What is Dependent Origination in Early Buddhism?
Doug's Dharma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2cDhGVgb9A

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0:00 so what is dependent origination today we'll give you an introduction to that difficult and complex topic coming up
0:08 [Music] so I'm Doug Smith I'm study director at the secular Buddhist Association that secular Buddhism org and if you're new
0:17 to the channel and interested in helping to promote a wiser and a kinder and a less stress filled world consider subscribing to the channel so what is
0:25 dependent origination this is a topic that goes way back in in early Buddhism and is shot through all the way to the present day and it's a complex and
0:34 difficult topic basically in in a nutshell it's the Buddha's interpretation of the metaphysics of change as we may know one of the key
0:45 points of Buddhist philosophy is that all things are in constant flux all things are changing but it wasn't just random change the Buddha had a very
0:54 specific idea of the laws of that change these laws are probably reached their their highest interpretation or their most detailed interpretation in the
1:04 concept of dependent origination so as I say a dependent origination is probably the most complex of the concepts from early Buddhism it's also very much
1:15 related to the concept of rebirth that we have week that we in the secular community tend to sort of put to one side and so as a result when we come to
1:25 the the topic of dependent origination it creates some some issues for us that we have to overcome or at the very least we have to leave parts of the
1:35 traditional interpretation of dependent origination again to one side my my approach is tends to be following early Buddhism that is to say that the
1:44 Buddhism that we found that we find that expressed in the Pali Canon which is the earliest form of Buddhist philosophy we may we may if we were more familiar with
1:53 later teachings here of something such as the concept of indras net which I've discussed before here that's the idea that the universe is sort of like
2:02 permeated with a kind of a net where all of the nodes of intersecting threads then that have a little gem in them and all the gems reflect all the other gems
2:14 and this is I think for some people anyway a sort of an interpretation of one dependent origination really me that is that all all of the nodes of
2:23 reality reflect all of the other nodes that everything interpenetrates that all things are interrelated that all things are in a sense one this is a later
2:34 interpretation of dependent origination that we find in the Mahayana but this interpretation does not go back I think to the early texts and and in fact the
2:43 metaphor of indras net is as a later metaphor probably from the second century of the Common Era and we can probably know that by its relation to
2:52 the notion of Indra or a god that probably was influenced somewhat by Brahmin philosophy or early Hindu philosophy so in one of the early texts
3:01 the Buddhist says in a very strong way one who he says one who sees dependent origination sees the Dhamma and one who sees the Dhamma sees dependent
3:09 origination and many people have taken this to me and the dependent origination really is the entire of the Dhamma or entire of the Buddhist teaching
3:17 compacted into into one short or relatively short teaching but if we look at the actual text where he says this he then goes on to explain what he means by
3:28 dependent origination and it's pretty clear that in that context what he means is something more like the second and third Noble Truths that is to say that
3:37 suffering comes out of craving and that that suffering can be overcome by overcoming craving or by abandoning craving and so in a sense when he's
3:45 saying that dependent origination is that Dhamma in a sense he's also saying the Four Noble Truths of the Dhamma and in fact in the early teachings it's
3:52 really the Four Noble Truths that are the heart of his teaching more than anything although I think this way of expressing dependent origination gets
4:00 out the fact that it dependent origination the Four Noble Truths in many ways are coterminous and say very much the same thing just in different
4:07 words and in a different kind of way and the Four Noble Truths are more of a sort of a personal way of getting into the Dhamma they're there from a personal
4:14 standpoint they involve the path whereas the dependent origination is sort of an almost objective law of nature so in its most famous form and it's most repeated
4:25 form in the early texts dependent origination is a chain of twelve nodes or twelve links and these are ignorant volition consciousness name-and-form
4:37 success bases contact feeling craving clinging existence birth and then aging and death those are the twelve now in particular the first two or depending on
4:51 how we see it two or three links that is between ignorance Volition's and consciousness this relation of these first three is somewhat obscure and it's
4:59 also I would say somewhat repetitious in that ignorance is also involved in many of the later links and volition which is the second is related to the link of
