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Great video, Doug! Thanks a lot! ❤️🐱🙏 The mutual conditioning theory itself doesn't convince me at all. Too metaphysical, too speculative, too "cartesian" (kind of) so to speak. But in any case, I at least understand now what was/is meant here - thanks to your wonderful explanation! 😅 By the way, the "bundles of reed" remind me of the "two drunken sailors". There is an argument against coherentism in epistemology. And although they appear in a completely different context and with a different purpose, the reed bundles remind me somehow of the drunken sailors. But that's just a sidenote. 🙈😂 Be well... 🐱🙏
Dependent origination is just a basic principle of reality, like gravity. By the way, theories of gravity are quite abstract and none of them is really very satisfactory. That hardly disproves . You observe Dependent origination everywhere. You see it over and over again in the co-evolution of species either as prey-predator or in more mutualistic settings, such as with dogs and humans. We've been conditioning each other for 30,000 years now and have made each other quite different from our ancestral forms. Dependent origination is mutual causation and it's everywhere you look and at all levels. If you look deeply at language, you see how lexical items - "vocabulary" - define each other. Red ends where orange begins. The entire lexicon of a language works by these contrasts, mutual oppositions, and always along multiple axes. The grammars of languages work the same way. Look at the English system of verb tenses, how each tense is referenced to the time of the speech act and thus to each other. Now see if this applies to the rest of reality. How did you come to be the person you are? Did you just appear out of nothing, fully formed? It's not that theoretical a proposition, really.
Note: I did not say form or the universe does not exist without conscious perception. I said it is unknown. We might believe it exists without any conscious perception but that belief is entirely dependent on our conceptual perception imagination of it being there. Idappaccayatā
Very similar to the Sāṃkhya philosophy’s list of 25 tattvas/elements, which got expanded to 36 tattvas in Śaiva Tantra a millennium or so after Buddha’s death by adding 11 universal elements. E.g. individual consciousness/puruṣa tattva in the Sāṃkhya philosophy is seen as a contracted manifestation of the universal consciousness or Śiva tattva within the causal veils of Māyā Śakti (a primordial energy that creates the appearance of dualities such as hot/cold, pleasure/pain, male/female, self/other, etc. within consciousness). It also reminds me of the “observer effect” in modern physics whereby the act of observing phenomena conditions the way they objectively manifest. Nobody has ever experienced a purely objective reality in the absence of consciousness, a fact that materialists and naturalists tend to overlook.
Buddha was literally like “Okay class, so there aren’t any *dumb* questions, but I literally *do not care* about any questions unrelated to the cessation of suffering in this life.”
“Bikkhus, the chicken and egg co-dependently arise. Without egg, there is no chicken. Without chicken, there is no egg.” - hmm 🤔. There is actually some wisdom to that answer 😂
@@willmosse3684 there is, the wisdom is to realise that it is an unbeneficial questions with Undiscoverable answer, it will make no difference in life whether you get to know who came first. Hence, abandon these questions and strive towards Nibbana.
"In the sutras, this image is given: "Three cut reeds can stand only by leaning on one another. If you take one away, the other two will fall." 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 causes and conditions. If we continue to look in this way, we'll see that nothing has been left out. Everything in the cosmos has come together to bring us this table. Looking deeply at the sunshine, the leaves of the tree, and the clouds, we can see the table. The one can be seen in the all, and the all can be seen in the one. One cause is never enough to bring about an effect. A cause must, at the same time, be an effect, and every effect must also be the cause of something else. Cause and effect inter-are. The idea of first and only cause, something that does not itself need a cause, cannot be applied."
I sometimes think on a really really basic level dependent origination is like missing the point of something at a fundamental level, and then going off on a tangent.
Hi Doug, Have you come across Ven Katukurunde Nanananda's "Nibbana Sermons" or his "The Law of Dependent Arising - The Secret of Bondage and Release?" My understanding is that most Theravada scholars take these to be two of the most significant contributions to Theravada Buddhist thought of modern times. In it he explains that most Suttas on Paticcasamuppada begins with the verse "Imasmim sati idam hōti, imassa uppādā idam uppajjāti; imasmim asati idam na hōti, imassa nirōdhā idam nirujjhatī ti" that is, “When this is, that is; with arising of this, that arises; when there is not this, that is not; with the cessation of this that ceases.” And then this is followed by "Yadidam" ie, "that is to say" and and an exposition of the links, which have slight variations - such as the one you discussed in Maha Nidana Sutta. Therefore, Ven Nanananda states that the fundamental description of Paticcasamuppada is the formula "When this is, that is; with arising of this, that arises; when there is not this, that is not; with the cessation of this that ceases", and each exposition of the links is an exemplification of the fundamental formula. Looked at it this way, the variations are not apparent inconsistencies that need explanation, but different ways in which the fundamental formula can play out. Also, the fundamental formula unequivocally shows that the links are not a process that occurs serially, but that all these links exist within us ordinary folk at any living moment, which the simile of the reeds underscores. I feel that Ven Nanananda's perspective is very insightful and probably closer to what the Buddha actually meant, as opposed to the standard three-life commentarial view. The latter cannot be Sandhittika, which is one of the primary qualities of the Dhamma.
Yes, the Buddha says that the law of dependent origination is quite complex. It has many interpretations. One way to look at it is as you say, that each link is present in us at any living moment. However the serial interpretation is clearly intended as well: the series from contact through to aging and death is something reinforced time and again in the suttas as a serial process for example.
We are only able to see If there are objects to be seen, but the objects only exist to our sight if we are able to see. We are only able to hear if there are sounds to be heard, but the sounds only exist to us if we have the sense of hearing. Isn't it the same when It comes to consciousness? Consciousness is necessarily consciousness of something, it needs objects to be aware of in order to exist. At the same time objects only exist to the individual if he has consciousness. One, in a way, is essencial to the other, both would fall apart if the other were absent, in a way. What do you think?
