Pratītyasamutpāda · dependent origination

When this is, that is; from the arising of this comes the arising of that. Twelve links run a closed chain: ignorance conditions formations, formations consciousness, and on through contact, feeling, craving, grasping, becoming, birth, and ageing-and-death — which conditions ignorance again. The chain has no first link, and that is deliberate. There is no origin event, no creator, and no arrow pointing back to a source. The Tree is the exact opposite proposition: hishtalshelut, the chain of worlds, is a chain with a top. Everything descends from Ein Sof through tzimtzum into vessels, and the whole diagram is an answer to "where does this come from." The nidānas are a ring; emanation is a lightning flash. Both say reality is links rather than lumps. Only one of them believes the links go somewhere. And the ring can be cut: break the chain at ignorance or at craving and the whole circuit stops — that cessation is the third of the Four Noble Truths.