5:10 craving which is a volition and so there's a certain amount of repetition in in this this twelve link chain and these first three links were from the
5:20 work of Joanna Joanna derivates and then later Richard Gombrich who supports her work very much are taken to be an expression of Vedic cosmology that is
5:31 that in putting these first three links on here the Buddha may have been attempting at least indirectly to satirize Vedic cosmology where the Vedic
5:40 cosmology of the origin of the universe began with a kind of cosmic ignorance and then the universe was born out of that but I think for our purposes for a
5:49 contemporary kind of understanding of dependent origination that kind of satire doesn't where well it doesn't it doesn't really do us doesn't really
5:58 resonate with us nowadays so much and as I say since those first two links in the chain are actually basically repeated later on I think we can come to an
6:08 interpretation of this 12 link chain that leaves out those first two links where they're really not necessary also in there are actually early formations
6:17 of dependent origination the concept of dependent origination in several texts they seem to be earlier are for various reasons but one of the aspects of their
6:26 being early is it as that the the chain that that appears in these texts is shorter and in fact does not begin with with ignorance and and Volition's and so
6:37 when I say that we can leave off these first two links I'm not actually going out or going beyond the early texts what I'm
6:44 saying is that there are certain I think formulations that dependent origination in the early texts that are more congenial to a contemporary
6:52 understanding of this kind of of causal law and the what may be the earliest arguably is the earliest or at least one of the early ones is in the SU Tony pata
7:02 in a text about arguments and disputes where the issue is where does argument come from where do these disputes come from where does this kind of conflict
7:13 come from that we have in daily life so this is a shorter chain and it begins with name and form now what does name in form mean this is a technical term
7:23 within early Buddhism and probably predates that and how exactly to understand and interpret that in contemporary terms is somewhat
7:32 controversial but basically we can say it's something like the human person name being the naming aspects that that as it were carved that person out from
7:43 the rest of the world and also the name is supposed to stand for the mental aspects of the human person whereas a form is stands for the physical aspects
7:54 so name and form basically is in the commodious translation of the same term would be about mentality materiality that's more of a mouthful but basically
8:03 it's that mental and physical kind of unity that makes what makes up a person so that's where the Buddhist starts in the Sutra nepata in this particular text
8:13 the octae kavacha is the the the basket of text within the search any part of where this thing occurs where this text occurs and he says it begins all these
8:21 quarrels and disputes begin with name and form conditioning contact and of course that is a this is a very technical kind of beginning because of
8:30 course for most most people this is taken for granted but he says well look you know in all of this all of these fights that we have all these arguments
8:37 and disagreements they begin with the human person in the world contacting that that is to say their senses coming into contact with the world so contact
8:47 is that contact between the eye the ear the nose the tongue the body and of course for the bit of the mind which is another sense
8:55 contacting with the world and that is where this all the troubles begin and then secondly contact conditions feeling which is to say that once we contact
9:06 with the world once the world contacts our senses this immediately causes to arise certain kinds of feeling now these are not this is a technical term feeling
9:15 it doesn't mean emotional feeling what it means is more positive a negative or a neutral feeling that is once our senses come into contact with the world
9:24 what arises in us are are these feelings of either positive with it we like what we are kind of making contact with we don't like it or we're neutral to it
9:34 whether that's any of the senses or rhythm or the mind we can also have mental feelings of a good good feeling of a thought or a bad feeling of a
9:41 thought or a neutral feeling now the third stage is that feeling conditions craving that is to say and we have to understand craving in its dual sense
9:50 here that is to say we crave the the feelings that are positive but we also so should we say crave to push away the feelings that are negative so for
10:01 example if we have a pleasant sight that we see well we want more of that we want perhaps to own that we crave it and similarly if we have a sight that we
10:12 find ugly or a taste that we don't find pretty we may decide you know crave not to taste that anymore we may crave to avert our eyes and at this stage in the
10:25 in the chain is in the Buddha's understanding conditioned directly by our innate ignorant our innate greed their innate ill-will or dislike of
