<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation:  SN 12-21 The Group of Connected Discourses Beginning With Causation – Nidānavaggasaṁyutta > SN 12 Connected Discourses on Causation – Nidānasaṁyutta

The “Connected Discourses on Causation” is a major collection containing 93 discourses on the core Buddhist teaching of dependent origination. Dependent origination presents a series of conditional links laying bare how suffering originates and how it ends. As such, it is an extended treatment of the second and third noble truths. It integrates psychological and existential aspects of suffering, showing how when bound by attachment we make saṅkhāra that bind us to transmigrating into future lives. One of the core purposes is to explain how rebirth takes place without having to invoke metaphysical concepts such as a “soul”. The collection begins by defining each of the terms in the standard 12-linked chain, definitions which are assumed to apply throughout. Remaining discourses iterate on this theme, introducing new perspectives and formulations.