An Explanation of the Twelve Nidānas in the Āgama Sutras

Chapter 8: The Key Links for Terminating the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination

Section 1: The Chain of Birth and Death of the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination and the Forward and Reverse Gates of Birth and Death

1. The Chain of Birth and Death of the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination

Ignorance (the ignorance of the manas) — volitional formations (bodily, verbal, and mental actions) — consciousness (the six consciousnesses and karmic seeds) — name-and-form (the five aggregates of future lives) — the six sense bases (ṣaḍāyatana) (the six faculties) — contact (the six faculties contacting the six sense objects) — feeling (the feeling of the six consciousnesses, which induces the feeling of the manas) — craving (the craving of the six consciousnesses, mainly the greedy craving of the manas) — grasping (upādāna) (the grasping of the six consciousnesses, mainly the grasping of the manas) — becoming (the conditioned dharmas of the five aggregates in the three realms) — birth (the five-aggregate body being born in the world of the three realms) — aging, sickness, death, and suffering (the perishing of the five-aggregate body).

Birth and death arise conditioned on ignorance; it is the ignorance of the manas that causes measureless births and deaths to manifest. Because of ignorance, the manas gives rise to mental activity, makes choices, and wants to create karmic actions; then the six consciousnesses arise and, in order to satisfy the manas's wishes, create bodily, verbal, and mental karmic actions, and thus karmic seeds of the three realms' world are left behind. Once there are karmic seeds of the three realms, there must be transmigration in the three realms in future lives. In the intermediate stage after death, the manas enters the womb according to karma, and there is the initial name-and-form; subsequently the six sense bases gradually become complete, contact appears, and following contact, the feelings and perceptions of consciousness appear. Once there is feeling, craving does not cease, and so feeling and sense objects are grasped; karmic seeds are stored, the becoming of future lives must continue to be born and exist, the birth of future lives will appear, and aging, sickness, and death will inevitably appear.

Name-and-form, initially, is the manas and the fertilized egg, and ultimately the five-aggregate body. At conception, it is the manas and the Ālayavijñāna that enter the womb, uniting with the fertilized egg to become name-and-form; the complete name-and-form is the six consciousnesses, six faculties, plus six sense objects—altogether the eighteen dhātus. Then, conditioned on which consciousness can name-and-form be born? With the aid of which consciousness can it be born? It needs the aid of the six consciousnesses of the previous life, because the creations of the six consciousnesses can leave behind karmic seeds for the five-aggregate body of future lives; only with seeds can there be a five-aggregate body. Only when name-and-form is complete can there be contact of the inner and outer six sense bases, and afterward the six consciousnesses of this life are born. Only when the six sense bases are complete can there be the six consciousnesses; when the six sense bases are complete, the five-aggregate body is complete, and the six consciousnesses can then create bodily, verbal, and mental actions. Where there are karmic actions there are seeds; where there are seeds there are fruits. After karmic actions, karmic seeds are left behind to nourish the five-aggregate body of future lives; thus sentient beings continue generation after generation without end.

To attain liberation from the suffering of the cycle of birth and death, one must open up the twelve links of the birth-and-death chain. The most crucial issue is the seeds: as long as the six consciousnesses no longer create karmic actions, no karmic seeds are left behind. Whether the six consciousnesses create karmic actions is entirely determined by the manas's mental factor of volition (cetanā). Only when the manas's volition no longer chooses to create karmic actions will the six consciousnesses not create bodily, verbal, and mental karmic actions, and no seeds will be left behind. For the manas's volition not to create karma, the ignorance of the manas must be destroyed. To destroy the ignorance of the manas, one must cultivate the Four Noble Truths, cultivate the twelve links of dependent origination, engage in deep and subtle contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) in meditative concentration (samādhi), and after realizing that the world of the five aggregates is empty and without self, gradually the chain of birth and death will be untied, and liberation will be attained.

