Dependent Origination

The physical world as we know it, with all its imperfections and suffering, is the product of what the Buddha called dependent origination.

The Buddha taught that this was a 12-stage process - a circular chain, not a straight line. Each stage gives rise to the one directly after it.

1. Ignorance: inability to see the truth, depicted by a blind man.

2. Willed action: actions that shape our emerging consciousness, depicted by a potter moulding clay.

3. Conditioned consciousness: the development of habits, blindly responding to the impulses of karmic conditioning, represented by a monkey swinging about aimlessly.

4. Form and existence: a body comes into being to carry our karmic inheritance, represented by a boat carrying men.

5. The six sense-organs: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body (touch) and mind, the way sensory information passes into us, represented by the doors and windows of a house.

6. Sense-impressions: the combination of sense-organ and sensory information, represented by two lovers .

7. Sensation: the feelings we get from sense-impressions, which are so vivid that they blind us, represented by a man shot in the eye with an arrow.

8. Craving (tanhā): negative desires that can never be sated, represented by a man drinking.

9. Attachment: grasping at things we think will satisfy our craving, represented by someone reaching out for fruit from a tree.

10. Becoming: worldly existence, being trapped in the cycle of life, represented by a pregnant woman.

11. Birth: represented by a woman giving birth.

12. Old age and death: grief, suffering and despair, the direct consequences of birth, represented by an old man.