Where Lies the Critical Link to Sever the Twelve Nidānas?

The Twelve Links of Dependent Origination span the three lifetimes: ignorance, volitional formations, and consciousness are the branches from the past life; name-and-form, the six sense bases, contact, feeling, craving, and clinging are the branches of the present life; becoming, birth, and aging-and-death are the branches of the future life. When contemplating this principle, there are two methods: sequential and reverse. Contemplating sequentially through the Twelve Links reveals how the mental faculty (manas), due to ignorance, gives rise to volitional formations, which produce the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses, leading to the suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and death of the five aggregates in future lives. Contemplating in reverse through the Twelve Links has two branches. One branch traces name-and-form back to being born from the karmic actions created by the six consciousnesses in the past life, and then further traces back to the ignorance of the mental faculty. The other branch traces name-and-form back to the source of birth and death, the ālaya-vijñāna.

Regarding the first branch of reverse dependent origination, starting from aging-and-death and tracing backwards successively to birth, becoming, clinging, craving, feeling, contact, the six sense bases, name-and-form, the six consciousnesses, volitional formations, and ignorance, where is the key point for severing birth and death in the present life? It lies in the four links: clinging, craving, feeling, and contact. Because name-and-form and the six sense bases are necessary and cannot be eliminated now—to eliminate them would require suicide, and even suicide cannot avoid birth, aging, sickness, and death in future lives—and the karmic actions of the six consciousnesses are seeds sown by past actions; even repentance cannot eliminate the five aggregates of name-and-form. Therefore, to seek liberation from birth and death in future lives, one must focus on cultivating the four links of contact, feeling, craving, and clinging. The latter three links flow out from contact; they all arise directly or indirectly with contact as the condition. Thus, contact is a crucial link.

Contact is the contact of the six faculties with the six objects, that is, the contact of the internal six sense bases with the external six sense bases. Afterwards, the six consciousnesses arise to cognize, then feeling arises, and subsequently greed and hatred appear. Attachment to the objects of the six dusts will then follow. These karmic actions will lead to the suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and death in this life and future lives. How can one avoid contact with the six dusts? One must reduce and eliminate the grasping nature of the mental faculty. If the mental faculty does not grasp at the six dusts, it will be unwilling to contact them. If there is no contact with the six dusts, nothing further happens; the mind becomes pure. Therefore, the key still lies with the mental faculty. How can the mental faculty cease grasping at the six dusts? First, cultivate concentration (dhyāna). Second, understand the principle through contemplation, observing the impermanence and arising-and-ceasing nature of the objects of the six dusts. When the mental faculty is no longer interested in the objects of the six dusts, it will automatically reduce grasping, thereby reducing the frequency and duration of contact, and gradually the mind will become pure. When the mind is pure, there is no feeling; without feeling, there is no craving; without craving, there is no clinging.

Since beginningless kalpas, the six faculties of sentient beings have been accustomed to contacting the six dusts; it is very difficult to subdue and remove this entirely. Sometimes, contact is necessary for survival or is passive. Once contact occurs, one must reduce feeling or have no feeling. If one can achieve contact without mental engagement, there is no feeling; without feeling, there is no craving; without craving, there is no clinging. To achieve little feeling or no feeling, one must have meditative concentration and also the wisdom of contemplative insight (vipaśyanā). Only then can the mind be empty, transcend appearances, be unaffected by objects, and be pure; thus, it will not cling to objects.

If being unaffected by objects is difficult and cannot be fully achieved, then when experiencing feelings towards objects, one should try not to give rise to greed or hatred. One must contemplate the impermanence and falsity of feeling, contemplate the arising-and-ceasing and impermanence of objects; then the mind can be subdued, and greed and hatred can be reduced. Craving and feeling are closely connected; it is difficult not to give rise to craving when feeling arises. At this time, one must have meditative concentration; the power of concentration must be strong to subdue craving, or even eradicate it. Eradicating craving requires at least the first dhyāna or higher. In the practice of all dharmas, one cannot be without meditative concentration. If concentration is shallow, afflictions cannot be subdued, much less eradicated, and liberation becomes hopeless.

If one fails at subduing craving in this link, then clinging to what is craved is almost inevitable; avoiding clinging becomes extremely difficult. Clinging ceases only upon perfecting the third fruition (anāgāmi); at the fourth fruition (arhat), clinging no longer occurs. A momentary instance of clinging might be unavoidable, but immediately after, it is severed by wisdom. If such phenomena persist, it indicates an arhat whose liberation is not yet firm; continuous preparatory practice (prayoga) must be performed until the moment of final nirvāṇa without residue at death.

In summary, the four links of contact, feeling, craving, and clinging are all crucial. Only by subduing and eradicating the preceding link can the subsequent link possibly not arise. Therefore, the most critical link for liberation is contact. In the practice of all dharmas, the environment is a very important factor. When all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas practiced, they did so in quiet and secluded places, free from disturbances and affairs, minimizing contact. Thus, their progress was swift, and enlightenment was achieved quickly. Therefore, in our practice, even when we must accord with conditions, we should still create more causes and conditions for quiet cultivation, minimizing the causes and conditions for contact, to facilitate practice. In bustling places, it is impossible to accomplish the path.