Preface
This book, Insight Meditation: Foundations of Conditionality, is written as the necessary foundation for all who wish to engage deeply with the teaching of Dependent Origination (Paṭicca-samuppāda). In my earlier work, Breaking the Wheel, I explored how one may dismantle the machinery of saṃsāra, step by step, until the wheel of rebirth comes to a complete halt. But before one can skillfully break the wheel, one must first learn to see how it turns.
That is the task of this volume.
Here we begin with the living law of conditionality, not as abstraction, but as a practical map for daily experience. Each chapter is designed to take you by the hand and walk you through the Twelve Links, the Five Aggregates, the Six Sense Bases, and the conditions that weave them together. You will encounter the Mogok Sayadaw’s Wheel, the two roots of avijjā and taṇhā, the hinge of vedanā, and the crucial short connections that keep craving alive. These are not mere theories, but working tools to test in your own mindfulness practice, moment by moment.
This book is therefore an introduction in the fullest sense: it builds the ground on which the path of insight can be walked. It makes Paṭicca-samuppāda vivid, memorable, and usable — so that when you later approach the advanced dismantling work of Breaking the Wheel, you will not be lost in technicalities or theory. You will already know how the pieces fit, how the conditions operate, and how freedom becomes possible.
I invite you, the reader, to engage this text patiently and experimentally. Read, reflect, and above all, observe how these teachings unfold in your own life. Only then does the Dhamma cease to be words in a book and become the guiding law of liberation.
May these pages serve as a steady lamp on the path of insight, and may your own practice carry you beyond the wheel, to the peace that lies on the other shore.
— Siridantamahāpālaka Bhikkhu Indasoma