Great way to explain it. Everything is connected after all. Everyone is just trying to take apart the pieces and explain it individually but to make any sense, it has to all fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle
Hmmm, very interesting. But I’m not sure we do need rebirth to understand the dependence of name and form on consciousness, in the way the Buddha phrases it in DN 15.21: “If consciousness were not conceived in mother’s womb, would name and form coagulate there?” “No, sir” (at 5:28). From an experiential perspective at least, this is absolutely correct. If there is no awareness, then there is no name and form - no mental and physical phenomena. These things only come into being, for us at least, through awareness. Then, there is debate about whether this is fundamentally ontologically true, rather than just at the experiential phenomenological level. A modern materialist would reject this latter extension of the thesis, which makes consciousness somehow fundamental, but phenomenologically at least, this is not necessary. I am also not sure that rebirth is necessary to understand the second part: the dependence of consciousness on name and form. The Buddha writes, also in DNA 15.22, that : “If consciousness were not to gain a footing in name and form, would the coming to be of the origin of suffering - of birth, old age, and death in the future - be found?” “No, sir” (at 7:50). Then, the Buddha explains in the bundle of reeds metaphor in SN 12.67 that if there is no name and form, there is no consciousness (at 3:55). What this means is that consciousness is not some continuous thing, it comes into and passes out of existence based on contact between one of the six sense fields and their respective physical forms (form) or mental formations (name). So when eye sense (vision) comes into contact with eye form (a visual object), eye consciousness (visual awareness) comes into being. So no eye form, no eye consciousness. Equally, when mind sense comes into contact with a thought (mental formation, name), mental formation consciousness comes into being. No name, no consciousness. So consciousness, or consciousnesses, are constantly coming into and going out of existence based on ever changing contact between the sense doors and name and form - this is the impermanence, or Anicca, of the fifth aggregate: consciousness. And the Buddha is clear that all the aggregates are impermanent (I can’t remember a sutta reference off the top of my head). So we can see that consciousness is dependent on name and form (as well as the sense doors, and contact between them). Returning to the way the Buddha frames it in DNA 15.22, quoted above, he states that if consciousness did not “gain a footing in name and form”, there would be no “birth, old age, and death”. Well, based on the explanation above about the impermanence of all the aggregates, including consciousness, and the reed metaphor, showing that any particular sense consciousness is dependent upon contact between the relevant sense door and sense form, we can see that for sure, if there were no name (mental formations) and form (physical forms), then no consciousness would arise, and therefore life could not happen. Surely, then, there would be no birth, old age, and death. No suffering. So I think this teaching from DN 15.22 makes sense without recourse to the concept of rebirth, even if that was included in his original intended teaching. All these other parts definitely were too - these are all core elements of the dharmic structure. And they all still work and make sense of it without the rebirth part. Or so it seems to me anyway. I don’t doubt that classical Buddhists would say I am reinterpreting my way out of my contradicting the true meaning 😂. But, I think they would be hard pressed to argue that all the other elements of the interpretation I have set out are not totally in line with orthodox Buddhism. Thank you Doug 🙏🏻 Edit: (Note - I have now edited this edit 😂) It is amazing how the Buddha was able to provide a structure that explains the co-dependent arising and passing away of consciousness and name & form at BOTH levels at the same time: the level of life, death and rebirth, an ALSO at the level of the impermanence/anicca of phenomena in every moment. What an incredible guy!
My preference as a secular practitioner is to avoid the rebirth interpretation as well, however there are plenty of textual reasons to consider it part of the early teaching.
@@DougsDharma Thanks Doug! It’s absolutely the case that rebirth is a central tenet of the early teachings in general, and having now looked at the full DN 15 sutta directly, rather than just the snippets in the video, it is also absolutely clear to me that the Buddha was talking in the context of birth, life, death and rebirth in these specific passages. As such, I will amend my post-script text above to reflect this. Thanks for the teaching 🙏🏻. However, I think it is also clear that this discourse ALSO explains the co-dependent arising and passing out of existence of consciousness and name & form in every moment. The teaching on impermanence/anicca of the aggregates, including form and consciousness, makes clear that this process is happening all the time. It’s amazing the way the way that the Buddha was able to offer a framework that encompasses BOTH levels at the same time. What an incredible guy! Thanks again! Oh, btw, now I’ve got some finances sorted, I am finally going to join your Patreon later 🤩
Rebirth is a necessary concept to grasp imo. Because if everything is in flux and nothing is staying still, so change is relentless hence things are constantly getting renewed. Your mind processes different thoughts every second, hence a rebirth of ideas. Your bodily cells are getting renewed, so damaged and expired ones are getting replaced hence, your body is constantly getting some kind of rebirth. Of course, rebirth doesn't mean a permanent entity like a soul penetrating a new body to have a whole new experience, in the traditional sense. Rebirth just means transformation imo
Nama Rupa, Name and Form, are mind and body. Otherwise known as The Five Khandhas - groups of functions, "things" we attach to. These five are pure life. Trouble begins when we allow Self and Selfishness to arise - those then become the burden we carry through life. There are these Five Khandas we build this illusion of Self from: Body (Rupa) khandha - material body with its functions - not self (anatta), impermanent (anicca), empty of any power to satisfy craving (dukkha) Vedana khandha - feelings towards sensual experience - not self (anatta), impermanent (anicca), empty of any power to satisfy craving (dukkha) Sanya (sañña) khandha - perception, distinguishing; memory recollection, discriminating - not self (anatta), impermanent (anicca), empty of any power to satisfy craving (dukkha) Sankara - thinking function of the mind which builds up, assembles things, sounds, smells etc - not self (anatta), impermanent (anicca) , empty of any power to satisfy craving (dukkha) Vinyana - function of the mind that knows Sankara - sounds, smells, etc. Translated as "consciousness" can be misleading: it is only "consciousness of something". - not self (anatta), impermanent (anicca), empty of any power to satisfy craving (dukkha) --- Now, how does Vinyana cause Nama Rupa ? n.b. Vinyana is one of the 4 Nama khandhas,so it is not correct to say that Vinyana **causes** Nama Rupa, as that would mean that apart from the other4, it also causes itself. And that is not possible as nothing can be its own cause, nobody can be his own father. It is simply the case that ones awareness of ones nama rupa arises in vinyana - consciousness. So, body and mind can spring into existence only in consciousness. We are not talking here of literal appearing of an biological organism in the world - that happens once through mother's womb we all know how, and that's all there is to it. Instead, we are talking about arising of the Five Khandhas of attachment in the mind, through Paticcasamuppada - attachment to body, to sensation, to perception, to thinking, to consciousness. It is these attachments that are the burden of life (Dukkha) known as Self, me, mine.. Another n.b. Consciousness (Vinyana) is ALWAYS consciousness of something, it is knowing something manufactured by Sankara and supported by all 4 other Khandhas. It is NOT some kind of independent force that creates beings out of nothing - that is God and who is looking for that in Buddhism is in a wrong classroom - on the wrong campus. --- To understand Paticcasamuppada, start with Nagarjuna's explanation: 3 of the (traditional) 12 links are afflictions (ignorance, clinging, craving) 2 of the 12 links are kamma (mental formations, becoming) 7 remaining links are all suffering (sukha-dukkha, Self, me, mine) From 3 come 2; from 2 come 7; from 7 come 3 again... Repeating in lightning speed, all the time , right in this very lifetime. Dependent Origination doesn't require 3 lifetimes to complete one cycle; it is lightning fast : when my mind starts burning in hatred or in rage or in jealousy, at that very moment my mind becomes Hell realm. If I act while my mind is in this state, whatever I was until this moment that version of me will cease, disappear, "die", and a new version of me will be born: Demon-me. Everyone around me can witness this death of the old me, and the birth of the Demon-me. When I stop acting as a Demon, my mind will cool down, exit the Hell realm, and the Demon-me will cease - "die". What my next "birth" wil be, that depends on what