2. The Key Links for Terminating the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination

The twelve links of dependent origination span three lifetimes: ignorance, volitional formations, and consciousness are the links of the previous life; name-and-form, the six sense bases, contact, feeling, craving, and grasping are the links of this life; becoming, birth, and aging-and-death are the links of future lives. When contemplating this principle, there are two methods: forward and reverse. Contemplating along the twelve links in the forward direction, one can understand that the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses produced by the manas's volitional formations out of ignorance will lead to the birth, aging, sickness, and death suffering of the five aggregates in future lives. Contemplating the twelve links in the reverse direction, there are two branches: one branch traces back from name-and-form to the karmic seeds left by the six consciousnesses' karmic actions in the previous life, and then traces back further to the ignorance of the manas; the other branch traces back from name-and-form to the source of birth and death, the Ālayavijñāna.

In the first branch of the reverse contemplation, starting from aging-and-death and tracing backward, one traces in sequence to birth, becoming, grasping, craving, feeling, contact, the six sense bases, name-and-form, the six consciousnesses, volitional formations, and ignorance. Where is the key point for terminating birth and death in this life? It lies in the four links of grasping, craving, feeling, and contact. Because name-and-form and the six sense bases must be used and cannot be extinguished now—if one tried to extinguish them, one would have to commit suicide and die; yet even dying by suicide cannot avoid the birth, aging, sickness, and death of future lives. Moreover, the karmic seeds of the six consciousnesses were left by the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of previous lives; even with repentance, the name-and-form five aggregates cannot be extinguished. Therefore, to attain liberation from birth and death in future lives, one must focus practice on the four links of contact, feeling, craving, and grasping; and the latter three links flow forth from contact, all arising directly or indirectly with contact as condition, so contact is a very crucial link.

Contact is the contact of the six faculties with the six sense objects, that is, the contact of the inner six sense bases with the outer six sense bases; afterward the six consciousnesses arise and discern, then feeling arises, and thus greed and anger appear; grasping at the states of the six sense objects will also follow, and these karmic actions will lead to the birth, aging, sickness, and death suffering of this life and future lives. How can contact with the six sense objects be avoided? One must reduce and eliminate the manas's tendency toward seeking (攀缘). If the manas does not seek after the six sense objects, it will not be willing to contact them; if there is no contact with the six sense objects, nothing follows afterward, and the mind becomes pure. So the key still lies with the manas.

How can the manas be made to no longer seek after the six sense objects? First, cultivate meditative concentration; second, understand the principles. In meditative concentration, contemplate the impermanence and arising-ceasing nature of the states of the six sense objects. Understanding the principles can eradicate ignorance; without ignorance, the manas will no longer seek after the states of the six sense objects, will no longer be interested in them, will automatically reduce its seeking, and will reduce the frequency and duration of contact; gradually the mind becomes pure. When the mind is pure, there is no feeling; without feeling there is no craving; without craving there is no grasping.

Since beginningless kalpas, sentient beings' six faculties have been habituated to contacting the six sense objects, and it is very difficult to subdue and remove them all; sometimes survival necessities make contact unavoidable, or contact is passive. Once contact has occurred, one should reduce feeling, or not feel at all. If one achieves having no mind at the moment of contact, there is no feeling; without feeling there is no craving; without craving there is no grasping. To achieve little feeling or no feeling, one must have meditative concentration and also contemplative wisdom, so that the mind can be empty, can be free from marks, can be unaffected by states; with the mind pure, one will not grasp at states.

If not being affected by states is rather difficult and cannot be fully achieved, then when experiencing feelings toward states, try not to give rise to greed and anger; contemplate the impermanence and falsity of feeling, contemplate the arising-ceasing and impermanence of states, and the mind can be subdued, and greed and anger can be reduced. Craving is closely connected with feeling; when feeling arises, it is hard not to give rise to greedy craving. At this time one must have meditative concentration—the power of concentration must be strong—to subdue craving, and even to eradicate it. And eradicating craving requires meditative concentration of at least the first dhyāna. In the practice of all dharmas, one cannot be apart from meditative concentration; if concentration is shallow, afflictions cannot be subdued, let alone eradicated, and liberation will be hopeless.

