Dependent origination, paṭicca-samuppāda, states that when this exists, that comes to be; when this ceases, that ceases. Its classic form traces twelve links from ignorance through formations, consciousness, name-and-form, the senses, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, becoming and birth to ageing and death. The Mahāyāna read it as emptiness.
Dependent origination
The Buddhist teaching that all things arise in dependence on conditions, in a chain of twelve links.
Also: Paticca samuppada, pratitya-samutpada