I do next and how I do it and how that doing will change my mental state. In dependence on that, my next "birth" will be decided. So "death" and "birth" happen all the time in exactly this way - sometimes I am a human, sometimes an animal, other tines a demon or hungry ghost. So, when anger was burning in my mind, I didn't have to wait 50 years to die, enter the coffin, be buried, and only then to be reborn as a Demon - no, it happened straight away with lightning speed. These psychological births and deaths, these are the births and deaths we should concern ourselves with; it is these that we can influence right here and now - not after death, in a thousand next lives. It is here and now that we decide whether we will live our lives as demons, or hungry ghosts, or humans... As for the biological birth and the related death of this organism , those happen once and that's all there is to it. We cannot not be born, and we cannot not die, so why wory about it? Our attention is needed in all the births and deaths we undergo in-between these two terminal points. --- Here are the 8 links of Dependent Origination when Ignorance is in the background: 1,2,3: When a sense organ meets its object, consciousness arises - this 3 are Contact 4: When contact is present, feeling arises 5: When feeling is present, craving arises 6: When craving is present, clinging arises 7: When clinging is present, becoming arises 8: When becoming is present, "birth" arises, as the sensed object arises as "me, mine" in consciousness EDIT: And this is how I know that the sutta Doug is referring to here is NOT Buddha's; It is compiled by Buddha's later day followers who believed in literal rebirth after death, which is a belief they brought into Buddhism from their religions when they converted, and never let go of it. Rebirth requires Atman - Atta, and Buddha was very clear: Anatman - Anatta - there is no such thing.
I can see why its said here that the buddha's idea of consciousness giving rise to name and form is dubious, but doesn't this understanding of consciousness as a "life force" greatly simplify the early buddhist's view of consciousness? I would think, instead, that the idea is subtler. I wonder if the idea with his specific example here is more that a baby is born if and only if the baby is conscious. In other words, the buddha may be talking about logical causality here, and not temporal causality. He is saying something similar in the other direction too: Birth, old age, and death exists if and only if consciousness exists. My thought is that he is trying to make an argument that there is a deep relationship between consciousness and form, but do so in a way that is independent of the specific definition of consciousness, since we all agree that babies probably form consciousness in the womb.
That is certainly part of it: that dukkha (birth, old age, death) exist iff consciousness does. I think the Buddha's explanation in the Mahānidāna Sutta shows there is more to it, and at least on the picture of the early tradition, rebirth linking is key to the story. What we make of that nowadays is another matter of course. 🙏
@@DougsDharma Oh yes, certainly I agree that rebirth is important here. However, I was considering the possibility that even rebirth is in this form of this logical causality, since in the Sutta mentioned, all of the arguments are of this form, with the exception of perhaps the argument of rebirth, but that would be strange if only that was the exception. I think the point of reincarnation to dependent origination is summed up from this quote from the mentioned sutta: "It wouldn’t be appropriate to say that a mendicant whose mind is freed like this holds the following views: ‘A realized one still exists after death’; ‘A realized one no longer exists after death’; ‘A realized one both still exists and no longer exists after death’; ‘A realized one neither still exists nor no longer exists after death’." I think rebirth as it is talked about in this sutta must be consistent with this idea of "logical independence" of what happens after death. In other words, reincarnation to me, is more like the "Transporter Paradox" from star trek :), than a transference of a soul or life force from being to being, and so is not necessarily supernatural, because it is trying to get at the transference or movement of information, which is less supernatural, and more just necessary for how the world works. We are to understand that because of non-self, reincarnation is neither true, nor false.
@@ud0ntevenkn0wme Certainly. I think the best way to explain what I am trying to say is to start thinking about the transporter paradox in terms of the "Ship of Theseus". In other words, ask yourself the question, how much of Kirk would have to change in order for us to no longer consider Kirk the same Kirk on the other side of the transporter? When we ask this question, we see that the answer is quite mirky. First, imagine the typical thing we might expect, where the molecules are deconstructed and then transfered to the surface of the planet where they are reconstructed in the form of Kirk. I think this is the default way we kind of imagine this. But now, imagine that instead of transferring his molecules, the molecules are destroyed, and we reconstruct Kirk from other molecules that exist on the surface of the planet. Now the new Kirk is not made up of the same matter, but is instead completely new matter. But because it is a perfect reconstruction and the old Kirk was annihilated, we would probably still consider this Kirk. Then, imagine that instead of reconstructing Kirk by teleporting the molecules that make him up, we instead take some living being on the surface of the planet, and rearrange the state of their brain to have all of Kirk's memories and personality. There would likely be some differences in Kirk's behavior here due to differences in physiology, but we would likely consider this Kirk still Kirk in a "Freaky Friday" kind of sense. Now, instead of this, imagine that instead of transporting Kirk, we merely kill Kirk, but that we have some sort of Star Trek super-technology that has stored all of his memories and personality, and, then we "upload" this to some person's brain on the surface of the planet. Is this still Kirk? Perhaps we are getting a bit less sure, but the point is, that the difference between this version of "transport" and the last version of "transport" are basically non-existent. Next, imagine that instead of using some super-technology, we just write down all of Kirk's memories and personality in a giant book. Then we kill kirk, and at a very early age we teach all of this information to a child, and convince them whole-heartedly that these memories and personality are their memories and personality. Although this is cruder than the previous example, it is not actually substantially different. Finally, think about this sort of transference of information happening through physics, genetics, culture, environment, and stories, etc. Because of non-self there is really no difference. In all of these cases, we might start to say "okay, now we are getting to a point where this person would behave differently enough where I would not consider them the same person". But then I would ask, when it comes to people with mental disorders, e.g. Alzheimers, Dementia, or Schizophrenia, there are sometimes complete changes in memories and personality. Furthermore, people can lose limbs or have other major changes to their bodies. So neither complete mental changes nor complete physical changes seem to keep us from considering a person "the same person". A person who has been taught to have the same memories as another person may even be argued to have *more* self coherence than someone who loses their memories entirely. This is, I think, the sense in which rebirth is meant to be understood. A mere transfer of information through time, which happens through physical, genetic, biological, cultural, societal, and individual means regardless of any supernatural phenomena being necessary. In this sense, when one understands non-self fully, I think it becomes very clear that if we are living in accordance to some definition of the self, then because of transfer of information through time, it is possible for that self to exist again even after "death" in the above non-supernatural sense. When one fully cultivates non-self and has no notion of "me", then this cycle "ends" in a sense. As a last point, I think reincarnation is considered "supernatural" in early buddhism simply because of the belief at the time that there existed gods and other realms. But I think this should be separated from the idea of "reincarnation", because it was just the understanding of physical reality at the time. There wasn't really another choice but to think about the possibility of this transferring of information to other realms, because everyone just assumed they existed. So, even though I can understand the temptation of secular buddhists to not focus on reincarnation, I think this comes from a misunderstanding of non-self. I think the buddha focused so much on rebirth not for supernatural or metaphysical reasons, but because it is actually essential to understand non-self fully, and to have "right view" as it concerns to attachment to views about life and death. It is important to consider rebirth as equally as important as "not rebirth" because if one doesn't consider them equally as important, then one really has not fully cultivated non-self, since both are equally true when non-self is understood.
