So how does consciousness transmigrate? What’s the mechanism?
I belief:
Based on ignorance we have always had urges, an impetus, a motivational vinnana (3 factor PS).
During many lives we have made this vinnana with urge, with impetus, strong. We fed it.
That has led to the current situation that we cannot anymore just perceive things without urge, without impetus. This leads to constant anxiety and unrest.
The kamma-vinnana, (3 factor) the vinnana with motivation, with urge, is never ever noble. It can be meritorious or demeritorious but not noble. Noble is the domain without urge, without impetus.
This is, i belief, described in MN117
We have never understood that feeding this vinnana-with-urge is the motor of samsara and the ground for our own unrest. Our inability to just perceive and relate to what we perceive in a non-emotional and non-reactive way. That inability shows how strong we have made the vinnana with urge (3 factor)
Now we understand this we can see we must not feed that vinnana with urge, with impetus, that kamma-vinnana.
So, based on ignorance (first factor) there were in former lives and are in this life urges arising in the mind, there is impetus, (sankhara’s, 2 factor) which can be meritorious or demeritorious but do not lead to the end of suffering. This leads to a loaded vinnana, kamma vinnana (3 factor). A vinnana with urge or impetus. Its’nature is re-active.
When ignorance ceases the urges cease. When the urges cease there does not arise a vinnana with an urge. All sense contact become just sense-contacts without urge. That is the end of ignorance-contact.
Also the sense of Me arises out of urge.
Buddha talked about this urge in different ways: asava, tanha and anusaya. Just different angles but refering all to urges, reactive patterns, accumulated and made strong over many lives.
When vinnana with urge becomes strong we cannot even relax anymore because we feel constant the power of that urge and feel we must do something, seek something. And while we do, we again feed the vinnana with urge. It becomes even more difficult to relax. This is being trapped in samsara.
Urge is the fire the Buddha saw everywhere. We are always living on hot embers because we feed the vinnana with urge and do not cool down.
This is, i belief, the meaning of the first 3 factors.
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Hi Martin,
I missed this question when it was posted.
It is my position that each and every sutta in SN 12 is a description of the principle of DO. It seems plausible that the Buddha would use different terms to make the issue more clear. Whether is be upanisa (proximate/based on), āhāra (fuel/support), nidāna (ground/cause), or any of the more common terms for in suttas about DO, the Buddha is describing things that need to be there in order for other things to stand. Makes senses to me that the more directions he were to approach the issue, the more chance that it would be understood.
Based on Carl’s responses to me and his impression of your posts, it seems my intentions here have been misunderstood. I hope this makes what I was saying earlier more clear.
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I find Dependent Orgination (DO) tricky. I can’t claim I fully understand it. However, there are some variations on the basic sequence. A rather interesting one is SN 12.67, which starts off with nama-rupa and consciousness, codependent on each other, like " two bundles of reeds leaning up against each other".
“Just now I understood you to say: ‘No, Reverend Koṭṭhita, name and form are not made by oneself, nor by another, nor by both oneself and another, nor do they arise by chance, not made by oneself or another. Rather, consciousness is a condition for name and form.’
But I also understood you to say: ‘No, Reverend Koṭṭhita, consciousness is not made by oneself, nor by another, nor by both oneself and another, nor does it arise by chance, not made by oneself or another. Rather, name and form are conditions for consciousness.’
How then should we see the meaning of this statement?”
“Well then, reverend, I shall give you a simile. For by means of a simile some sensible people understand the meaning of what is said. Suppose there were two bundles of reeds leaning up against each other.
In the same way, name and form are conditions for consciousness. Consciousness is a condition for name and form. Name and form are conditions for the six sense fields. The six sense fields are conditions for contact. … That is how this entire mass of suffering originates. If the first of those bundles of reeds were to be pulled away, the other would collapse. And if the other were to be pulled away, the first would collapse.
In the same way, when name and form cease, consciousness ceases. When consciousness ceases, name and form cease. When name and form cease, the six sense fields cease. When the six sense fields cease, contact ceases. … That is how this entire mass of suffering ceases.”
I guess name-and-form and consciousness seem more fundamental to me that the six senses. Without that pairing, sense organs or sense consciousness don’t make sense (function as a framework in which sensory perception can operate).
