Unweaving the Web: The Case for a Network Model of Dependent Origination

For centuries, the Buddha’s profound teaching of Dependent Origination (Paṭicca-samuppāda) has been visualized as a chain of twelve links. We see it in thangka paintings and diagrams: a linear sequence from Ignorance to Aging and Death, illustrating how suffering arises and can cease. This “Chain of Causation” is a powerful and intuitive metaphor.

But what if this classic model is a simplification that obscures a deeper, more dynamic truth? What if the Buddha’s core insight into conditionality points not to a simple chain, but to a complex, interdependent network?

A close reading of the early texts suggests we have underestimated the teaching. The original formulation of This-That Conditionality (idappaccayatā) and key similes within the Canon itself argue for a model that is fluid, mutual, and web-like. It’s time to move from the chain to the web.

The Foundational Flaw of the Linear Model

The standard twelve-link chain is presented as:

Ignorance → Volitional Formations → Consciousness → Name-and-Form → Six Sense Bases → Contact → Feeling → Craving → Clinging → Becoming → Birth → Aging & Death