Meditations on Paṭiccasamuppāda While meditating on Dependent Origination, I have come to understand certain things that I hesitatingly put forth here:

Though the links in the chain of Dependent Origination are cyclical in nature, Avijjā is the one that can be said to be the root of deception and the primal cause of the infinite repetitions of the cycle. Also, it is present in each and every link all the time. So, as an example, though Avijjā gives rise to Saṅkhāras, it is Saṅkhāras (plus Avijjā), that gives rise to Viññāna and, in turn, it is Viññāna (plus Avijjā) that leads us to the next Nidāna, i.e., NāmaRūpa, and, so on and so forth.

The ‘self’, the deceptive ‘individual’, is present only in an incipient form till, I feel, up to the Nidāna of Phassa and starts getting organized, as it were, from the link of Vedanā, getting totally entrenched and almost ‘irreversibly solidified’ by the time the level of Upādāna is reached.

The weakest links are those of Vedanā, Taṇhā and Upādāna, and that is why it is possible to break the chain at these three places, the relatively easiest being the passage from Phassa to Vedanā and the most difficult that from Taṇhā to Upādāna.

Before Phassa, the ‘self’ is too vague and incipient and, therefore, quite weak to attempt its own break-up.

After the Nidāna of Upādāna, the ‘self’ is too deeply entrenched and solidified and, therefore, its break-up again becomes almost impossible.


Is this right? Am I only partly right? Or, is it that I have got it all wrong?
And yes, is it possible to have a profound insight directly into the primal link of Avijjā, so that the later interventions are not required at all?
When confusion persists, it's good to review basics.
An understanding of dependent origination requires an understanding of contact:

DN34:1.2.8: What one thing should be completely understood?
DN34:1.2.9: Contact, which is accompanied by defilements and is prone to being grasped.

You may be interested in DN1, which describes all the tangles involved in thinking about 'self'.

DN1:3.58.0: 4.3. Not Possible
DN1:3.70.1: Now, when those ascetics and brahmins theorize about the past and the future on these sixty-two grounds, it is not possible that they should experience these things without contact.
DN1:3.71.0: 4.4. Dependent Origination
DN1:3.71.12: Now, when those ascetics and brahmins theorize about the past and the future on these sixty-two grounds, all of them experience this by repeated contact through the six fields of contact. Their feeling is a condition for craving. Craving is a condition for grasping. Grasping is a condition for continued existence. Continued existence is a condition for rebirth. Rebirth is a condition for old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress to come to be.

Ultimately, the tangles are not so important as the escape.

DN1:3.72.0: 5. The End of the Round
DN1:3.72.1: When a mendicant truly understands the six fields of contacts’ origin, ending, gratification, drawback, and escape, they understand what lies beyond all these things.
DN1:3.72.2: All of these ascetics and brahmins who theorize about the past or the future are trapped in the net of these sixty-two grounds, so that wherever they emerge they are caught and trapped in this very net.
DN1:3.72.3: Suppose a deft fisherman or his apprentice were to cast a fine-meshed net over a small pond. They’d think: ‘Any sizable creatures in this pond will be trapped in the net. Wherever they emerge they are caught and trapped in this very net.’
DN1:3.72.4: In the same way, all of these ascetics and brahmins who theorize about the past or the future are trapped in the net of these sixty-two grounds, so that wherever they emerge they are caught and trapped in this very net.

Don't get caught in the net.