No SelfBuddhaghosa thus records that the teaching of dependent
arising makes four points.^40 (r) It shows that there is continuity
and identity in the process of change and thereby denies the viewof annihilationism; if we misunderstand the nature of this iden~
tity, however, we fall into the trap of eternalism. (2) By indic-
ating how various different phenomena condition each other,
dependent arising also shows that there is difference and divers-
ity involved in the process of something changing, and thereby
denies the view of eternalism; but when this aspect of dependent
arising is not correctly grasped, we are drawn to the view of anni-
hilationism. (3)By indicating that actions are to be understood
not as the work of an autonomous self but rather as the outcome
of the complex interaction of diverse impersonal conditions, the
view of selfhood is denied; but an incorrect grasp of this aspect
of the teaching can lead to the view that actions are not real
and have no moral consequences. (4) Finally, by indicating that
appropriate consequences follow from specific causes, both the
view that actions are not real and the view that causality is not
real are abandoned; but wrongly grasped this aspect of dependent
arising can lead both to the view of determinism and the view
that causality is not real. In all this, then, views that see the world
as random chaos, or as mechanically determined, or see individuals
as having absolute free will or as having no choice whatsoever and
simply being prey to random conditions or fixed destiny, are under-
stood as cut through by the middle way of dependent arising.
All this may sound very conceptual, abstract, and philosophical
but it is related rather precisely to the Buddhist understanding
of spiritual practice. For there is one more aspect of the teach-
ing of dependent arising that I have so far left unmentioned. The
twelvefold formula I quoted above is in accordance with the aris~
ing of suffering, but when the formula is quoted in Buddhist texts
it is nearly always quoted with a second version in the order of
the ceasing of suffering:
With the utter fading away and ceasing of ignorance is the ceasing of
formations, with the ceasing of formations is the ceasing of conscious~
ness, with the ceasing of consciousness is the ceasing of mind-and-body;
with the ceasing of mind-and-body is the ceasing of the six senses, with