The Twelve Links

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The interlocking chain of the twelve links demonstrates the entire process of evolution and explains the individual's existence in samsara. There is no concept of there being some kind of central, unifying creator around which everything evolves.

While we are experiencing the consequences of one set of twelve links, the ignorance and karmic action links of another cycle have already been set in motion. Thus, there are ever-rotating, interlocking chains of twelve links of dependent origination constantly keeping us bound to the wheel of life, which is how our evolution through cyclic existence is explained.

The Buddha actually taught the twelve links in two ways. One charts our evolution through cyclic existence from ignorance to karmic volitional acts to consciousness and so on down the chain, while the other presents the same process in reverse, explaining how we escape from samsara and reach enlightenment. By bringing an end to ignorance, volitional acts are prevented; by preventing volitional acts, consciousness is prevented and so on.

Commenting on these teachings, the Indian Master Asanga identified the following three principal features:

  1. Everything has its cause. In the Buddhist teachings on dependent origination, the notion of divine creation is rejected because everything comes into being as a result of cause and conditions.
  2. These causes are impermanent. Even the causes that set the whole cycle in motion are themselves subject to causes and conditions and are, therefore, impermanent.
  3. Only compatible and corresponding causes give rise to the effects. Causation is not a random process;  not everything can produce everything. Causes and effects must be compatible; only commensurate causes lead to corresponding results.
Asanga identified these factors by commenting on a passage from the sutras, where the Buddha stated, "Because this exists, that exists; because this originated, that will ensue; and because there is fundamental ignorance, volitional acts will follow".

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