Dependent Origination : Pratītyasamutpāda

A short and basic introduction to the idea of Dependent origination (Pratītyasamutpāda) and how it affects the lives that we live moment by moment aswell as how we can interact with it in our daily lives and practice to bring about change

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Silas Day,

And today we will be taking a look at the concept of dependent origination.

The teaching of dependent origination,

Called patika-samut-pada in Pali,

Was first taught at the Buddha's first Dharma talk,

Through the idea of the second noble truth.

It is not a thing which happens to us,

But is a process which we engage every single moment with.

The process of dependent origination is considered to be one of the foremost important teachings and understandings in Buddhist thought.

What is described in the process is the way in which suffering can arise in our lives and the way in which it can end.

Both being important aspects of the path,

Understanding the arising of phenomena so that we may extinguish it if necessary.

At the core of this understanding and view is dependent origination itself.

When it is taken to heart,

It is said to start the turning of the wheel of Dharma within us,

And is the start to us walking down the Noble Eightfold Path.

Or if you don't like that kind of Buddhist language,

It starts to give rise to a life of wisdom,

Understanding,

And freedom.

Interestingly enough,

The Buddha commented that when a meditator has fully seen the arising and cessation of the world,

He or she is said to be endowed with perfect view,

With perfect vision,

To have attained the true Dharma,

To possess the knowledge and skill to have entered the stream of Dharma,

To be a noble disciple replete with purifying understanding,

One who is at the very door of the deathless.

From the first time we sit and try to engage with these practices to the door of our awakening,

We work with the process of dependent origination.

What dependent origination actually describes is a vision of life,

Or an understanding in which we see the way everything is interconnected,

That there is nothing separate,

That nothing stands alone.

Everything affects everything else,

And that we are a part of this system.

We are a part of this process of dependent origination,

Of causal relationships affected by everything that happens around us,

And in turn affecting the kind of world that we all live in,

Both inwardly and outwardly.

Yet,

We must also understand that our freedom from suffering,

Ignorance,

And delusion is not separate from the process of dependent origination.

Like,

We can step away or overcome it.

It isn't about transcending it and dwelling in some arcane or void-like dimension,

But is found in the complete awareness and acceptance of being an aspect of this universe.

And a part of that process of understanding,

Of what it means to be free,

Depends on understanding interconnectedness and using this very fine grain aspect of our life to let go and not seek awakening anywhere else but this very moment.

There is a more classical and mythological approach to dependent origination,

And it's nice and it works and it can have some fanciness to it,

But I feel as though there is another way which is more pertinent,

Vital,

And alive to our situation of existence in this very lifetime.

An approach which looks at dependent origination as a way of understanding what happens in our world,

Inwardly and outwardly,

On a moment-to-moment level.

It's about what happens in our heart,

Our mind,

Our body,

The world we interact with directly,

What happens in our consciousness,

And how the kind of world we experience and live in is actually created and generated every moment through this process.

In a way,

The significance of this whole description is that if we understand the way our world is,

If you understand the process which we find ourselves both within and an aspect of,

We also then become a conscious participant in that moment-after-moment process of arising and falling.

It describes a process that is occurring over and over again,

Very rapidly,

Within our consciousness.

By this time in the day,

You have probably all gone through countless cycles of dependent origination,

No matter what you've done.

Countless moments that you have gone through where you have experienced an inner world arising,

Like,

I like this,

I don't like that,

The world is like this,

This is how it happened,

I feel like this,

I think that.

The basic principle of dependent origination is simplicity and interconnectivity.

The Buddha described it in his own poetic way by saying,

When there is this,

That is.

With the arising of this,

That arises.

When this is not,

Neither is that.

With the cessation of this,

That ceases.

So when all of these cycles of feeling,

Thought,

Bodily sensation,

All of these cycles of mind and body,

Action and movement,

Are all taking place on a foundation of ignorance instead of understanding and awareness,

This is what we call samsara.

And so we've made it back to that second noble truth.

That sense of wandering in confusion or blindly from one state of experience to another,

One state of reaction to another,

One day to the next,

Lost in a haze which we always think will clear up and then we will be happy,

But yet it never quite does.

And without knowing what's going on,

This wandering is suffering and this wandering is samsara.

It's also useful,

Both in our practice and in our daily lives,

To see that this process of dependent origination happens not only within our individual consciousness,

But also on a much bigger scale and on more collective levels,

On social,

Political,

Cultural,

What have you.

Through shared opinions,

Shared views,

Shared perceptions or reactions,

Groups or communities of people can spin the same wheel over extended periods of time.

Anything dependent origination can be transforming,

Not only at an individual level,

But it's an understanding about interconnectedness that can be truly transforming on a global or universal level.

It helps to undo delusion and it helps to undo the sense of separateness which can be found in so many aspects of the world.

