Idappaccayatā

Ajahn Payutto describes idappaccayatā as another name for pratītyasamutpāda.[web 2] Ajahn Payutto provides the following quote from the Pali sutta S. II. 25-6:[web 2]

Whether Tathāgatas [Buddhas] arise or not, that principle of specific conditionality [idappaccayatā] is constant, certain and a law of nature. Having fully awakened to and penetrated to this truth, a Tathāgata announces it, teaches it, clarifies it, formulates it, reveals it, and analyzes it. And he says: ‘See! With ignorance as condition, there are volitional formations....

Thus, bhikkhus, this actuality (tathatā), this inerrancy (avitathatā), this invariability (anaññathatā)—this specific conditionality (idappaccayatā)—this is called dependent origination.

The Access to Insight glossary emphasizes that idappaccayatā relates to direct experience. The glossary states:[web 3]

This name for the causal principle the Buddha discovered on the night of his Awakening stresses the point that, for the purposes of ending suffering and stress, the processes of causality can be understood entirely in terms of forces and conditions that are experienced in the realm of direct experience, with no need to refer to forces operating outside of that realm.

There are many translations of the idappaccayatā formula by contemporary scholars and translators. Contemporary translator Thanissaro Bikkhu provides the following translation:[web 4]

When this is, that is.
From the arising of this comes the arising of that.
When this isn't, that isn't.
From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that.

Rupert Gethin translates as follows:[4]

This existing, that exists;
this arising, that arises;
this not existing, that does not exist;
this ceasing, that ceases’.

(Majjhima Nikāya iii. 63; Samyutta Nikāya v. 387; etc.)

Thanissaro Bhikkhu analyzes the meaning of the this/that formula as follows:[web 5]

The Buddha expressed this/that conditionality in a simple-looking formula:

(1) When this is, that is.
(2) From the arising of this comes the arising of that.
(3) When this isn't, that isn't.
(4) From the stopping of this comes the stopping of that.

— AN 10.92

There are many possible ways of interpreting this formula, but only one does justice both to the way the formula is worded and to the complex, fluid manner in which specific examples of causal relationships are described in the Canon. That way is to view the formula as the interplay of two causal principles, one linear and the other synchronic, that combine to form a non-linear pattern. The linear principle — taking (2) and (4) as a pair — connects events, rather than objects, over time; the synchronic principle — (1) and (3) — connects objects and events in the present moment. The two principles intersect, so that any given event is influenced by two sets of conditions: input acting from the past and input acting from the present. Although each principle seems simple, the fact that they interact makes their consequences very complex.

The formula of idappaccayatā (specific conditionality) is repeated hundreds of times throughout the sutras. Thich Nhat Hanh states: "these sentences occur hundreds of times in both the Northern and Southern transmissions. They are the Buddhist genesis."[1]