If one fails at the stage of subduing craving, then grasping at what is craved is almost unavoidable; to not grasp is extremely difficult. Grasping is extinguished only when the third-fruit practice is perfected; at the fourth fruit one no longer grasps. A momentary grasping may be unavoidable, but after the instant it will be eradicated with wisdom. If such phenomena keep occurring, one is an arhat whose liberation is not very firm; before the parinirvāṇa without remainder (Anupadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa) at the time of death, one must continually perform preparatory practices in order to attain instantaneous cessation and nirvāṇa.

To summarize: the four links of contact, feeling, craving, and grasping are all crucial. Only by subduing and eradicating the preceding link is it possible for the following link not to arise. So the most crucial link for liberation is still contact. In the practice of all dharmas, environment is a very important factor. When the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas practiced, they were always in quiet and secluded places, with no people or affairs to disturb them; there was not so much contact, progress in practice was rapid, and attainment of the Way was swift. Therefore, in our practice, when we inevitably have to accord with conditions, we should also create more conditions and opportunities for quiet practice, minimizing the conditions for contact, so that practice goes well; in bustling places, the path-fruit cannot be accomplished.

The link of ignorance spans the three lifetimes. In the previous life it was because of ignorance that the subsequent eleven links existed; in this life it is still because of ignorance that contact, feeling, craving, and grasping continue unbroken; in future lives it will also be because of ignorance that these processes continue to operate, and birth and death over the three lifetimes never cease. At which link is ignorance eradicated? In fact, in the Buddha's time, most people who practiced the twelve links of dependent origination had already practiced the Four Noble Truths, and were even people who had attained the fruits; they practiced the twelve links on the basis of having already eradicated the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi), so ignorance had already been eradicated, just not ultimately and thoroughly. Therefore, those who practice the twelve links and attain the fruit of the Pratyekabuddha occupy a higher position than the arhat's fruit; they have eradicated more ignorance, and their meditative concentration and wisdom are deeper than the arhat's. Ignorance has many levels; the Pratyekabuddha has not ultimately eradicated ignorance either—only the Buddhas have ultimately and completely terminated ignorance and birth and death.

3. The Key Link for Extinguishing Suffering 

If one wants to extinguish birth, aging, sickness, death, sorrow, grief, suffering, and distress (śoka-parideva-duḥkha-daurmanasyopāyāsa), which link in the dharma of the twelve links of dependent origination is most crucial? Or, which link in the dharma of the twelve links most directly leads to birth, aging, sickness, death, sorrow, grief, suffering, and distress? Some say it is grasping; some say greedy craving; some say feeling; some say contact; some say the six sense bases; some say name-and-form; some say the six consciousnesses; some say volitional formations; some say ignorance.

First, consider: as long as grasping is extinguished and there is no more grasping, the becoming of future lives will not appear, and birth and death will from then on disappear. So grasping is still rather crucial; without grasping, there are no causal conditions for birth in future lives. If one wants to extinguish grasping, how should one do it? If a person is very greedily craving, can they extinguish grasping? Absolutely not, so eradicating greedy craving is also crucial. The eradication of greedy craving must come after eradicating the view of self and cultivating the first-dhyāna concentration; only then does one have the ability to eradicate it. One who has eradicated greedy craving is a person of the third or fourth fruit.

But if a person continually feels, can greedy craving be eradicated and not arise? Absolutely not, so extinguishing feeling is also crucial. How to extinguish feeling? Feeling is produced from contacting states; only by reducing and extinguishing contact can feeling be reduced and extinguished, so extinguishing contact is also crucial. How to extinguish contact? With the inner six sense bases, there will be continual contact; not to contact is uncomfortable—not contacting will not do—so extinguishing the inner six sense bases is very crucial.

How to extinguish the inner six sense bases? The inner six sense bases come from name-and-form; with name-and-form there are the inner six sense bases, so extinguishing name-and-form is very crucial. How to extinguish name-and-form? Name-and-form comes from the karmic seeds of previous lives; karmic seeds are left by the six consciousnesses' creation of bodily, verbal, and mental actions. If the six consciousnesses do not create bodily, verbal, and mental actions, there will be no seeds of the three realms, and there will be no birth of name-and-form five aggregates in future lives; birth and death will be ended. So eradicating the six consciousnesses and their bodily, verbal, and mental actions is very crucial. How to extinguish the six consciousnesses? The arising of the six consciousnesses is determined by the manas. If the manas wants to create bodily, verbal, and mental actions, the six consciousnesses will inevitably arise and create in compliance with the manas's mental activity. That the manas has intent toward the dharmas of the three realms' world and moves within the three realms' world is due to the manas's ignorance; as long as the manas has ignorance, it will inevitably have mental activity and will inevitably want to create karmic actions.

