in the hell)

Getting a body is related with his birth place(human gets human body, dog gets dog body). It also binds with the Karma too (as an example some can be blind in a human birth due to the effects of his bad Krama). Also it binds with the Niyama Dharma (As an example you get your mother's and fathers's genetics. It is not the Karma)

Because of the reason Body-Mind (Namaroopa) then the Sixfold Base (Salayathana) arises

Because of the body and the mind a person get 6 places to contact with the world.

• Chakkhayathana -  place (for the human, it is a place in the eye) to grab the external images into the image seeing mind 
• Sothayathana - place (for the human, it is a place in the ears) to grab the external sounds into the sound hearing mind 
• Ghanayathana - place (for the human it is a place in the nose) to grab the external smells into the smelling mind 
• Jiwhayathana - place (for the human it is a place in the tongue) to grab  the external taste into the tasting mind 
• Kayathana - place (for the human it is a place in the body) to grab the external touch into the touch feeling mind 
• Manayathana - The consciousness which knowing above five

Because of the reason Sixfold Base (Salayathana) then the Contact (Phassa)arises

With the above 6 places a person is contacting with the world. According to each Salayathana you get the thoughts related with them in every moment. This is the Contact.

Because of the reason Contact (Phassa) then the Feeling (Wedana) arises

When we are contacting with the external world, we can feel it in 3 ways.

• Sukha - good feelings
• Dukkha - bad feelings
• Upekkha - moderate feelings

The feeling is also a relative thing. As an example seeing a lion is good feeling for a lioness. But for a deer it is a bad feeling.

Because of the reason Feeling (Wedana) then the Craving (Thanha) arises

With the feelings we are going to have the desires for everything. All living beings are doing everything to get the luxury. When we are having the bad or moderate feelings then we have desires to get good feelings. if we have good feelings we want more. So this craving not ends. We always want more and more. We can get 6 desires from the 6 fold base.

• Roopa Thanha - desires for the feelings which contact with Chakkhayathana+Manayathana 
• Saddha Thanha - desires for the feelings which contact with Sothayathana+Manayathana 
• Gandha Thanha - desires for the feelings which contact with Ghanayathana+Manayathana 
• Rasa Thanha - desires for the feelings which contact with Jiwhayathana+Manayathana 
• Pottabbha Thanha - desires for the feelings which contact with Kayathana+Manayathana 
• Dhamma Thanha - desires for the feelings which contact with Manayathana 

Because of the reason Craving (Thanha) then the Clinging (Upadhana) arises

Our desires make us to grab the things tightly. In the first, we have weak desire towards any contact or feeling. It can be removed easily. But if the desires arise again and again towards that same contact or feeling then that desires become tight and become the clinging. Then it is very hard to destroy that desires. As an example it is easy to destroy a plant. But when it becomes a huge tree, it is very hard to destroy it.

So with the tight desires we grab the 'ego'. This ego is very hard to remove from ourselves. We do not see the world as it is. So we do not see this ego as the combination of the bunch of thoughts (mind) and the body.

Because of the reason Clinging (Upadhana) then the Becoming (Bhawa) arises

With the clinging a person makes Karma (actions) and this makes him to go with the Sansara circle. This is called as the Bhawa. Among these Karma some Karma does not have enough energy to give a Prathisandhi Chiththa. But others have that energy.

Because of the reason Becoming (Bhawa) then the Birth (Jathi) arises

Bhawa brings us the births again and again in this Sansara. So with the help of the Karma which has enough energy for Prathisandhi Chiththa we get a birth in one of  these worlds.

Because of the reason Birth (Jathi) then the aging,death (Jara) arises

As we all know that after get a birth we definitely getting old and finally the death. It is described in here.

This is the simple summarized explanation of the Patichcha Samuppadaya. But There are more very deep explanations about this and it is hard to explain it in a single post. Patichcha Samuppadaya can be explained with even 3 births and we can divide these 12 into them. Also we can explain this as the past present and future cause and effect vise even. Lets see them in another post in future.