If you think namarupa is the being in DO, then this being does not have the six senses yet since it will need appropriate conditions for the six senses to arise. That means namarupa is a fetus with no sense base.
Assume that is the case, now we have the being with all the six senses. This being can contact the world through the six senses and have feelings, cravings…and sufferings because of ignorance. However, in this case, this process cannot be reversed since after we have the fetus and it gets the six senses, we cannot undo that.
Therefore, if the being is enlightened in this life, there is no ignorance left. Without ignorance, namarupa or the being must cease, the six senses must cease, consciousness must cease. If you think they do not then please explain.
You can try to give us an example or explanation of Dependent Cessation to explain this.
I have found the distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions useful for understanding dependent origination.
As an example, vedana is a necessary but not sufficient condition for tanha.
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To my understanding, DO is not about necessary or sufficient conditions. It is about specific conditionality. I have explained this before.
Hey,
That’s actually another indication that these links do not refer to momentary processes but to rebirth. Because, indeed, an enlightened being is still conscious. Consciousness and namarupa cease only after the enlightened being dies. Because there is no ignorance and no karma, there will be no continuance of consciousness after death.
If we’d say that the links namarupa and consciousness refer to processes in this life, then we would indeed have to say that the enlightened being loses consciousness at the moment of enlightenment. But this is obviously not the case. The Buddha still had all six types of consciousness, and namarupa too.
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If you take namarupa as a being, then that being must cease if he is enlightened. If you do not take namarupa as a being, then you will see differently. However, I will not try to force any view on you, I only try to point out what could be a problem in that view.
You can keep your view if you are still comfortable with it. If you can explain Dependent Cessation using that view, please share with us since that is where we got stuck.
What exactly do you think is the problem with that view?
The factors of dependent arising do not cease immediately when you are enlightened. There is time gap between them. For example, with birth and death there is obviously a gap of decades, usually. And there will be one more death for someone who is enlightened. Death only ceases once the enlightened one is not reborn again, after they die their last time.
Likewise with consciousness and namarupa: they only cease after death. This is the whole point why birth is the reason for suffering, and not craving. Once you are born, you are alive, and you suffer, even if you are enlightened. Only if you don’t live, after the enlightened ones die, there is no more suffering.
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In this view, ignorance has no impact to namarupa. Whether you have ignorance or not, namarupa will remain there until death comes.
That means with cessation of ignorance, there is no cessation of volitional formations, there is no cessation of consciousness, there is no cessation of namarupa until death come. Therefore, death is what causes the cessation of namarupa in this case. The cessation of namarupa depends on death, it is controlled by death. Not by ignorance.
However, dependent origination is a specific conditionality (Idappaccayatā)
When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases. This is a fixed law.
With the cessation of ignorance, cessation of formations; with the cessation of formations, cessation of consciousness; with the cessation of consciousness, cessation of namarupa. The cessation of namarupa is caused by cessation of ignorance regardless of death. It does not depend on death for its cessation. That’s how I understand DO.
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It seems like everyone has their own interpretation of DO.
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“Including some modern idealist kind of ideas (“the world is all in your mind”), which aren’t in line with the Buddha’s, as I see it.”
May I ask how you understand the Loka and Sabba Suttas, (SN 12.44 and SN 35.23)?
While an external world or reality is not denied (beings can experience sicknesses and weather conditions not due to kamma, as we know), the arena of practice appears to be in the citta.
This comes close to a phenomenological view, does it not?
What else can beings practice and work with beyond what appears and is experienced in the citta?
Of course this is not to objectify the mind… 
Respectfully curious about your view on this 
Dependent Origination has been my primary focus ever since I started to take an active interest in Buddhism although I was born to Buddhist parents.
I was never able to get my head around the apparently widely accepted three life interpretation or the one that describes it as a momentary arising and a ceasing.
As such, I have assembled a document which in my humble opinion avoids all the drawbacks. I will eventually publish it for free distribution.
If anyone is interested in reading some original ideas which are based entirely on the discourses and offer constructive criticism, please PM me.
I am not trying to promote anything. If you have been trying to piece together what DO is all about and always get stuck, then you will be benefited by reading it. It is about 240 pages (8’ x 12’) because I cannot explain just the twelve links without getting into detail about everything that contributes to the twelve links.
If you PM me I will gladly e mail the PDF document.