So eradicating the ignorance of the manas is very crucial. Once ignorance is eradicated, the world of the five aggregates of the three realms will inevitably be extinguished completely—not even a speck of dust will appear. How to extinguish ignorance completely? In practice, one must first subdue the manas's mental activity, subdue the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses, subdue the contact of the six sense bases, subdue feeling, subdue greedy desire, subdue the grasping mind; only afterward can they be eradicated, until completely extinguished. The process of subduing is the process of practicing the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment and the Eightfold Noble Path, the process of practicing morality, concentration, and wisdom. After subduing, when the precepts are strict, meditative concentration has advanced, wisdom has increased, and body and mind are tranquil and at ease, before long there will be the first metamorphosis—rebirth as a new person; then the pure dharma eye arises, the first fruit is realized, and one enters meditative absorption (samādhi). The second metamorphosis occurs after the first-dhyāna concentration is cultivated; afflictions are shed and eradicated in sequence, and when self-grasping (ātma-grāha) is fully eradicated, one is liberated from the suffering of the three realms' world.

When one link is subdued, the other links will be subdued in sequence; when one link is eradicated, the other links will be eradicated in sequence. Among them, eradicating ignorance is the most fundamental; if ignorance is not eradicated, none of the other links can be fully eradicated—they will still take root and sprout. When there is meditative concentration, contact will decrease, feeling will decrease, craving will decrease, and grasping will decrease; these links are thereby subdued. But if ignorance is not eradicated, these links will still flourish. The mind of renunciation has not arisen because suffering has not been recognized; failure to recognize suffering is because of ignorance—ignorance is rather heavy.

The key to these afflictions of birth and death, to this ignorance of birth and death, all lies with the manas. Subduing the manas and eradicating the manas's ignorance is most crucial. If the manas has ignorance, it will seek after objects; then it will make choices; then the six consciousnesses arise; then bodily, verbal, and mental actions are created; then karmic seeds are stored; then conception occurs and name-and-form is born—a new round of birth and death appears again. Thus it cycles round and round without end. Eradicating the view of self and realizing the first fruit is the first eradication of the manas's ignorance—only part of the manas's ignorance is eradicated. Continuing to practice, another portion is eradicated; with wisdom and meditative absorption advancing, the second fruit is realized, then the third fruit; when the ignorance and afflictions of the three realms are fully eradicated, the fourth fruit is realized. So the first fruit necessarily eradicates the manas's view of self, only eradicating a little, only a portion—the relatively coarse and heavy part.

4. The Forward Gate of Birth and Death of the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination

The first link of the twelve links of dependent origination is ignorance. All sentient beings have ignorance; ignorance is the root of birth and death, the cause that creates birth and death. What is ignorance? Ignorance is darkness in the mind—not understanding, not knowing. Not understanding what? Not understanding birth, aging, sickness, and death; not understanding the five aggregates and eighteen dhātus; not understanding the Four Noble Truths and the dharma of the twelve links of dependent origination; not understanding the real mark of the dharma realm; not understanding the principle of ending birth and death and ultimately becoming a Buddha—all this not-understanding is ignorance.

With ignorance there are the karmic actions of ignorance; the second link of the twelve links is volitional formations—ignorance conditions volitional formations (avidyā-pratyayāḥ saṃskārāḥ). Because the manas has ignorance, in order to seek after the myriad dharmas, it produces various bodily, verbal, and mental actions; thus karmic seeds will inevitably be retained. Then comes the third link of the twelve links: volitional formations condition consciousness—the karmic seeds of the six consciousnesses appear; with karmic seeds, the name-and-form of future lives must inevitably be produced. Bodily actions refer to the various creations of the five-aggregate body: production, business, career, politics, maintaining the existence of the physical body, and so on. Verbal actions are actions such as verbalized initial application and sustained examination (vitarka-vicāra), thinking, speech and conduct, and so on. Mental actions refer to psychological activities such as discursive thoughts, plans, mental calculations, deliberation (manasikāra/manana), recollection, inference, judgment, imagination, and so on.

