I think you got some ideas since you mention about the pools. As promised, here is my example.
Notes: I do not claim that this is it or I have fully uncovered DO. However, because I am not satisfied with any current explanations, I started my own. I did this a couple of times, found problems then fixed them, and here is my current understanding. It may not be perfect, but that’s what I have. I will need to continue perfecting it. If you have better explanations than mine, please share it with me.
Since my English is not very good, it is hard for me to express exactly what I tried to say, so please be patient and just take the ideas. If you do not like this, you can ignore it. I only tried to bring up something new for our exploration. However, feel free to question the ideas with an open mind. If I can answer, I will.
DO does not go straight from ignorance to aging-and-death in one shot. It is like a small pond when it has the right condition, it will over and over fill up another bigger pond, and this bigger pond when it has the right condition it will over and over fill up another bigger one downstream…(This is like the pond simile you mentioned.)
Ignorance will fill up volitional formations. It will do this over and over until it meets the right conditions for consciousness to arise. When consciousness is ready then the process will fill up name-and-form…and so on.
As I see, we got stuck with DO because we take name-and-form as a being. We ignored its definition, so we do not see why the definition is there, and why nama has all of those components. Why do we have 2 contacts, 2 feelings in DO? What about perception, intention and attention for? How the six senses can arise and cease for each experience?
I will make an extremely simple example, and ignore some other details to make it easier to understand.
Dependent Origination
To make it simple, Assume that a man wants to marry a beautiful girl.
By ignorance, he keeps thinking about a beautiful girl, how she should be. He talks about how she should be, he goes out and searches for one (We have 3 components of formations here: body, speech, mind). Volitional formations arise. Doing so for days, months… One day, he sees a beautiful girl who fits with what he is looking for. He recognizes that is the girl that he is looking for (eye-consciousness arises). He intentionally pays attention to her, he has eye-contact with her. He perceives her as beautiful as he wishes for. He has the good feeling born from that eye-contact. (We can see that we have: intention, attention, contact, perception, feeling. This is nama, and the form of the girl is rupa. Now we can see how the mind connects to the rupa). Name-and-form arises. With this, he opens all his six senses to her (Six senses arise) He smells her perfume, he shakes her hand, he thinks about what she said. He now has established full contact with her (eye-contact, nose-contact, mind-contact…). Contact arises. With full contact, he has feeling born of eye-contact, feeling born of nose-contact, feeling born of body contact…). Feeling arises. The longer he continues the more feelings he has. He feels good about her.
Since he likes her, he will try to continue seeing her over and over. For days, months, even years… He builds up his feelings to the point that he craves her (Craving arises). Doing so for a long time, he clings to her (Clinging arises). He feels that he cannot live without her, so he decides to marry her. Now, she is his wife. He is very happy with that. He loves her so much. Now he built up his existence with an additional member. He is happy with this new member. With this new existence, he has another birth together with his own birth. Now, besides his own birth will lead him to aging-and-death, this new birth is also leading to aging-and-death.
Dependent Cessation
Assume that a man wants to marry a beautiful girl, he has met the girl and he feels good about her, but he now has wisdom.
With the cessation of ignorance, he no longer thinks about her, he no longer talks about her, he no longer goes out to meet her. With the cessation of volitional formations, he is no longer conscious about her. With no consciousness about her, there is no intentionally paying attention to her, there is no eye-contact with her. Without these, there is no connection between his mind and the girl. Name-and-form ceased. With name-and-form ceased, his six senses are not available for her. Six senses ceased. Contact ceased, Feeling ceased, craving ceased, clinging ceased, existence ceased, birth ceased, aging-and-death ceased.
Notes: Note that existence (bhava) here is the total of all forms, feelings, perception, volitional formations, consciousness that he accumulated in his life. This includes his own form, his feelings about himself… her form, his feelings about her, his perception about her…In this case, what ceased in the existence (bhava) are her form, his feelings about her, his perception about her…
Birth (Jati) is the accumulation of all births that he brings to his life. If he already married her then birth is his own birth and her birth. The cessation of birth is the cessation of her birth in this case. Her birth no longer belongs to birth. Here aging-and-death no longer belongs to aging-and-death. Now the only thing left is his own birth and his own aging-and-death that he will need to deal with.
Do this for everything that he has then he will be free from all sufferings.
DO also happens after death. This is how he got his life now. However, this is another big topic.
It is hard to explain all of these in this short example. Moreover my English is not very good, so it is hard for me to explain this complex concept. However, that’s the best I could do.