Indeed. The entire path can be discerned from the study of dependent origination, but as long as DO is happening, suffering is still happening.
Feeling does not appear to mean "emotion". Also, 'sankhara' may not mean emotion.
No not quite vedana. I'll give my reason for choosing to translate as sankhara:
Sankhara, as you posted out, is generally defined as:
Bodily sankhara - In and out breathing
Verbal Sankhara - Vitakka-vicara or dircted thoughts and evaluation
Mental sankhara - Feeling and perception
Out of these, the english word emotion doesn't really fit snugly with any one of these but may be said to be a combination of thoughts, in and out breathing and feelings and perceptions, which I wish to avoid explaining for time's sake.
Emotion would fit pretty well within the nama-rupa but I feel its inclusion in sankhara makes its active role in conditioning significantly more apparent.
Sound reasonable.
Thank you. This is a little bit of a difficult topic since there is no pali that I'm aware of for the word "emotion", let alone specifically included in DO. I'm of the opinion that trying to make it fit anywahere in here will involve some compromise, so I'll definitely admit, whatever answer I give is not going to be perfect or complete.
Volition is cetana. Cetana is mentioned at nama-rupa. Refer to Thanissaro's
Yeah I kindof want to avoid using the term volition specifically. That concept has little overlap with "emotion" so it leaves quite a bit do be desired.
I think my first comment was more referring to the active role that emotions play in conditioning further consciousness, contact, feelings, etc., but I feel that maybe it should be further emphasized that they are both a conditioning agent and the result of conditioning. Emotions then would also be at home later down the chain in DO, but that position seems to emphasize that passive role rather tan the active role. It does however match quite closely with MN18, as something like papanca, but I couldn't in right mind call all emotions papanca.
Cetana is like making a decision. I doubt it is emotion but, instead, driven to act by emotion.
The Pali says sankhara is kayasankhara, vacisankhara and cittasankhara. Kayasankhara means "in & out breathing". Vacisankhara means "thought". 'Cittasankhara" means vedana & sanna. These don't sound like emotions. Emotions sound like they are greed, lust, hatred, anger, confusion, fear, selfishness, love, sorrow, grief, etc.
Yes yes, definitely. Sorry I just want to reiterate, I think for the purpose of showing the active causal role of emotion, it makes sense (to me anyways) to include it under the umbrella of sankhara. In this case too, you could probably argue that emotions are the names of specific arrangements or patterns of thoughts, feelings, perceptions and even in-and-out breathing. If we were wanting to explain how emotions arise as the result of conditioning, it would likely be better to place them further down the chain of DO, after contact, like in "becoming". That I would imagine we might have to jump through more hoops to fit and it still might not have the impact of showing active causation like it would including it under the term "sankhara", being immediately conditioned by either ignorance (avijja) or knowledge (vijja). All those factors together seemed like a fair compromise and I could relate it to the classic right view dichotomy of wholesome and unwholesome. This seemed like a good opportunity to give a concise, hard hitting depiction of the whole path while still answering the question (I tried anyway lol)
Big call when you can't even post what the Pali is according to sutta. Regardless, good effort.
Tayome, bhikkhave, saṅkhārā—
kāyasaṅkhāro, vacīsaṅkhāro, cittasaṅkhāro.
Ime vuccanti, bhikkhave, saṅkhārā.
https://suttacentral.net/sn12.2/pli/ms#13
I think I still might be able to argue that "emotion" fits under the umbrella of sankhara, even if we restrict it to the defined bodily, verbal, and mental found in the DO context. It might take a little gymnastics, but it my mind, emotion seems like particular arrangements or emergent patterns of these. Further, emotion's role as a causal or conditioning agent is important enough to merit placing it quite high on the chain of DO, given that it can probably fit in a couple places, namely Nama-rupa, Salayatana (as a mental object), becoming and even birth if you really stretch it.
Perhaps placing it under nama-rupa would better? Then we could easily explain that it conditions salayatana and contact, and that it's conditioned by sankhara (which in this case could be left alone as far as making a concept fit). This way, both the active and passive roles of emotion can be seen and we don't have to explain away how emotions are sankhara as defined in the canon.
Let me know what you think! I feel like there's probably many ways of fitting emotion into the chain of DO, but I feel like the important features they should get across are that a) emotions are both an active causal agent as well as a result of conditioning, b) that they can be skillful or unskillful and either hurt or help along the path, and c) by abandoning ignorance, they cease altogether. I think if those points are met, and the explanation doesn't blatantly conflict with the canon, then it's probably OK.