All actions of sentient beings are inseparable from the creations of these three actions of body, speech, and mind. Because of ignorance, bodily, verbal, and mental actions correspond with the afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion; what is created are defiled karmic actions, and defiled karmic seeds will be stored by the Ālayavijñāna; in the future, when the karmic seeds mature, the retributive body of future lives will be born, and thus the afflictions of birth and death are unceasing. Because there are karmic seeds created by the six consciousnesses, there will be retribution in future lives; thus the fourth link of the twelve links, consciousness conditions name-and-form, is produced. What is name-and-form? "Name" means dharmas that have only names but no physical form; at the moment of conception it refers to the seventh consciousness; when the six faculties are complete it refers to the seven deluded consciousnesses, that is, the four aggregates of feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness. "Form" is the fertilized egg, representing the body. Name-and-form represents the body-and-mind five aggregates; the physical body together with the conscious mind is called name-and-form.

The fifth link of the twelve links is name-and-form conditions the six sense bases. The six sense bases are the six faculties through which the six sense objects enter. As name-and-form grows, the five faculties are produced; together with the originally existing manas, they constitute the six sense bases. Because there is name-and-form, the six sense bases are produced. The sixth link is the six sense bases condition contact. The existence of the faculties is precisely for contacting the six sense objects, so with the six sense bases there is inevitably contact. The eye faculty contacts form objects, the ear faculty contacts sound objects, the nose faculty contacts smell objects, the tongue faculty contacts taste objects, the body faculty contacts tangible objects, the manas contacts dharma objects. After the six sense bases contact the six sense objects, the six consciousnesses are produced, and there is feeling, initial application and sustained examination (vitarka-vicāra), and discernment.

After contact, feeling arises; so the seventh link of the twelve links is contact conditions feeling. This feeling is first of all receiving, experiencing, and sensing; afterward there are pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings (upekṣā-vedanā). For example, when the ear faculty contacts sound objects, the ear consciousness and mind consciousness arise and discern, and there will be feelings of pain, pleasure, and neither-pain-nor-pleasure: hearing music brings a pleasant feeling; hearing quarreling brings a painful feeling. Contact conditioning feeling is the result of the six faculties contacting the six sense objects. After feeling, greedy craving arises; so the eighth link of the twelve links is feeling conditions craving. Once feeling is produced, there will further be mental states of liking and disliking, and the hope for further seeing, hearing, perceiving, and knowing.

Once greedy craving is produced, one will grasp at sense objects, having mental actions of choosing among them; so the ninth link of the twelve links is craving conditions grasping—hoping that the sense objects one likes will exist forever without being lost, and that states one dislikes will immediately disappear and not appear. Because there are mental actions of possessing and grasping, the Ālayavijñāna complies with the manas's grasping, and the vessel-world of the three realms and the five-aggregate body of future lives are produced; so the tenth link of the twelve links is grasping conditions becoming. The three realms comprise the five aggregates and eighteen dhātus of the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm. The desire realm has men and women, sexual desire, and means of survival: wealth, sex, fame, food, and sleep. The form realm has the five aggregates and eighteen dhātus of heavenly beings without gender distinction, and palaces of the form-realm heavens. The formless realm has the three consciousnesses of the sixth, seventh, and eighth, and dharma objects, without a physical body or the five sense objects—hence it is called the formless realm. Because of the manas's grasping at the dharmas of the three realms, the dharmas of the three realms are drawn forth, and the birth-and-death suffering of the three realms appears.