10:36 certain things that's what makes this particular stage arise and so here is where we see the the ignorance that I was mentioning before in one of the
10:44 first two steps of the 12-step chain reoccurs here because the ignorance is responsible at least in the background for this craving arising from feeling
10:54 and in the fourth stage not craving conditions clinging so let's say when we finally own this beautiful object that we thought was very pretty in the in the
11:04 window of the store then we cling to it we want to own it we we don't want to lose it or similarly if we decide that a particular food tastes
11:15 really bad well we we don't want to ever have have to taste that again and we we cling to that that desire not to have to taste this again if somebody puts it in
11:27 front of us or were we're at a party and or somebody's dinner and we presented this on our plate it's this kind of hardness within us that rejects having
11:37 to actually taste this again and in the final stage in this particular understanding of dependent origination is if this clinging is what then
11:45 conditions what we might call dukkha or unsatisfactoriness or these these quarrels and disputes and fights that is we cling to this parts of the world and
11:56 and similarly we cling to rejecting other parts of the world and when people come into contact with us who don't agree with our way of doing things well
12:06 it's this clinging this kind of hardness this internal hardness that causes us to get angry and causes us to erupt into disputes and shouting matches and
12:16 internet disagreements and and flame wars and all that that this that's where it comes from and of course all of this dispute or what he calls lamentations
12:25 and grief as I say is another word for due cuts in other word for unsatisfactoriness so the unsatisfactoriness of the world comes
12:32 out of clinging and craving so that's the picture we get in this particular book of the sutra nepata now in probably the one of the most famous treatments of
12:42 dependent origination is in a suitor called the Mohini Dona suta and here he actually restructures it slightly from its traditional 12-step version in
12:53 particular what's what's interesting in this interpretation is that he has a consciousness and nameand form as mutually dependent so consciousness
13:05 produces name and form and named in form produces consciousness now it's not exactly a clear how to understand this certainly one of the ways to understand
13:15 this is is as a form of rebirth that is to say rebirth is traditionally begins with consciousness so it's the consciousness of the prior life which
13:25 causes the arising of the consciousness and the new life and that new life then is what's responsible for producing the human person within the mother's womb
13:33 and in fact this is explicitly said within the maja nidana suta however it can also be seen as a sort of a mutuality between a living person and
13:44 their being conscious in the sense that the person's mentality and materiality and Brooke Baker bodis words that is is responsible for the arising and
13:54 continuation of consciousness and similarly without consciousness you don't really have a human person now after this particular mutual
14:01 conditioning at the beginning of the chain and the maja nidana then we have a continuation of that chain which is some way in some ways
14:08 mirrors the one we just saw so I won't go over it again however at the end of the chain and the maja nidana is similar to the more traditional 12-step version
14:16 that is to say that instead of clinging conditioning dukkha or unsatisfactoriness or these quarrels and disputes in the traditional version
14:26 clinging conditions as he says existence and then existence conditions birth and birth conditions paging and death now clearly one way of interpreting this is
14:35 through rebirth in other words it's our clinging that causes us to do to take certain actions in the world that have karmic consequences and those karmic
14:46 consequences will cause us to be rebirth reborn in a future lifetime that is again that's the traditional interpretation it certainly is an
14:54 interpretation that Buddha would have intended but there are other interpretations that are equally I would argue intended one has to be very
15:02 careful I think with the early texts not to assume that there is a one interpretation that is unique to a taxed and that there can't be any others the
15:11 Buddha clearly and and I would say this goes doubly for something as complex as dependent origination the Buddha clearly intended on a many different levels and
15:19 so another level of interpretation of these these last few links in the chain involves the arising of a sense of self
15:27 so in this understanding it's this clinging it's this volition this volitional state again which should remind us the second stage of the twelve
15:38 step is volition that volition comes up back here the volition of of clinging is what causes to arise a sense of self that is to say we identify it sits in
15:48 this clinging that we that we as it were discover or or identify ourself with a particular part of the world or we identify our self in opposition to a
