Nidānasaṃyutta · SN 12 · Recitation version of Wat Na Pa Pong

The Wheel of Conditions

The Paṭiccasamuppāda drawn like a sky: the twelve links as a circle on the outside, the formula they unfold from on the inside. Violet is arising, rose is cessation, gold is the one point where the chain can break.

The General Formula

Four lines from which the rest follows like an equation that only needs writing out. The word sati here means “being”, not mindfulness; if mindfulness were meant, the form would be satiyā.

imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hotiอิมัส๎มิง สะติ อิทัง โหติWhen this is, that is.

imassuppādā idaṃ uppajjatiอิมัสสุปปาทา อิทัง อุปปัชชะติFrom the arising of this, that arises.

imasmiṃ asati idaṃ na hotiอิมัส๎มิง อะสะติ อิทัง นะ โหติWhen this is not, that is not.

imassa nirodhā idaṃ nirujjhatiอิมัสสะ นิโรธา อิทัง นิรุชฌะติFrom the cessation of this, that ceases.

The Wheel

Arising, clockwise Cessation, counter-clockwise The point of entry between 7 and 8

1 → 2Ignorance conditions what the mind creates. Not stupidity but not-looking: the blind reach for the phone.

3 · 4 · 5Consciousness, mind and body, six sense bridges. An I that experiences and a world that is experienced.

6 → 7Contact becomes feeling. Up to here nothing has happened; the feeling arises unwilled.

7 ‖ 8The point of entry. From feeling to craving: the only link that is willed, the only place where the chain can break.

9 · 10Clinging, becoming. One becomes the one who is right, who was hurt, who knows better.

11 → 12 → 1Birth, ageing and death. What is born ages and dies; and whoever does not look begins again.

The Point of Entry

Everything before feeling happens too fast, everything after it is already too heavy. The Madhupiṇḍika Sutta (MN 18) shows the same movement small: feeling becomes perception, perception a thought, the thought a stream that runs by itself. A feeling that is only felt has no consequences.

Two Words, One Spelling

There are two sati in Pali that happen to be written alike. Thai keeps them apart, and everyday Thai shows most clearly what the second one means.

sati · being

√as · Sanskrit sat · Thai สัต- / สัจ-

The word in the general formula. “This being, that is.” Related to sacca, truth, and satta, living being. In Thai this root lives on as สัจจะ and สัตว์, never as สติ.

sati · presence

√smṛ · Sanskrit smṛti · Thai สติ

The tool by which the condition is withdrawn. Memory, keeping present, not forgetting that one is here. Only this word entered Thai as สติ.

ขาดสติout of one's senses หมดสติunconscious สติแตกto snap ตั้งสติto collect oneself ได้สติto come to มีสติpresent