Question: Does ignorance have a cause or not? Does decay-and-death have a result or not? If they do they should certainly be considered as links. If not, they fall into the category of dharmas without a cause or effect.⁴⁰⁰

Answer: They do have [causes and effects] but these [causes and effects in themselves] are not links. Ignorance has a cause: incorrect conceptualizations. Decay-and-death has a result: sorrow. Also, ignorance has a cause, which is decay-and-death. Decay-and-death has an effect, which is ignorance. Passion and attachment in the present is [caused by] ignorance in the past. Name-and-form, the six senses, contact, and experience in the present, if they continue in the future, are called decay-and-death. It is as explained [previously] that experience is the condition for passion. One should know that [in the same way] decay-and-death is explained as the condition for ignorance. It is like a chariot; [the various parts] are interdependent causes [of a chariot being a chariot].

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Or, they represent a doctrine which denies causation, one of the four heretical non-Buddhist teachings. return