I think many times the chain in the second and third truths ends with something like this:
Birth is ill, old age and decay, sickness, death, sorrow, grief, woe, lamentation, and despair are ill. Not to get what one desires is ill. In short, the five groups based on grasping are ill.
(AN 3.61; tr. Pali Text Society vol. I p 160)
I have trouble interpreting “in short, the five groups based on grasping are ill” as referring to any life but this one.
A favorite for me:
That which we will…, and that which we intend to do and that wherewithal we are occupied:–this becomes an object for the persistance of consciousness. The object being there, there comes to be a station of consciousness. Consciousness being stationed and growing, rebirth of renewed existance takes place in the future, and here from birth, decay, and death, grief, lamenting, suffering, sorrow, and despair come to pass. Such is the uprising of this mass of ill.
Even if we do not will, or intend to do, and yet are occupied with something, this too becomes an object for the persistance of consciousness… whence birth… takes place.
But if we neither will, nor intend to do, nor are occupied about something, there is no becoming of an object for the persistance of consciousness. The object being absent, there comes to be no station of consciousness. Consciousness not being stationed and growing, no rebirth of renewed existence takes place in the future, and herefrom birth, decay-and-death, grief, lamenting, suffering, sorrow and despair cease. Such is the ceasing of this entire mass of ill.
(SN 12.38; tr. PTS vol II p 45)
My understanding is that the “activities” that follow ignorance in the more traditional formula is a reference to volitional activity of the body, of speech, and of mind. I was interested to find Sujato’s translation of “bhava” was “being”, as in " “craving to continue, to survive, to be” (What is Bhava (becoming)? - #6 by sujato). That makes sense to me with regard to the cankers, translated by Rhy David as “craving for the life of sense”, “craving for becoming”, and “craving for not-becoming” (DN 22; PTS vol. ii p 340)–“craving for becoming” is the craving to be, which makes the “craving for not-becoming” the craving for the ignorance of *being"–ignorance, of course, the first link in so many iterations of dependent origination.
Ignorance of being, of what is, giving rise to the activities, giving rise to consciousness, or as in the passage I quoted the persistence of consciousness.
I get the sense that Gauatama’s teaching changed over time. Certainly, Satipatthana and Maha Satipatthana only match Anapanasati in the first four particulars, and the Anapanasati formulation of mindfulness is the same formulation given in response to the suicide of scores of monks (in SN 54.9), a possible turning point in the teaching.