Can you do a video about Buddhism shame, body shaming, racial shaming, shame of past mistakes or actions etc explaining the Buddhist point of view about this topic.
I did a video awhile back on regret, which is the closest counterpart: ua-cam.com/video/HvAf8fBCPR8/v-deo.html I'm not sure the Buddha ever discussed shame as such, except perhaps as "hiri" which is sometimes translated "moral shame" but I prefer "conscience". I think it's not really what you're after though.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but one particular explanation really helped me understand dependent origination. It is obvious that results depend on causes. It's not possible to have a result if there was no cause. However, the opposite is also true; we cannot talk about causes without results. This seemed contradictory and confusing for me. If we examine this statement more closely, then is it possible to 'label' something as a cause if there has been no result? I think not. A cause is dependent upon a result in much the same way as a result is dependent upon a cause.
Form is unknown apart from consciousness. In other words; a universe devoid of sense perception is unknown to exist. That being said consciousness cannot exist outside of form as it comes into existence through form and by form. Though conscious sense perception concept (name) form is known. eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind are physical and actually based on feeling form. We feel vibrations in the ear nerve cells and conceptually make them a "thing". We feel light and the lack of light on the retinal nerve cells and conceptually make them a "thing". We sense a smell on the nose nerve cells and call it name it conceptually a "thing". Experience of an emotional experience like a an attraction or an aversion can become a "thing" like a political or religious belief. Consciousness recognition and form are not separate but co-dependent.
Mutual conditioning/dependent origination is something that can't be realized with the logical mind. I think the teaching is meant to lead someone beyond conception towards emptiness rather than draw any intellectual conclusions.
@DougsDharma But does one not encounter a logical roadblock when trying to separate two conditions that mutually condition each other? It's like asking what link is the beginning point of the links in codependent origination. The simile you reference about the sheaths of grain, for instance. The link of craving gets special attention because it is the 'hook' that keeps us in the cycle. If the tendency to crave can be understood and abandoned, all the other 11 links in the chain collapse, just like the sheath of grain falling.
@@CrStrifeyyou have to stop thinking in terms of physical, material reality being separate or different from consciousness. What's being described here is far more subtle. "Form" is not physical matter, but the experience of the body from within, and the experience of warmth, coolness, solidity, and energy.
My take at this moment in time (Nov 2024) Consciousness is a life force. Name and form is the body (combinations of feelings, perception … or mental faculties and 4 elements today is ''the periodic table'') It is not that A causes B and B causes A. Is that B can not exist without A, and A can not exist without B, or at least it wouldn't make any sense Consciousness without a body would not be able to see, touch, smell, or think; therefore, this question would never arise, and we would not be watching this video and getting all confused. The reciprocal relationship does not mean in this context that I scratch your back and you scratch mine, if we use the synonymous mutual relationship it makes more sense since it simply means that everything exists only as a set of interconnections. Another take: Cause and effect or subject and object, up and down right and left … is a dualistic and relative human condition from which we don't seem to be able to escape, at least not the logical and conceptual mind. The dancer and his dance are not the same but they are not two. Alan Watts has an interesting metaphor for this: A scientist looked through a keyhole and saw a cat walk by, he noticed the head first, then the neck, torso, rear and finally the tail... after a while, he concluded that the head caused the tail.
I made a pot of coffee and cleaned up that area of the kitchen... An explication of a powerful intellect, one who retained a cultural bias to augment his own biased exigetical thought in order to lend credence to a more substanative discourse, while this philosophic presumption is well intended, may undermine an otherwise creditable experience based ontological philosophy. Strictly speaking, learning to pay attention is less a compliance in accordance with definitive subject matter and applied 'science', any more than an allegiance or membership aligned to support another's perspective or to participate in a group agreement. The immediacy of Zen is a simple recognition in this...open and pervasive expression as to the perfundity of existence. One "steps into the stream" and participates in "simply thus" free of constructs having served their purpose. ...now, to start in on the living room.
Dependent origination and non-duality seem to be conveying the same thing. It reminds me of the joke where the monk asks for a pizza with everything on it.
Ha! Yes, however there are also some differences, see my videos on Indra's Net: ua-cam.com/video/CQN7sVmckso/v-deo.html and on non-dualism: ua-cam.com/video/43v6lLweukg/v-deo.html
I think a stumbling block for most modern people, and westerners, is this tacit assumption that there is a separate world "out there" where consciousness "arises" as a distinct phenomena. Maybe the Buddha didnt see it that way, and had a more subtle metaphysics? We cant be sure. But we should at least entertain the notion.
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Four great elements become 24 co-originated (Upada) forms. Thanks.
"At this thought , there arose in me concerning things unheard of before, vision, understanding, light".
Thx a lot, Doug.🎉🎉🎉
Very good, thank you 👍
Thank you Doug
Great video Doug! These concepts are very difficult to explain clearly but you always find a way!
🙏😊
Thank for the effort to give clarity in this damma
It's my pleasure!
Great video, Doug! Thanks a lot! ❤️🐱🙏
The mutual conditioning theory itself doesn't convince me at all. Too metaphysical, too speculative, too "cartesian" (kind of) so to speak. But in any case, I at least understand now what was/is meant here - thanks to your wonderful explanation! 😅
By the way, the "bundles of reed" remind me of the "two drunken sailors". There is an argument against coherentism in epistemology. And although they appear in a completely different context and with a different purpose, the reed bundles remind me somehow of the drunken sailors. But that's just a sidenote. 🙈😂
Be well... 🐱🙏
Thanks for the question!
