Dependent Co-Arising_Intro

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

Transcript

So this week and in the coming weeks we're going to explore a topic that is so central to what the Buddha taught.

It is the teaching on dependent co-arising.

Some people know it as dependent origination.

It's also called the chain of dependent causation.

And the chain basically traces the life cycle of a being through twelve conditions or processes that illustrate the transitory nature of our lives and show how each person is perpetually becoming something else.

And these twelve steps are not easy to understand but they are central.

So as I was considering this exploration I don't want to get caught too much in the linear steps so much.

I'm choosing to explore it in a slightly different way.

And if you want to go deeper and work with them in a more linear way we can explore that together or I can point you to some resources for sure.

So we're just going to go about this a little bit more organically.

So this is from the Bodhisattva.

This is the awakening discourse.

So when the Buddha was newly awakened he said this.

When this is,

That is.

From the arising of this comes the arising of that.

When this isn't,

That isn't.

From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that.

So what are these four sentences referring to?

When this is,

That is.

From the arising of this comes the arising of that.

When this isn't,

That isn't.

From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that.

So it's a simple description of conditionality.

For example,

When this arises,

Let's say what you have is the arising of a seed.

And it arises with the type of soil that has nutrients in it with a certain amount of water and sunlight.

When that arises,

What arises is a plant,

Right?

When this arises,

That arises.

And you take away one of the conditions.

Maybe the plant's not getting enough water.

When this isn't,

That isn't,

Then the plant dies.

So it's very,

Very simple.

And this is the world that we live in.

When there's these conditions,

This arises.

When we take away some of those conditions,

Those conditions cease.

John Muir put this very well when he wrote,

When we try to pick out anything by itself,

And this is,

He's talking about the natural environment.

When we try to pick out anything by itself,

We find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

Simple.

Some other examples of this,

Of this interdependent world that we live in.

This is from a short story by the author and poet Alison Luterman.

It's called What We Came For.

And to set it up a little bit,

There's this woman in the short story and she's reflecting on strawberries.

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 had ever eaten,

Every piece of fruit had been picked by calloused human hands.

Every piece of toast with jelly represented someone's knees,

Someone's aching back and hips,

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

Why had no one told her about this before?

Do you hear the reflection of this in her,

The insight of this in her reflection?

In each strawberry,

There is the calloused human hand that picked it.

Someone's aching back and hips,

The bandana,

The knees,

All of this in a strawberry.

The people out there picking our fruit and our vegetables,

What is our relationship to them?

There seems to be an ethical demand when we start to understand our independent,

Our interdependent world.

Everything is dependently arising like this,

Dependently arising.

So how can we begin to get a felt sense of the interdependence when we're so deeply conditioned by independence?

So I want to try a little experiment and I'm not sure how this will land,

But let's try it.

So just notice when I ring the bell,

What this experience,

Like what is this experience going on?

Can you get a sense of the relationship that arises?

There's this knowing,

Right?

The knowing of hearing.

There's a sound and the sound is being known.

There's a sound and the sound is being known.

There's a relationship between these two processes,

A relationship arising from two processes of a sound and a knowing of the sound and they co-arise together.

That's all it is.

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

Yet the body feeling sensations,

Thinking they're all just flowing relationships,

Processes kind of arising and passing away together.

And my aspiration I think is that you get a feeling sense of dependent co-arising.

That we live in a world not of nouns,

But of verbs.

Like the example of the plant,

A seed arising with soil,

Arising with sunlight,

Arising with water,

All arising together.

And this is,

That is,

We live in a world of verbs,

Processes that are co-arising together.

This is so important 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 want to see what the Dharma is,

You have to see this principle and see how it works.

And so the teaching of this,

Of dependent co-arising is most highlighted,

Most emphasized around the Four Noble Truths.

The Four Noble Truths is kind of an application of this teaching of dependent co-arising.

So there's the arising of suffering and suffering has a cause or condition out of which it arises.

It arises together with the condition or the causes,

Like what is suffering conditioned by?

It's arising out of the condition of grasping.

Without grasping of some kind,

Without clinging of some kind,

There wouldn't be suffering.

It doesn't say that grasping causes suffering,

But without the strong thirst or clinging,

There would be no suffering.

And with the cessation of the letting go of the grasping,

There's a releasing of,

A cessation of that suffering.

So what it means is if you look at our suffering,

It isn't caused by some God out there or the government or it's not predetermined.

It's not something that we're stuck in.

It hasn't always been that way.

It arises out of causes and conditions and it's possible to gain some mastery over those causes and conditions.

A big part of what Buddhism or Buddhist training is,

Is beginning to get some kind of mastery over these causes and conditions so that the responsibility is with us,

Not anywhere else.

So the first of these 12 steps,

Independent co-arising,

Is ignorance.

And ignorance refers specifically to ignoring,

Ignoring or not understanding our experience through the framework of the Four Noble Truths.

When we're ignorant of our,

Of the causes of suffering,

It's easy to look for happiness and peace in the wrong places.

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

Really believing that.

So I'll stop here today.

But just to wrap this first process up in the 12 steps of dependent co-arising,

Ignorance is the first process.

And all subsequent processes are dependent on it.

So in other words,

Ignorance runs through the other 11 processes.

And what's so curious about this is that it says that applying the Four Noble Truths to any of the 12 processes can kind of untangle the ball of suffering.

So as we start to untangle this,

Just maybe reflect on when this is,

That is.

From the arising of this comes the arising of that.

When this isn't,

That isn't.

From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that.

So thank you.

I'm sure there's some questions.

So I'll stop here today and thank you for your kind attention on this,

On this big topic of dependent co-arising.

Thank you.

Reviews

Each aspect of my study is enhanced with the listening of your teachings, with gratitude!

Thank you Lisa. I appreciate how you succinctly present and make different suttas accessible. In this case, the Bodhi sutta.