Causes and conditions

The heart of the Buddha’s teaching lies in the principle of dependent origination (paṭiccasamuppāda): all phenomena arise dependent on causes and conditions. Nothing exists independently; nothing comes into being without prior conditions; and nothing endures apart from the processes that sustain it.

Understanding this deeply transforms how we see the world. What we ordinarily take to be solid, independent entities — a self, emotions, thoughts, objects — are revealed to be transient patterns arising through countless interacting factors. Like a wave on the ocean, each phenomenon depends on a multitude of unseen influences that give it temporary form before it dissolves.

Causes and conditions operate across multiple levels: physical, mental, social, and karmic. Present experience is shaped not only by present choices but by long chains of prior actions, habitual tendencies, and inherited patterns. This perspective softens judgment and blame, fostering compassion — both for oneself and others — as we recognise the complexity underlying all actions and experiences.

Crucially, the law of causes and conditions also points to freedom. Since suffering arises dependent on conditions, it can cease when those conditions are understood and released. By removing the fuel — craving, clinging, ignorance — the fire of suffering naturally extinguishes. Liberation is not achieved by force, but by skillfully altering the conditions that sustain delusion.

In this way, dependent origination reveals both the deep interconnection of all things and the possibility of freedom inherent within that very web of causality.

“When this is, that is. From the arising of this, that arises. When this is not, that is not. From the cessation of this, that ceases.”
— Samyutta Nikaya 12.61