Dependent origination is just a basic principle of reality, like gravity. By the way, theories of gravity are quite abstract and none of them is really very satisfactory. That hardly disproves .
You observe Dependent origination everywhere. You see it over and over again in the co-evolution of species either as prey-predator or in more mutualistic settings, such as with dogs and humans. We've been conditioning each other for 30,000 years now and have made each other quite different from our ancestral forms. Dependent origination is mutual causation and it's everywhere you look and at all levels.
If you look deeply at language, you see how lexical items - "vocabulary" - define each other. Red ends where orange begins. The entire lexicon of a language works by these contrasts, mutual oppositions, and always along multiple axes. The grammars of languages work the same way. Look at the English system of verb tenses, how each tense is referenced to the time of the speech act and thus to each other.
Now see if this applies to the rest of reality. How did you come to be the person you are? Did you just appear out of nothing, fully formed?
It's not that theoretical a proposition, really.
Thanks!
🙏🙏
It's the same with our vision. We see the whole because we see the details and we see the details because we see the whole.
Sometimes we miss the forest for the trees!
I think you should do a video on chanda (aspiration) vs tanha (craving)
I plan to, actually! Will be a few weeks though. 😊
Note: I did not say form or the universe does not exist without conscious perception. I said it is unknown.
We might believe it exists without any conscious perception but that belief is entirely dependent on our conceptual perception imagination of it being there.
Idappaccayatā
Waaaaay back in the 1980s I read a book in which the academics called it...
Interdependant co-origination.
Sure, many different translations out there. Take your pick! 😄
Very similar to the Sāṃkhya philosophy’s list of 25 tattvas/elements, which got expanded to 36 tattvas in Śaiva Tantra a millennium or so after Buddha’s death by adding 11 universal elements. E.g. individual consciousness/puruṣa tattva in the Sāṃkhya philosophy is seen as a contracted manifestation of the universal consciousness or Śiva tattva within the causal veils of Māyā Śakti (a primordial energy that creates the appearance of dualities such as hot/cold, pleasure/pain, male/female, self/other, etc. within consciousness). It also reminds me of the “observer effect” in modern physics whereby the act of observing phenomena conditions the way they objectively manifest. Nobody has ever experienced a purely objective reality in the absence of consciousness, a fact that materialists and naturalists tend to overlook.
"Which came first; the chicken or the egg?"
The Buddha: "Yes."
@@lillebror1567 the Buddha: Pointless question, which is unbeneficial and Undiscoverable.
Buddha was literally like “Okay class, so there aren’t any *dumb* questions, but I literally *do not care* about any questions unrelated to the cessation of suffering in this life.”
😂
“Bikkhus, the chicken and egg co-dependently arise. Without egg, there is no chicken. Without chicken, there is no egg.” - hmm 🤔. There is actually some wisdom to that answer 😂
@@willmosse3684 there is, the wisdom is to realise that it is an unbeneficial questions with Undiscoverable answer, it will make no difference in life whether you get to know who came first. Hence, abandon these questions and strive towards Nibbana.
"In the sutras, this image is given: "Three cut reeds can stand only by leaning on one another. If you take one away, the other two will fall." 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 causes and conditions. If we continue to look in this way, we'll see that nothing has been left out. Everything in the cosmos has come together to bring us this table. Looking deeply at the sunshine, the leaves of the tree, and the clouds, we can see the table. The one can be seen in the all, and the all can be seen in the one. One cause is never enough to bring about an effect. A cause must, at the same time, be an effect, and every effect must also be the cause of something else. Cause and effect inter-are. The idea of first and only cause, something that does not itself need a cause, cannot be applied."
I sometimes think on a really really basic level dependent origination is like missing the point of something at a fundamental level, and then going off on a tangent.
Yes, you could see it that way.
Avijja is an influence of ignorance like a force that interacts, becoming the nature of separately knowing/taking.
Hello Sir,
Do you do book reviews or interviews of fellow Teachers?
Thank you.
Hi Doug, Have you come across Ven Katukurunde Nanananda's "Nibbana Sermons" or his "The Law of Dependent Arising - The Secret of Bondage and Release?" My understanding is that most Theravada scholars take these to be two of the most significant contributions to Theravada Buddhist thought of modern times. In it he explains that most Suttas on Paticcasamuppada begins with the verse "Imasmim sati idam hōti, imassa uppādā idam uppajjāti; imasmim asati idam na hōti, imassa nirōdhā idam nirujjhatī ti" that is, “When this is, that is; with arising of this, that arises; when there is not this, that is not; with the cessation of this that ceases.” And then this is followed by "Yadidam" ie, "that is to say" and and an exposition of the links, which have slight variations - such as the one you discussed in Maha Nidana Sutta. Therefore, Ven Nanananda states that the fundamental description of Paticcasamuppada is the formula "When this is, that is; with arising of this, that arises; when there is not this, that is not; with the cessation of this that ceases", and each exposition of the links is an exemplification of the fundamental formula. Looked at it this way, the variations are not apparent inconsistencies that need explanation, but different ways in which the fundamental formula can play out. Also, the fundamental formula unequivocally shows that the links are not a process that occurs serially, but that all these links exist within us ordinary folk at any living moment, which the simile of the reeds underscores. I feel that Ven Nanananda's perspective is very insightful and probably closer to what the Buddha actually meant, as opposed to the standard three-life commentarial view. The latter cannot be Sandhittika, which is one of the primary qualities of the Dhamma.
Yes, the Buddha says that the law of dependent origination is quite complex. It has many interpretations. One way to look at it is as you say, that each link is present in us at any living moment. However the serial interpretation is clearly intended as well: the series from contact through to aging and death is something reinforced time and again in the suttas as a serial process for example.
We are only able to see If there are objects to be seen, but the objects only exist to our sight if we are able to see. We are only able to hear if there are sounds to be heard, but the sounds only exist to us if we have the sense of hearing. Isn't it the same when It comes to consciousness? Consciousness is necessarily consciousness of something, it needs objects to be aware of in order to exist. At the same time objects only exist to the individual if he has consciousness. One, in a way, is essencial to the other, both would fall apart if the other were absent, in a way. What do you think?
My own feeling is that this makes a lot of sense epistemologically.
Great way to explain it. Everything is connected after all. Everyone is just trying to take apart the pieces and explain it individually but to make any sense, it has to all fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle
Hmmm, very interesting. But I’m not sure we do need rebirth to understand the dependence of name and form on consciousness, in the way the Buddha phrases it in DN 15.21: “If consciousness were not conceived in mother’s womb, would name and form coagulate there?” “No, sir” (at 5:28). From an experiential perspective at least, this is absolutely correct. If there is no awareness, then there is no name and form - no mental and physical phenomena. These things only come into being, for us at least, through awareness. Then, there is debate about whether this is fundamentally ontologically true, rather than just at the experiential phenomenological level. A modern materialist would reject this latter extension of the thesis, which makes consciousness somehow fundamental, but phenomenologically at least, this is not necessary.
