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What Are the Twelve Nidanas?

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Illustration by Ray Fenwick.

The 12 nidanas, which are pictured as the outer circle in the Wheel of Life, describe the chain of causation by which the cycle of death and rebirth known as samsara is created. They are also known as the 12 links of dependent origination. With basic ignorance as the first cause, each link in the chain is both the result of the previous nidana and the cause of the next. This sequence operates moment to moment as well as lifetime to lifetime.

  1. Fundamental ignorance (Pali: avidya)
  2. Formation (sankhara)
  3. Consciousness (vinnana)
  4. Name and form (namarupa) 
  5. Sense faculties (salayatana)
  6. Contact (phassa)
  7. Feeling or sensation (vedana)
  8. Craving or thirst (tanha)
  9. Clinging or grasping (upadana)
  10. Becoming or worldly existence (bhava)
  11. Birth or becoming (jati)
  12. Old age and death (jaramarana)

Then we start all over again. 

 

See also: Read a featured teaching by Francesca Fremantle on the Wheel of Life.

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