nidanas

Nidanas, in Buddhist thought, are the twelve links in the chain of dependent origination that describe how suffering arises and is sustained in the cycle of samsara. The nidanas outline a conditional sequence from ignorance to aging and death, and they are used to understand how attachment and craving perpetuate existence. They also serve as a framework for insight and practice aimed at breaking the chain and attaining NIRVANA.

1) Avidya (ignorance): fundamental misperception of reality, especially regarding impermanence, non-self, and causality.

2) Sankhara (formations): volitional and mental formations shaped by ignorance; habits and karmic tendencies.

3) Vijnana (consciousness): basic awareness that arises in contact with conditions.

4) Namarupa (name-and-form): the mental and physical constituents that constitute experience.

5) Salayatana (the six sense bases): the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind together with their objects.

6) Phassa (contact): the contact between sense bases and their objects.

7) Vedana (feeling): sensations arising from contact, pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.

8) Tanha (craving): craving for sensual pleasures, existence, and non-existence.

9) Upadana (clinging): intensified attachment to ideas, objects, and experiences.

10) Bhava (becoming): the process of existence or becoming that leads toward birth.

11) Jati (birth): the arising of a new life or existence.

12) Jaramarana (aging and death): decay, suffering, and eventual death that follow birth.

Together, the nidanas illustrate conditionality and the perpetuation of suffering. They are central to Theravada and broader Buddhist teachings, and understanding or disrupting the chain is linked to the path to liberation.