But before we get to changing the world,

We must remove the separateness from ourselves,

Which can be found in our hearts and in our minds.

In classical presentations,

The process of dependent origination is comprised of 12 links,

Which I will talk about at another point.

It's important to understand that this is not a linear,

Progressive or sequential presentation.

It's a process always in motion and not static in the slightest.

It's also not deterministic,

Which I think is really important to know.

I also don't think that one link determines the arising of the next link,

But rather that the presence of certain factors or of certain links together provide the conditions in which the other links can manifest.

It is helpful to consider some of the effects of understanding dependent origination.

One of these effects is that it helps us to understand that neither our inner world nor our outer world is a series of aimless accidents.

Things don't just happen.

There is a combination of causes and conditions,

Though incredibly complex and grand,

That is necessary for things to happen.

This is really important in terms of our inner experience.

It is not unusual to have the experience of ending up somewhere and not knowing how we got there,

And feeling quite powerless because of the confusion present in that situation.

Understanding how things come together,

How they interact,

And actually removes that sense of powerlessness or that sense of being a victim of life or helpless.

Because if we understand how things can come together,

We can also begin to understand the way out,

How to find another way of being,

And realize that this life that we're living is not just random chaos,

But that we have the capability and the possibility to interact with it and be a part of it in our own unique and individual way.

Another effect of understanding causes and conditions means accepting the possibility of our own change and the change of the world around us.

And with acceptance comes another understanding,

That with wisdom that we can gain through this awareness,

Through our meditation,

Through practice,

And through living a good and honest life,

We have the capacity to create beneficial and wholesome conditions for beneficial and wholesome results.

And in a way that's kind of the path as a whole,

And understanding that we have the capacity to make choices in our lives that lead toward happiness,

That lead towards freedom and well-being,

Rather than feeling we're just pushed by the power of confusion or by the power of our own misunderstanding.

This understanding helps us to ease a sense of separateness and isolation,

And in many ways it reduces delusion.

To understand the process,

We must know what the link is to it,

What things chain us in a way to the process of dependent origination.

This is the 12 links of dependent origination.

I will name them here,

But we will discuss them at greater length some other time.

The links are ignorance,

Formation,

Consciousness,

Name and form,

The six senses,

Contact,

Feeling,

Craving,

Clinging,

Becoming,

Birth,

Aging,

And death.

These different factors interact to create certain kinds of experiences in our lives.

What is important is to remember that none of this is predetermined.

The presence of certain links is going to allow other experiences to happen,

Not that they must happen,

Or definitely will happen,

But they allow for certain experiences to happen.

This may sound like bad news,

But there's good news later,

Because we have the capability to change those things by seeing them,

By interacting with them,

And by being honest with ourselves and with others.

Dependent origination describes a process that happens every single moment of our lives,

But clearly there is a distinction between this process and the path,

And it's an absolutely critical distinction.

One doesn't actually want to continue in life just as a kind of spectator watching the same process happen over and over and over again.

This is terribly depressing,

A spectator of our own disasters in a way,

And that of disasters of life without the ability to change them.

That's not what we're talking about here.

Awareness is actually something a bit more than simply seeing the process of dependent origination take place.

In choosing to be aware and engage with meditation or prayer or yoga or whatever,

We make a leap which is really about an application of a path in our lives.

Otherwise,

Mere seeing of the process becomes circular,

And we continue to wander in that mist,

In that haze of the unknown,

Of dukkha,

Of suffering.

We continue to walk on the wheel of samsara.

The path is what actually takes us out into a different process,

Whatever your path is.

This is what meditation and study teaches us,

That there is a way out,

Only if we see it.

This is dependent origination,

Not in full or entirely aired out at all,

But I think a good introduction to the idea.

If you're interested in the source material for this kind of stuff or to see what Buddha directly had to say about it,

You can check out several of the sutras found in the Majjhima Nikaya or the middle-length teaching of the Buddha.

For a specific one,

I would check out Majjhima Nikaya number 38 for a greater depth towards dependent origination.

I hope my talk helped and introduced you a little more to the vast world of meditative and inner ideas.

If so,

Let me know.

I'm Silas Day,

And thank you for listening to this short talk.

Reviews

I am fascinated by the concept of dependent origination and your talk gave me a bit of perspective that I lacked. Thanks!

Excellent introduction to this most important topic

Trying to understand this concept... need to listen a few more times....

A very clear introduction to a complex idea. You can see even in the basic levels the depth of the concepts and how they can be of value to the meditative practice and general understanding of reality. Thanks.

Easy to understand. Ready to learn more.

Thank you

Very interesting. Please share more . Thank you 🙏

Thank you Silas 🙏

Extremely grateful for this talk 🙏🌸🙏