Buddhist-Meditation-Systematic-and-Practical

a. All the twelve spokes of this wheel of
samsara—ignorance, karmic formation, consciousness,
name and form, six sense bases, contact, feeling,
craving, grasping, becoming, rebirth, and old age and
death—are impermanent. This is their self-nature.
b. Common to all of them is the fact that they are fetters,
which keep people in subjection. They are opposed to
freedom; if a person does not know their void nature but
clings to them as though they were real, then he will
suffer very much.
c. Karma. Without meditating upon dependent
origination we do not know why we have come into
samsara and have then no ability to escape, so we
continue performing "black" karma. Meditating upon
this wheel of twelve factors we gain knowledge of how
to free ourselves from them. This is "white" karma.
d. Time. In the scheme of the twelve, three times are
distinguished together with their effects: of the past
upon the present, and of that in turn upon the future. Not
knowing how this conditioning (but not predestination)
works, ignorant people are trapped within the
continuous flow of these times and actions.
e. Conditioned nature. Cause, effect, action, feeling—all
these conditions are interdependent and produce among
them duhkha, suffering.
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