The eleventh link of the twelve links is becoming conditions birth: because the causes and conditions of three-realm becoming are complete, life will be born in the three realms. Only when the conditions for survival are complete can life be born; if not complete, it cannot be born. For example, moisture-born beings can only survive in a moist environment, where the life body can be born; if a place is very dry, without moisture, moisture-born beings cannot be born. Only in a moist environment can there be mosquitoes and insects; so beings of the four births and nine existences can only be born when causes and conditions are complete. The more the manas grasps, the faster the conditions become complete, and the faster life is born.

Where there is birth there must be death; there is simply no such thing as not aging and not dying. So after life is born, it will gradually grow and age and die, and the suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and death appears; all sorrow, grief, suffering, and distress, the great mass of suffering, appears. So the last link of the twelve links is birth conditions aging-and-death. Non-Buddhists cultivating the way of immortals wish to never die; but in reality, no matter how long sentient beings live, they will ultimately die—birth, aging, sickness, and death constitute one cycle of life. All things have arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing; humans have birth, aging, sickness, and death; even the universe's vessel-world has the cycle of formation, abiding, destruction, and voidness. Every sentient being, once born, will have death—this is unavoidable. The above is the forward twelve links of dependent origination, the forward gate of birth and death.

5. The Reverse Gate of Birth and Death of the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination

Reversing the twelve links of dependent origination—reversing them means reversing birth and death, ending birth and death, and being liberated from the suffering of birth and death. The first link of the reverse twelve links is the aging-and-death link. Why does the phenomenon of aging and death appear? Because there is birth; once born, one must age and must die. The second link of the reverse contemplation is the birth link. Why is there birth—why can life appear in the world? Because the manas grasps at the dharmas of the three realms, the vessel-world of the three realms will appear, and the five-aggregate body appears along with it. The third link is the becoming link; the fourth is the grasping link. Why do sentient beings grasp at the worldly dharmas of the three realms? Because there is greedy craving in the mind. The fifth link is the craving link. Why is there greedy craving? Because there are perceptions and feelings toward the states of the six sense objects in the three realms; with feelings, greedy craving is produced. The sixth link is feeling. Why does feeling appear? Because there is contact—the six faculties always contact the six sense objects, and the seven consciousnesses have perceptions toward the contacted objects.

The seventh link is the contact link. Why is there contact? Because there are the six sense bases, which will contact the six sense objects. The eighth link is the six-sense-bases link. Why are there the six sense bases? Because there is name-and-form; as name-and-form grows, the six sense bases appear. The ninth link is the name-and-form link. Why is there name-and-form? Because the six consciousnesses continually create bodily, verbal, and mental actions, and karmic seeds are stored; name-and-form corresponding to the karmic seeds must inevitably be born. The tenth link is the consciousness link. Why do the karmic seeds of the six consciousnesses appear? Because the manas's mental activity is unceasing, impelling the six consciousnesses to continually create bodily, verbal, and mental actions, and the karmic seeds of the six consciousnesses are stored. The eleventh link is the volitional-formations link. Why are bodily, verbal, and mental karmic actions unceasing? Because the manas has ignorance and its seeking after the world is unceasing, causing the twelve links of dependent origination to cycle round and round. The last link is ignorance. This is the reverse deduction of the twelve links of dependent origination.

There is also another ten-link dharma of reverse deduction of the twelve links, which deduces back to name-and-form. Tracing to the root and source, there is a fundamental contemplation: contemplating what the true source of name-and-form is, where the source of life is, and how name-and-form is born—from where does name-and-form actually come? When the Pratyekabuddhas deduce back to this point, they know that the source of name-and-form is the Ālayavijñāna; name-and-form is born by the Ālayavijñāna. Deducing back further from the Ālayavijñāna, there is no dharma; the Ālayavijñāna is the source of birth and death. The link of volitional formations conditioning consciousness and the link of ignorance conditioning volitional formations are merely assisting conditions for the birth of name-and-form. In the intermediate state (antarā-bhava), the manas takes the Ālayavijñāna to conceive; without the Ālayavijñāna, the manas would not exist and could not conceive. So the source of name-and-form is the Ālayavijñāna—this is called "name-and-form is conditioned on consciousness."

