Since it came up above, I just thought I would present Thanissaro’s translation of Sutta Nipata 4:11, where a shorter and somewhat differently organized version of dependent origination is presented.
Sutta Nipata 4:11
“From where have there arisen
quarrels, disputes,
lamentation, sorrows, along with stinginess,
conceit & pride, along with divisiveness?
From where have they arisen?
Please tell me.”
“From what is dear
there have arisen
quarrels, disputes,
lamentation, sorrows, along with stinginess,
conceit & pride, along with divisiveness.
Tied up with stinginess
are quarrels & disputes.
In the arising of disputes
is divisiveness.”
“Where is the cause
of things dear in the world,
along with the greeds that go about in the world?
And where is the cause
of the hopes & aims
for the sake of a person’s next life?”
“Desires are the cause
of things dear in the world,
along with the greeds that go about in the world.
And here too is the cause
of the hopes & aims
for the sake of a person’s next life.”
“Now where is the cause
of desire in the world?
And from where have there arisen
decisions, anger, lies, & perplexity,
and all the qualities
described by the Contemplative?”
“What they call
‘appealing’ &
‘unappealing’
in the world:
In dependence on that,
desire arises.
Having seen becoming & notwith
regard to forms,
a person gives rise to decisions in the world;
anger, lies, & perplexity:
these qualities, too,
when there exists
that very pair.
A person perplexed
should train for the path of knowledge,
for it’s in having known
that the Contemplative has spoken
of qualities/dhammas.”
“Where is the cause
of appealing & un-?
When what isn’t
do they not exist?
And whatever is meant
by becoming & not- :
Tell me,
Where is their cause?”
“Contact is the cause
of appealing & un-.
When contact isn’t,
they do not exist,
along with what’s meant
by becoming & not- :
I tell you,
from here is their cause.”
“Now where is the cause
of contact in the world,
and from where have graspings,
possessions, arisen?
When what isn’t
does there not exist mine-ness?
When what has disappeared
do contacts not touch?”
“Conditioned by name-&-form
is contact.
In longing do graspings,
possessions have their cause.
When longing isn’t,
mine-ness doesn’t exist.
When forms have disappeared
contacts don’t touch.”
“For one how-arriving
does form disappear?
How do pleasure & pain disappear?
Tell me this.
My heart is set
on knowing how
they disappear.”
“One not percipient of perceptions
not percipient of aberrant perceptions,
not unpercipient,
nor percipient of what’s disappeared:
For one thus-arriving,
form disappears —
for objectification-classifications
have their cause in perception.”
“What we have asked,
you’ve expounded to us.
We ask one thing more.
Please tell it.
Do some of the wise
say that just this much is the utmost,
that purity of spirit
is here?
Or do they say
that it’s other than this?”
“Some of the wise
say that just this much is the utmost,
that purity of spirit is here.
But some of them,
who say they are skilled,
say it’s the moment
with no clinging remaining.
But knowing,
‘Having known, they still are dependent,’
the sage ponders dependencies.
On knowing them, released,
he doesn’t get into disputes,
doesn’t meet with becoming & not-
: He’s enlightened.”
We get this account: Disputes and quarrels arise from things held dear; things held dear arise from from desire; desire arises from the appealing and unappealing; the appealing and unappealing depend for their existence on contact; contact is conditioned by name-&-form; name-&-form arises from perception.
If we think of disputes and quarrels as “strife”, then the result is that the cessation of perception ends strife. The Buddha recognizes a distinction among the wise: some seem to say that one needs to end perception altogether to end strife and attain purity of spirit. Others say purity of spirit is attained once attachment ends completely, and for attachment to end one needs to get beyond views and knowledge and be in a state of agnosia.
It is notable that in this sutta, and most of the Sutta Nipata, “name-&-form” seems to refer to any perceived and cognized object. If I see a certain shape(form) and cognize it as “chair”, then name-&-form has arisen for me. My desires and longings are conditioned by my being in a perceived world of conceptualized objects toward which my desires and longings are directed.
I think this is a much more intuitively plausible use of the term name-&-form than the later understanding of it as “mind and body”, and so I suspect that the glosses in later suttas that put name and form earlier in the chain and stretch this process out over lifetimes might have been garbled reinterpretations designed to suit the more scholastic and moralistic conception of the path that emerged from the Buddha’s original mystical and renunciant form.