With Metta
Hi. I was browsing the Visuddhimagga, which reminded me of your past post. It says, the same as I suggested:
“So, bhikkhus, that herein which is reality, not unreality, not otherness, specific conditionality: that is called dependent origination” (S II 25f.). Consequently, it should be understood that dependent origination has the characteristic of being the conditions for the states beginning with ageing-and-death. Its function is to continue [the process of] suffering. It is manifested as the wrong path.
Page 534
As I previously posted, the only tradition, so far, I have read that calls the Path to Nibbana in SN 12.23 “dependent origination” is the Buddhadasa tradition.
Regards 
Hi Carl,
It seems you may have missed what I was trying to emphasize earlier, but I am content to leave it where it is for now. Perhaps we can pick it up another time.
By any chance, have we ever conversed on other forums? Something familiar in these discussions. No pressure if you don’t want to say so.
Thank you but for me the above is unnecessary. Again, it does not seem related to any salient “tradition” but Bhikkhu Bodhi seemed to take up the idiosyncrasies of a commentary, seeming to say “becoming” is related to Nibbana:
… the Nettipakarana, a Pali exegetical treatise, has called the second application “transcendental dependent arising” (lokuttara-paticcasamuppada).
When this law of inter-connected becoming, of conditionality and relatedness, is extracted from its usual exemplifications and explored for further doctrinal bearings, it can be found to have other ramifications equally relevant to the realization of the teaching’s fundamental aim.
Transcendental Dependent Arising
A Translation and Exposition of the Upanisa Sutta
by Bhikkhu Bodhi
In the article above, Bhikkhu Bodhi also classifies the twelve-condition doctrine as “mundane”, which seems contrary to the Suttas but consistent with the Nettipakarana, which says:
“Viññāṇe ce, bhikkhave, āhāre sati nāmarūpassa avakkanti hoti, nāmarūpassa avakkantiyā sati punabbhavo hoti, punabbhave sati jāti hoti, jātiyā sati jarāmaraṇaṁ sokaparidevadukkhadomanassupāyāsā sambhavanti. Evametassa kevalassa dukkhakkhandhassa samudayo hoti. Seyyathāpi, bhikkhave, mahārukkho, tassa yāni ceva mūlāni adhogamāni yāni ca tiriyaṅgamāni, sabbāni tāni uddhaṁ ojaṁ abhiharanti. Evaṁ hi so, bhikkhave, mahārukkho tadāhāro tadupādāno ciraṁ dīghamaddhānaṁ tiṭṭheyya. Evameva kho, bhikkhave, viññāṇe āhāre sati nāmarūpassa avakkanti hoti sabbaṁ …pe… evametassa kevalassa dukkhakkhandhassa samudayo hotī”ti. Idaṁ lokiyaṁ (this is mundane/worldly).
Bhikkhu Bodhi seemed to miss the Abhidhamma Vibhanga also seems to refers to a lokuttara-paticcasamuppada, below:
Having done, having developed that same good supramundane jhāna, he, aloof from sense pleasures,* attains and dwells in resultant first jhāna that is hard practice, knowledge slowly acquired and is empty; at that time because of good roots there is activity; because of activity there is consciousness; because of consciousness there is mind; because of mind there is the sixth base; because of the sixth base there is contact; because of contact there is feeling; because of feeling there is faith; because of faith there is decision; because of decision there is becoming; because of becoming there is birth; because of birth there is ageing and death. Thus is the arising of these states.
It follows the “tradition” you unquantifiably spoke about seems to be an Abhidhamma related tradition.
The Nettipakaraṇa (Pali, also called Nettippakarana , abbreviated Netti ) is a mythological Buddhist scripture, sometimes included in the Khuddaka Nikaya of Theravada Buddhism’s Pali Canon. The main theme of this text is Buddhist Hermeneutics through a systematization of the Buddha’s teachings. It is regarded as canonical by the Burmese Theravada tradition, but isn’t included in other Theravada canons. Wikipedia
The Visuddhimagga’s section on Dependent Origination addresses this quite well IMO.
While the above is clear, nama-rupa must also be present in the absence of the embryo or new body, during the stream of consciousness after death (viññana-sotam), no?
Otherwise, how could there be consciousness?
I explored this topic with a Venerable recently and am continuing to clarify my understand – hence this post.