Pali Vocabulary

緣起

Dependent Origination / Dependent Co-arising

compound: paṭicca (depending on, based on) + samuppāda (arising together — from saṃ + uppāda)

The teaching of conditioned co-arising — the most philosophically profound teaching in early Buddhism. It explains the arising and cessation of dukkha through twelve interdependent links: (1) Avijjā (ignorance) → (2) Saṅkhārā (formations) → (3) Viññāṇa (consciousness) → (4) Nāmarūpa (name-and-form) → (5) Saḷāyatana (six sense bases) → (6) Phassa (contact) → (7) Vedanā (feeling) → (8) Taṇhā (craving) → (9) Upādāna (clinging) → (10) Bhava (becoming) → (11) Jāti (birth) → (12) Jarā-maraṇa (aging-and-death). The cessation works in reverse: with the cessation of ignorance, formations cease; and so on.

無明

Ignorance / Unknowing

feminine noun (ā-stem): a- (not) + vijjā (knowledge/science)

The first and root link of Dependent Origination — the fundamental ignorance about the nature of reality, specifically not knowing (a-vijjā): dukkha, the origin of dukkha, the cessation of dukkha, and the path to the cessation of dukkha (i.e., the Four Noble Truths). Avijjā is not mere lack of information but a fundamental misperception that takes what is impermanent, suffering, and not-self to be permanent, pleasurable, and self. Its cessation, through insight into the Three Characteristics, is the cessation of the entire chain of dependent origination.