Dependent Co-Arising_1

This talk explores a topic that is so central to what the Buddha taught, it’s the teachings on dependent co-arising, also called the Chain of Dependent Causation. And the chain basically traces the life cycle of a beings through twelve links or processes that illustrate the transitory nature of our lives and show how each person is perpetually becoming something else.

Transcript

So we're going to explore a topic that was requested and that is really central to what the Buddha taught and it is the the teaching on dependent co-arising.

Some of you may know this teaching as dependent origination.

It's also called the chain of dependent causation and it sort of speaks to this idea of the the wheel of the Dharma.

You know the chain basically traces the life cycle of beings in these sort of links.

So you can think of these links as spokes on the wheel.

Processes that illustrate the transitory nature of our lives and show how each person is perpetually becoming something else.

We're always in this process of becoming and so the way that it's presented in the Bodhi Sutta which this Sutta refers to really the newly awakened Buddha and he said these words,

So these four sentences are referring to the simple description of causality and condition conditionality.

When this arises let's say you have the arising of a seed and the seed arises out of soil that has nutrients in it.

There's a certain amount of water and sunlight.

When this is what arises is a plant.

So when this arises that arises and if we're to take one of those conditions away maybe the plant doesn't get enough water.

When this isn't that isn't and the plant dies.

So it's very very simple and it's really everything in this world that we live in.

I love how John Muir puts it.

He said when we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

So this is how simple this dependent co-arising is like what it's about.

The interdependence of the world that we live in and yet we forget it all the time like we forget it all the time right because we are absorbed or distracted in our own lives.

Allison Luterman is a poet and she writes short stories as well and she wrote this the short story called What I Came For and in the in the story there's a woman and she's reflecting this woman is reflecting on a strawberry and she says strawberries were too delicate to be picked by machine.

The perfectly ripe ones bruised from even too heavy a human touch.

It hit her then that every strawberry she's ever eaten every piece of fruit had been picked by calloused human hands.

Every piece of toast with jelly represented somebody's knees somebody's aching back and hips.

Someone with a bandana on her wrist to wipe away the sweat.

Why had nobody told her about this before?

So there's insight into this reflection right?

In each strawberry there is a calloused human hand,

Somebody's aching back and hips,

The bandana,

The knees,

All this in a strawberry.

The people out there picking our fruit,

Our vegetables,

What is our relationship to them?

Often we don't think of them.

You know we just generally don't think of this dependent co-arising.

Yet everything,

Everything is dependently arising like this.

So this exploration is really to get a sense of this and start to pay attention to this.

We've been so deeply conditioned by independence and as we move towards an election cycle you know this independent rhetoric is being just spewed out as common language.

We did a meditation last night it's called a big mind meditation and it's a sound meditation.

So I'd like to do a little experiment with you with sound right now.

So I'm just going to ring the bell.

So what is the experience of the bell ringing?

You know you're in your space but you can hear it.

Can you sense the relationship?

There is the arising,

The knowing of sound arising.

There's a knowing of hearing.

There's a sound and the sound is being known and there's a relationship between these two processes.

There's a relationship of the sound and the knowing of the sound and they co-arise together.

That's all it is.

It's so simple that we generally don't even pay attention to it.

You know when we were looking at the five aggregates last week and I'll repeat them there.

Form,

Like so that's the body,

Feelings,

Perceptions,

Mental formations and the consciousness of all of this just flowing in relationship.

So these five aggregates contain this dependent co-arising processes arising and passing away together.

So it's an important teaching and my aspiration is that you kind of get a feel how everything is dependent co-arising.

We live in a world not of nouns but of verbs like the example of the plant.

A seed arises within soil with sunlight,

Arises with water,

All arising together.

When this is,

That is.

It's so important this teaching that the Buddha said to see the Dharma is to see dependent co-arising.

To see dependent co-arising is to see the Dharma.

So if you really want to see the Dharma you have to see how this principle works.

And the the teaching of dependent co-arising is most highlighted and emphasized in the teaching of the Four Noble Truths.

It's kind of an application of this teaching of dependent co-arising.

So we all know that suffering arises and that suffering has a cause or a condition out of which it arises.

It arises together with a condition of holding on,

Of grasping,

Of clinging.

Without grasping,

Without some kind of holding on,

There would not be suffering.

That's why we try to really normalize and understand that dissatisfaction is inherent.

It doesn't say that grasping causes suffering,

But without the strong thirst of clinging,

The clinging is dependently co-arising with suffering.

And when there's a release of grasping,

There's a release of that suffering.

They travel together.

When we let go,

As you may have experienced in your life,

There is no suffering in that letting go.

So what it means is,

If you look at our suffering,

Our suffering isn't caused by some external happening,

By gods or by the government.

It's not predetermined.

It's not something that we're stuck in and it hasn't always been that way.

It arises out of causes and conditions.

And it's possible to gain some degree of insight over those causes and conditions.

Just understanding that when there is suffering,

There is clinging.

And there's a collective clinging too.

Because we can read the paper and we can see the ways we're clinging,

Right?

So a big part of this training,

This Buddhist training,

Is to get some mastery over these causes and conditions.

The responsibility is on us.

It's not anywhere else,

You know?

And so the way that these links,

These spokes of this dependent co-arising,

Kind of the first link,

The first spoke,

Is ignorance.

And in this case,

Ignorance refers specifically to ignoring.

We're ignoring.

We see that suffering is separate from us.

It's something happening out there and we don't see the relationship to our holding on to it.

Not understanding the framework of the Four Noble Truths.

We're sort of ignorant to our suffering or its cause.

And one of the most significant symptoms of ignorance is believing that our psychological suffering is caused by external events.

It's a hard one to get.

Our psychological suffering is not caused by external events.

It's caused by how we're holding.

So I'll stop here today,

But just to wrap up this first link,

This first spoke in this wheel of dependent co- arising,

Is ignorance.

And all subsequent processes are dependent on ignorance.

Ignorance runs through all the others.

Because we forget.

We remember,

We forget.

We ignore.

So thinking of ignorance as ignoring.

So I encourage you,

Just out in the world,

You know,

It's raining out here in Colorado right now.

It's a perfect way of playing with dependent co-arising.

When this is,

That is.

From the arising of this,

Comes the arising of that.

So just to start to tune into and see this happening in daily life.

Thank you very much for your attention and for bringing this topic.

I appreciate that we are exploring this topic again.