I am also not sure that rebirth is necessary to understand the second part: the dependence of consciousness on name and form. The Buddha writes, also in DNA 15.22, that : “If consciousness were not to gain a footing in name and form, would the coming to be of the origin of suffering - of birth, old age, and death in the future - be found?” “No, sir” (at 7:50). Then, the Buddha explains in the bundle of reeds metaphor in SN 12.67 that if there is no name and form, there is no consciousness (at 3:55). What this means is that consciousness is not some continuous thing, it comes into and passes out of existence based on contact between one of the six sense fields and their respective physical forms (form) or mental formations (name). So when eye sense (vision) comes into contact with eye form (a visual object), eye consciousness (visual awareness) comes into being. So no eye form, no eye consciousness. Equally, when mind sense comes into contact with a thought (mental formation, name), mental formation consciousness comes into being. No name, no consciousness. So consciousness, or consciousnesses, are constantly coming into and going out of existence based on ever changing contact between the sense doors and name and form - this is the impermanence, or Anicca, of the fifth aggregate: consciousness. And the Buddha is clear that all the aggregates are impermanent (I can’t remember a sutta reference off the top of my head). So we can see that consciousness is dependent on name and form (as well as the sense doors, and contact between them).
Returning to the way the Buddha frames it in DNA 15.22, quoted above, he states that if consciousness did not “gain a footing in name and form”, there would be no “birth, old age, and death”. Well, based on the explanation above about the impermanence of all the aggregates, including consciousness, and the reed metaphor, showing that any particular sense consciousness is dependent upon contact between the relevant sense door and sense form, we can see that for sure, if there were no name (mental formations) and form (physical forms), then no consciousness would arise, and therefore life could not happen. Surely, then, there would be no birth, old age, and death. No suffering.
So I think this teaching from DN 15.22 makes sense without recourse to the concept of rebirth, even if that was included in his original intended teaching. All these other parts definitely were too - these are all core elements of the dharmic structure. And they all still work and make sense of it without the rebirth part. Or so it seems to me anyway. I don’t doubt that classical Buddhists would say I am reinterpreting my way out of my contradicting the true meaning 😂. But, I think they would be hard pressed to argue that all the other elements of the interpretation I have set out are not totally in line with orthodox Buddhism.
Thank you Doug 🙏🏻
Edit: (Note - I have now edited this edit 😂) It is amazing how the Buddha was able to provide a structure that explains the co-dependent arising and passing away of consciousness and name & form at BOTH levels at the same time: the level of life, death and rebirth, an ALSO at the level of the impermanence/anicca of phenomena in every moment. What an incredible guy!
My preference as a secular practitioner is to avoid the rebirth interpretation as well, however there are plenty of textual reasons to consider it part of the early teaching.
@@DougsDharma Thanks Doug! It’s absolutely the case that rebirth is a central tenet of the early teachings in general, and having now looked at the full DN 15 sutta directly, rather than just the snippets in the video, it is also absolutely clear to me that the Buddha was talking in the context of birth, life, death and rebirth in these specific passages. As such, I will amend my post-script text above to reflect this. Thanks for the teaching 🙏🏻. However, I think it is also clear that this discourse ALSO explains the co-dependent arising and passing out of existence of consciousness and name & form in every moment. The teaching on impermanence/anicca of the aggregates, including form and consciousness, makes clear that this process is happening all the time. It’s amazing the way the way that the Buddha was able to offer a framework that encompasses BOTH levels at the same time. What an incredible guy! Thanks again!
Oh, btw, now I’ve got some finances sorted, I am finally going to join your Patreon later 🤩
Rebirth is a necessary concept to grasp imo. Because if everything is in flux and nothing is staying still, so change is relentless hence things are constantly getting renewed. Your mind processes different thoughts every second, hence a rebirth of ideas. Your bodily cells are getting renewed, so damaged and expired ones are getting replaced hence, your body is constantly getting some kind of rebirth. Of course, rebirth doesn't mean a permanent entity like a soul penetrating a new body to have a whole new experience, in the traditional sense. Rebirth just means transformation imo
Nama Rupa, Name and Form, are mind and body.
Otherwise known as The Five Khandhas - groups of functions, "things" we attach to.
These five are pure life. Trouble begins when we allow Self and Selfishness to arise - those then become the burden we carry through life.
There are these Five Khandas we build this illusion of Self from:
Body (Rupa) khandha - material body with its functions - not self (anatta), impermanent (anicca), empty of any power to satisfy craving (dukkha)
Vedana khandha - feelings towards sensual experience - not self (anatta), impermanent (anicca), empty of any power to satisfy craving (dukkha)
Sanya (sañña) khandha - perception, distinguishing; memory recollection, discriminating - not self (anatta), impermanent (anicca), empty of any power to satisfy craving (dukkha)
Sankara - thinking function of the mind which builds up, assembles things, sounds, smells etc - not self (anatta), impermanent (anicca) , empty of any power to satisfy craving (dukkha)
Vinyana - function of the mind that knows Sankara - sounds, smells, etc. Translated as "consciousness" can be misleading: it is only "consciousness of something". - not self (anatta), impermanent (anicca), empty of any power to satisfy craving (dukkha)
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Now, how does Vinyana cause Nama Rupa ?
n.b. Vinyana is one of the 4 Nama khandhas,so it is not correct to say that Vinyana **causes** Nama Rupa, as that would mean that apart from the other4, it also causes itself. And that is not possible as nothing can be its own cause, nobody can be his own father.
It is simply the case that ones awareness of ones nama rupa arises in vinyana - consciousness. So, body and mind can spring into existence only in consciousness. We are not talking here of literal appearing of an biological organism in the world - that happens once through mother's womb we all know how, and that's all there is to it.
Instead, we are talking about arising of the Five Khandhas of attachment in the mind, through Paticcasamuppada - attachment to body, to sensation, to perception, to thinking, to consciousness. It is these attachments that are the burden of life (Dukkha) known as Self, me, mine..
Another n.b. Consciousness (Vinyana) is ALWAYS consciousness of something, it is knowing something manufactured by Sankara and supported by all 4 other Khandhas. It is NOT some kind of independent force that creates beings out of nothing - that is God and who is looking for that in Buddhism is in a wrong classroom - on the wrong campus.
