chains
The Seba library treats Chain in 9 passages, across 9 authors (including Armstrong, Karen, Edinger, Edward F., Singh, Jaideva).
The Chain begins with ignorance, which thus becomes the ultimate if not the most powerful cause of suffering… the second link is not kamma but the more difficult term sankhara (formation).
Armstrong identifies ignorance as the originary link of the Buddhist Chain of dependent origination, distinguishing the Pali technical term sankhara from karma while showing both derive from the same verbal root for action.
, Buddha, 2000thesis
Working forward rather than backward (Buddha discovered the chain working backwards), the chain begins prior to one’s existence, according to Buddhist conception, with avidya, ignorance. We could also translate it unconsciousness.
Edinger renders the Buddhist causal chain as a depth-psychological structure, equating avidya with unconsciousness and presenting the full sequence from ignorance through craving to birth and death as a map of psychic causation.
, The New God-Image: A Study of Jung’s Key Letters Concerning the Evolution of the Western God-Image, 1996thesis
‘Chain’ means ‘continuity’. When there is succession, there is the possibility [that a] foreign agency will step in the gap… only it is just a chain of nirvikalpa, one-pointed.
Singh’s commentary redefines ‘chain’ in the Tantric context as unbroken concentration rather than successive steps, distinguishing continuity from mere succession and identifying gaps as points of vulnerability to discursive intrusion.
, Vijnana Bhairava: The Manual for Self-Realization, 1979thesis
There is a ‘feel’ to each discrete moment and each chain of moments. Each life has its ‘feel’ to it, the way its time courses, which turns a case history into a soul history, a chain of events into a patterned rhythm.
Von Franz invokes ‘chain’ as a figure for the feeling-function’s temporal dimension, arguing that the patterned succession of moments constitutes the affective continuity that transforms biographical data into soul history.
, Lectures on Jung’s Typology, 2013supporting
Chain Analysis: When clients engage in problematic behaviors, therapists use chain analysis to identify triggers, thoughts, emotions, and consequences that contribute to these behaviors. This process fosters self-awareness and helps clients break the chain of destructive actions.
Scott presents chain analysis as DBT’s clinical method for tracing the sequential causes of maladaptive behavior, translating the metaphor of causal linkage into a structured therapeutic intervention aimed at disrupting repetitive destructive cycles.
, DBT Skills Training Manual: Practical Workbook for Therapists, 2021supporting
‘chain-based bond inhibition’… bonding is inhibited to any free L particle which is in the immediate vicinity of another L particle which is doubly bonded… a free L particle cannot form a bond as long as it is alongside… an existing chain of L particles.
Thompson documents ‘chain-based bond inhibition’ in autopoietic cellular chemistry, grounding the structural metaphor of chain in biological self-organization where chain membership itself governs the capacity for further bonding.
, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, 2007supporting
A reverberatory circuit (RC) is a closed loop or chain of neurons… firing continues around the circuit for a time, each cell stimulating the next one again and again in a recurring chain of activity.
James describes the reverberatory neural circuit as a self-sustaining chain of neuronal activation, establishing the physiological basis for circular causation and the persistence of excitation in a looped sequence.
, The Principles of Psychology, 1890supporting
Acquiescing-in closely-woven chain-mail: blessing. Tending-towards one’s kingly mother.
The I Ching hexagram commentary uses ‘closely-woven chain-mail’ as an image of protective yielding, invoking the metaphor of interlocked links as a figure for receptive strength that accrues blessing.
, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994aside
The Prince has the boy led out to execution in chains and forces the Seigneur du Chastel’s herald… to join the procession, despite his resistance.
Auerbach employs ‘chains’ in its literal sense of physical bondage as part of a narrative sequence in medieval literature, illustrating the concrete dramatization of power and constraint in the chansons de geste tradition.
, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, 1953aside