Summary for class meeting held on 07/20/09

The topic for today's class was the Buddha's teaching about "Dependent Origination."  Sometimes referred to as "Interdependent Origination" or "Interdependent Co-arising," this teaching embodies one of the deepest insights in all of Buddhist thought.  It takes in the ideas of impermanence and nonself, which we already discussed, and gives them even wider scope. 

The Buddha summarized the teaching this way: "When this exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises.  When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases."  The main idea is that everything in the world exists in a condition of interdependence with everything else.  As one author explains it: "For a table to exist, we need wood, a carpenter, time, skillfulness, and many other causes.  And each of these causes needs other causes to be.  The wood needs the forest, the sunshine, the rain, and so on.  The carpenter needs his parents, breakfast, fresh air, and so on.  And each of those things, in turn, has to be brought about by other conditions....Everything in the comsos has come together to bring us this table." 

This insight has important ethical implications.  For example, many people grow up believing that affluence has nothing to do with poverty.  But in reality the existence of affluence is inseparable from the social and economic conditions that give rise to poverty.  Everything is interconnected in a complex web of causality.  The way I live my life (i.e. the way I consume energy, food, and luxury items) has far-reaching consequences for all people, animals, and the natural environment.  The fruit I buy at the store connects me to the conditions of migrant labor in Florida.  The gasoline I buy connects me to the problems of terrorism and global warming.  The chemicals I use to keep my lawn green connect me to the degradation of the Chesapeake Bay, and so on.   

Suffering is conditioned by many factors.  The teaching of the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination describes the cycle of conditioning factors that flow from ignorance.  Each link is conditioned by all the others.  Grasping, for example, is conditioned by craving, which in turn is conditioned by feeling, contact and, ultimately, ignorance.  Ignorance is the lack of insight.  It is what prevents me from seeing the interdependent nature of reality.  As long as I remain in this state, I am unable to escape from suffering.  The way out of ignorance is through the practice of meditation and the cultivation of mindfulness.

Insight into the interdependent nature of reality is thus the basis for Right View and for understanding the path leading to the cessation of suffering.