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To understand Paticcasamuppada, start with Nagarjuna's explanation:
3 of the (traditional) 12 links are afflictions (ignorance, clinging, craving)
2 of the 12 links are kamma (mental formations, becoming)
7 remaining links are all suffering (sukha-dukkha, Self, me, mine)
From 3 come 2; from 2 come 7; from 7 come 3 again... Repeating in lightning speed, all the time , right in this very lifetime.
Dependent Origination doesn't require 3 lifetimes to complete one cycle; it is lightning fast : when my mind starts burning in hatred or in rage or in jealousy, at that very moment my mind becomes Hell realm.
If I act while my mind is in this state, whatever I was until this moment that version of me will cease, disappear, "die", and a new version of me will be born: Demon-me. Everyone around me can witness this death of the old me, and the birth of the Demon-me.
When I stop acting as a Demon, my mind will cool down, exit the Hell realm, and the Demon-me will cease - "die". What my next "birth" wil be, that depends on what I do next and how I do it and how that doing will change my mental state. In dependence on that, my next "birth" will be decided.
So "death" and "birth" happen all the time in exactly this way - sometimes I am a human, sometimes an animal, other tines a demon or hungry ghost.
So, when anger was burning in my mind, I didn't have to wait 50 years to die, enter the coffin, be buried, and only then to be reborn as a Demon - no, it happened straight away with lightning speed.
These psychological births and deaths, these are the births and deaths we should concern ourselves with; it is these that we can influence right here and now - not after death, in a thousand next lives. It is here and now that we decide whether we will live our lives as demons, or hungry ghosts, or humans...
As for the biological birth and the related death of this organism , those happen once and that's all there is to it. We cannot not be born, and we cannot not die, so why wory about it? Our attention is needed in all the births and deaths we undergo in-between these two terminal points.
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Here are the 8 links of Dependent Origination when Ignorance is in the background:
1,2,3: When a sense organ meets its object, consciousness arises - this 3 are Contact
4: When contact is present, feeling arises
5: When feeling is present, craving arises
6: When craving is present, clinging arises
7: When clinging is present, becoming arises
8: When becoming is present, "birth" arises, as the sensed object arises as "me, mine" in consciousness
EDIT: And this is how I know that the sutta Doug is referring to here is NOT Buddha's; It is compiled by Buddha's later day followers who believed in literal rebirth after death, which is a belief they brought into Buddhism from their religions when they converted, and never let go of it. Rebirth requires Atman - Atta, and Buddha was very clear: Anatman - Anatta - there is no such thing.
I can see why its said here that the buddha's idea of consciousness giving rise to name and form is dubious, but doesn't this understanding of consciousness as a "life force" greatly simplify the early buddhist's view of consciousness?
I would think, instead, that the idea is subtler. I wonder if the idea with his specific example here is more that a baby is born if and only if the baby is conscious. In other words, the buddha may be talking about logical causality here, and not temporal causality. He is saying something similar in the other direction too: Birth, old age, and death exists if and only if consciousness exists.
My thought is that he is trying to make an argument that there is a deep relationship between consciousness and form, but do so in a way that is independent of the specific definition of consciousness, since we all agree that babies probably form consciousness in the womb.
That is certainly part of it: that dukkha (birth, old age, death) exist iff consciousness does. I think the Buddha's explanation in the Mahānidāna Sutta shows there is more to it, and at least on the picture of the early tradition, rebirth linking is key to the story. What we make of that nowadays is another matter of course. 🙏
@@DougsDharma Oh yes, certainly I agree that rebirth is important here. However, I was considering the possibility that even rebirth is in this form of this logical causality, since in the Sutta mentioned, all of the arguments are of this form, with the exception of perhaps the argument of rebirth, but that would be strange if only that was the exception.
I think the point of reincarnation to dependent origination is summed up from this quote from the mentioned sutta:
"It wouldn’t be appropriate to say that a mendicant whose mind is freed like this holds the following views: ‘A realized one still exists after death’; ‘A realized one no longer exists after death’; ‘A realized one both still exists and no longer exists after death’; ‘A realized one neither still exists nor no longer exists after death’."
I think rebirth as it is talked about in this sutta must be consistent with this idea of "logical independence" of what happens after death. In other words, reincarnation to me, is more like the "Transporter Paradox" from star trek :), than a transference of a soul or life force from being to being, and so is not necessarily supernatural, because it is trying to get at the transference or movement of information, which is less supernatural, and more just necessary for how the world works.
We are to understand that because of non-self, reincarnation is neither true, nor false.
@@wikiemol2can you explain how the transporter paradox is about movement of information in a subtle way? I think I get it but am not sure.
@@ud0ntevenkn0wme Certainly.
I think the best way to explain what I am trying to say is to start thinking about the transporter paradox in terms of the "Ship of Theseus". In other words, ask yourself the question, how much of Kirk would have to change in order for us to no longer consider Kirk the same Kirk on the other side of the transporter?
When we ask this question, we see that the answer is quite mirky.
First, imagine the typical thing we might expect, where the molecules are deconstructed and then transfered to the surface of the planet where they are reconstructed in the form of Kirk. I think this is the default way we kind of imagine this.
But now, imagine that instead of transferring his molecules, the molecules are destroyed, and we reconstruct Kirk from other molecules that exist on the surface of the planet. Now the new Kirk is not made up of the same matter, but is instead completely new matter. But because it is a perfect reconstruction and the old Kirk was annihilated, we would probably still consider this Kirk.
Then, imagine that instead of reconstructing Kirk by teleporting the molecules that make him up, we instead take some living being on the surface of the planet, and rearrange the state of their brain to have all of Kirk's memories and personality. There would likely be some differences in Kirk's behavior here due to differences in physiology, but we would likely consider this Kirk still Kirk in a "Freaky Friday" kind of sense.
Now, instead of this, imagine that instead of transporting Kirk, we merely kill Kirk, but that we have some sort of Star Trek super-technology that has stored all of his memories and personality, and, then we "upload" this to some person's brain on the surface of the planet. Is this still Kirk? Perhaps we are getting a bit less sure, but the point is, that the difference between this version of "transport" and the last version of "transport" are basically non-existent.
Next, imagine that instead of using some super-technology, we just write down all of Kirk's memories and personality in a giant book. Then we kill kirk, and at a very early age we teach all of this information to a child, and convince them whole-heartedly that these memories and personality are their memories and personality. Although this is cruder than the previous example, it is not actually substantially different.
Finally, think about this sort of transference of information happening through physics, genetics, culture, environment, and stories, etc. Because of non-self there is really no difference.