15:59 particular part of the world so we we become the the person who craves and clings to X or who rejects Y this is a sort of an interpretation of the person
16:11 as a kind of internal critic deciding which parts of the world to accept and which parts the world to reject that is this kind of craving and clinging
16:20 produces a separation in the world it produces a separation of the world into those parts that we identify with and those parts that we identify against and
16:31 if we understand these last few links in that way then we could say that when that when the chain says that clinging causes existence what it's saying is
16:40 that clinging causes the arising and existence of this kind of sense of self of a sense of self identification with things that we like things that we are
16:51 willing as it were to fight for and things that we don't like that is to say if you like things are willing to fight against and this understanding goes goes
17:00 to back up as it were the second noble truth the second noble truth being that that clinging and craving or particularly craving but clinging and
17:08 craving really cause suffering it should also be said that in these interpretations of dependent origination the Buddha will often give them in one
17:17 direction and then back in the other direction that he'll that is he'll say that these will each one of these conditions the next but then if you as
17:25 it were unconditioned in the last one you can unconditional the others so then this is the root the Buddha's route towards
17:32 awakening in particular kind of - anemone that we can arrive that we can reach during mindful meditation or a certain kind of Samadhi or calm
17:41 meditation may be a way or is a way in the Buddhist understanding to short-circuit the kind of ignorant the kind of greed the kind of hatred that
17:51 actually not causes this chain to to continue in operation in particular its short circuits the the link between feeling and craving that is the the weak
18:04 link in the chain for the Buddha so we are presented with certain feelings we can't escape them certain parts of the world are painful to us and other parts
18:14 of the world are pleasant to us and there's no no way on the Buddhist understanding of reality to get away from that that is not escapable what is
18:24 escapable is how we react to that and the reaction our typical reaction is one of as we've seen craving however if we're able to get ourselves into a state
18:34 of equanimity with the world the craving ceases to arise instead of craving that the Pleasant states continue instead of craving that the
18:43 unpleasant states go away we're able to see them both as they are as passing phenomena as non-self that is to say as non personal as not parts of who I am
18:56 but is simply arising states that will then pass away if this is then short circuited then there is no subsequent arising of a sense of self there's no
19:04 arising of this existence which then leads to birth ageing and death that is to say in other words dukkha or unpleasantness or this kind of
19:14 psychological unsatisfactoriness that is to say that if there's no birth of a sense of self that divides the world into the liked in the disliked there is
19:24 no arising of dukkha there's no arising of unsatisfactoriness which is itself the third noble truth that is say the existence there is an existence of
19:35 freedom there's an existence of awakening which this escape from craving and clinging and I think you will have seen now that
19:43 the dependent origination is very complex and very in a certain size very controversial because there's so many different ways of interpreting it so in
19:51 the abhidhamma which is the later interpretation of buddhist philosophy that came a couple of centuries after the Buddha's death
19:58 more or less there is an interpretation of this we're of the the twelve the twelve link chain or of dependent origination which is explicitly moment
20:06 by moment in a single lifetime but it does when it says this when it expresses this kind of interpretation it actually changes a couple of the lengths to make
20:14 them more obviously about the one my mind moment after another rather than having to do with the birth of a new body and a new in a new womb as it were
20:23 so it's pretty clear the throughout the history of Buddhist philosophy a dependent origination has had a number of different interpretations then there
20:32 have been back and forth between people who wanted to interpret it within a single lifetime and those who want to interpret it within multiple lifetimes
20:41 there's so much to be said about a dependent origination there's no way of course to put it into a single relatively short I talked YouTube talk
20:49 but I hope this at least serves as an introduction and I'd be interested for your own take on dependent origination any of you want to express yourself
20:58 please just put it down below on the comments and I'm sure everyone will be interested to read what you have to say and so will I so I hope that's again I
21:06 hope that's been useful and we will catch you on the next video bye-bye