Although sentient beings have ignorance, if there were only ignorance without the Ālayavijñāna, name-and-form still could not be born—there would not even be ignorance. So the direct source of sentient beings' birth is the Ālayavijñāna; without the Ālayavijñāna, there would be neither ignorance, nor birth, aging, sickness, and death, nor the world of the three realms. Because it is the Ālayavijñāna that produces the fertilized egg, the name-and-form of this fertilized egg relies on the Ālayavijñāna to grow and change. So name-and-form comes directly from the Ālayavijñāna, and the Ālayavijñāna also relies on name-and-form in order to manifest.

Apart from name-and-form, the Ālayavijñāna cannot manifest and function—this is called "consciousness conditions name-and-form, name-and-form is conditioned on consciousness"; consciousness and name-and-form depend on each other. Since the Ālayavijñāna exists, when practice extinguishes the ignorance in the twelve links and one enters nirvāṇa, one does not become a nihilistic emptiness (uccheda-śūnyatā) of having nothing at all—there is still the nirvāṇa's basic boundary, the Ālayavijñāna, existing. Every link of the twelve links of dependent origination takes the Ālayavijñāna as its fundamental basis; otherwise it would become the fallacy of causelessness with only conditions. Only thus do the fourth-fruit arhats and Pratyekabuddha-Buddhas dare to enter nirvāṇa without remainder—because nirvāṇa is not annihilatory emptiness.

6. The Decisive Role of the Manas in the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination

That sentient beings have birth, aging, sickness, and death—the great mass of suffering—is entirely because of ignorance, and this ignorance is the ignorance of the manas. Only when the manas has ignorance is there the mental factor of volition; only afterward do the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses appear; with bodily, verbal, and mental actions, karmic seeds appear. The second and third links of the twelve links both appear because of the manas. The bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses exist in compliance with the manas; the seeds that fall away also exist because of the manas's mental activity. So the name-and-form of future lives exists because of the manas's ignorance and seeking. Therefore the manas has an absolutely dominant role in birth and death, and a propelling role in all other dharmas. If the manas is defiled, the six consciousnesses are defiled, the seeds are defiled, and the painful feelings of name-and-form are many—especially the sufferings of the three evil destinies.

After name-and-form grows, the six sense bases are born. The contact of the six sense bases with the six sense objects is decided by the manas: when the manas seeks much, contact is much, and the karma of birth and death is much; when seeking is little, contact is little, and the karma of birth and death is little. As for the feeling, craving, and grasping after contact—although there are the feeling, craving, and grasping of the six consciousnesses, what actually plays the decisive role and can draw forth the arising of the next link is the manas's feeling, craving, and grasping. Without the manas's feeling, craving, and grasping, the next link would not appear. The last three links—becoming, birth, and aging-and-death—appear entirely because of the manas's grasping. So in the appearance of the cycle of birth and death, the manas plays the decisive role.

The twelve links of dependent origination clarify that the manas is the root of birth and death; both liberation and downfall lie with the manas. To end birth and death, one must resolve the problem of the manas and destroy the manas's ignorance. The manas is also the root of the Four Noble Truths of suffering, its origin, cessation, and the path: suffering comes from the manas's ignorant mental activity impelling the six consciousnesses to create karma; origin (accumulation) comes from the seeds left by the manas impelling the six consciousnesses to create karma; cessation is the eradication of the manas's ignorant mental activity; the path is obtained by the manas realizing the dharma.

Since the manas has such an enormous decisive role in the cycle of birth and death, the manas possesses all the mental factors (caittas), including all wholesome mental factors, afflictive mental factors, and neither-wholesome-nor-unwholesome mental factors. The manas's mental factors determine the mental factors of the five sense consciousnesses and determine the mental factors of the mind consciousness. When the manas's mental factors change, the six consciousnesses' mental factors change, and all dharmas change accordingly. If the manas's mental factors are not changed, even if the six consciousnesses' mental factors change, they will change back again. If the manas's afflictions are not severed, even if the mind consciousness severs afflictions, they will arise anew. If the manas lacks meditative concentration, even if the six consciousnesses have concentration, it cannot last long and will inevitably become scattered again. So the manas plays the decisive role in the twelve links of dependent origination, and cultivating the manas is extremely important.