In all of these cases, we might start to say "okay, now we are getting to a point where this person would behave differently enough where I would not consider them the same person". But then I would ask, when it comes to people with mental disorders, e.g. Alzheimers, Dementia, or Schizophrenia, there are sometimes complete changes in memories and personality. Furthermore, people can lose limbs or have other major changes to their bodies. So neither complete mental changes nor complete physical changes seem to keep us from considering a person "the same person". A person who has been taught to have the same memories as another person may even be argued to have *more* self coherence than someone who loses their memories entirely.
This is, I think, the sense in which rebirth is meant to be understood. A mere transfer of information through time, which happens through physical, genetic, biological, cultural, societal, and individual means regardless of any supernatural phenomena being necessary.
In this sense, when one understands non-self fully, I think it becomes very clear that if we are living in accordance to some definition of the self, then because of transfer of information through time, it is possible for that self to exist again even after "death" in the above non-supernatural sense. When one fully cultivates non-self and has no notion of "me", then this cycle "ends" in a sense.
As a last point, I think reincarnation is considered "supernatural" in early buddhism simply because of the belief at the time that there existed gods and other realms. But I think this should be separated from the idea of "reincarnation", because it was just the understanding of physical reality at the time. There wasn't really another choice but to think about the possibility of this transferring of information to other realms, because everyone just assumed they existed. So, even though I can understand the temptation of secular buddhists to not focus on reincarnation, I think this comes from a misunderstanding of non-self. I think the buddha focused so much on rebirth not for supernatural or metaphysical reasons, but because it is actually essential to understand non-self fully, and to have "right view" as it concerns to attachment to views about life and death. It is important to consider rebirth as equally as important as "not rebirth" because if one doesn't consider them equally as important, then one really has not fully cultivated non-self, since both are equally true when non-self is understood.
Can you do a video about Buddhism shame, body shaming, racial shaming, shame of past mistakes or actions etc explaining the Buddhist point of view about this topic.
I did a video awhile back on regret, which is the closest counterpart: ua-cam.com/video/HvAf8fBCPR8/v-deo.html I'm not sure the Buddha ever discussed shame as such, except perhaps as "hiri" which is sometimes translated "moral shame" but I prefer "conscience". I think it's not really what you're after though.
@DougsDharma thank you for the video 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but one particular explanation really helped me understand dependent origination. It is obvious that results depend on causes. It's not possible to have a result if there was no cause. However, the opposite is also true; we cannot talk about causes without results. This seemed contradictory and confusing for me. If we examine this statement more closely, then is it possible to 'label' something as a cause if there has been no result? I think not. A cause is dependent upon a result in much the same way as a result is dependent upon a cause.
Nagarjuna agrees.
Form is unknown apart from consciousness. In other words; a universe devoid of sense perception is unknown to exist.
That being said consciousness cannot exist outside of form as it comes into existence through form and by form.
Though conscious sense perception concept (name) form is known.
eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind are physical and actually based on feeling form. We feel vibrations in the ear nerve cells and conceptually make them a "thing".
We feel light and the lack of light on the retinal nerve cells and conceptually make them a "thing".
We sense a smell on the nose nerve cells and call it name it conceptually a "thing".
Experience of an emotional experience like a an attraction or an aversion can become a "thing" like a political or religious belief.
Consciousness recognition and form are not separate but co-dependent.
Mutual conditioning/dependent origination is something that can't be realized with the logical mind. I think the teaching is meant to lead someone beyond conception towards emptiness rather than draw any intellectual conclusions.
Well the Buddha certainly seems to have tried to teach it rationally and intellectually in the Mahānidāna Sutta.
@DougsDharma But does one not encounter a logical roadblock when trying to separate two conditions that mutually condition each other? It's like asking what link is the beginning point of the links in codependent origination. The simile you reference about the sheaths of grain, for instance.
The link of craving gets special attention because it is the 'hook' that keeps us in the cycle. If the tendency to crave can be understood and abandoned, all the other 11 links in the chain collapse, just like the sheath of grain falling.
@@CrStrifeyyou have to stop thinking in terms of physical, material reality being separate or different from consciousness. What's being described here is far more subtle. "Form" is not physical matter, but the experience of the body from within, and the experience of warmth, coolness, solidity, and energy.
@ud0ntevenkn0wme what in my comment implies I am making that differentiation
My take at this moment in time (Nov 2024)
Consciousness is a life force.
Name and form is the body (combinations of feelings, perception … or mental faculties and 4 elements today is ''the periodic table'')
It is not that A causes B and B causes A.
Is that B can not exist without A, and A can not exist without B, or at least it wouldn't make any sense
Consciousness without a body would not be able to see, touch, smell, or think; therefore, this question would never arise, and we would not be watching this video and getting all confused.
The reciprocal relationship does not mean in this context that I scratch your back and you scratch mine, if we use the synonymous mutual relationship it makes more sense since it simply means that everything exists only as a set of interconnections.
Another take:
Cause and effect or subject and object, up and down right and left … is a dualistic and relative human condition from which we don't seem to be able to escape, at least not the logical and conceptual mind.
The dancer and his dance are not the same but they are not two.
Alan Watts has an interesting metaphor for this:
A scientist looked through a keyhole and saw a cat walk by, he noticed the head first, then the neck, torso, rear and finally the tail... after a while, he concluded that the head caused the tail.
I made a pot of coffee and cleaned up that area of the kitchen...
An explication of a powerful intellect, one who retained a cultural bias to augment his own biased exigetical thought in order to lend credence to a more substanative discourse, while this philosophic presumption is well intended, may undermine an otherwise creditable experience based ontological philosophy.
Strictly speaking, learning to pay attention is less a compliance in accordance with definitive subject matter and applied 'science', any more than an allegiance or membership aligned to support another's perspective or to participate in a group agreement.
The immediacy of Zen is a simple recognition in this...open and pervasive expression as to the perfundity of existence. One "steps into the stream" and participates in "simply thus" free of constructs having served their purpose.
...now, to start in on the living room.
Dependent origination and non-duality seem to be conveying the same thing. It reminds me of the joke where the monk asks for a pizza with everything on it.
Ha! Yes, however there are also some differences, see my videos on Indra's Net: ua-cam.com/video/CQN7sVmckso/v-deo.html and on non-dualism: ua-cam.com/video/43v6lLweukg/v-deo.html
I think a stumbling block for most modern people, and westerners, is this tacit assumption that there is a separate world "out there" where consciousness "arises" as a distinct phenomena.
Maybe the Buddha didnt see it that way, and had a more subtle metaphysics? We cant be sure. But we should at least entertain the notion.
I wrote a paper on that subject awhile back, and did a video on the subject of early Buddhist metaphysics: ua-cam.com/video/Lnz1OLUOUaQ/v-deo.html
🙈🙉🙊❤🔥