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Major figures |
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Four Noble Truths |
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Practices and attainment |
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Buddhahood · Bodhisattva |
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The doctrine of pratītyasamutpāda (Sanskrit: प्रतीत्यसमुत्पाद; Pali: paticcasamuppāda; Tibetan: rten.cing.'brel.bar.'byung.ba; Chinese: 緣起), often translated as "dependent arising," is a cardinal doctrine within Buddhist philosophy.[1][2][3]
It is a name given by the historical Buddha to the arising of samsaric phenomena. It is variously rendered into English as "dependent origination", "conditioned genesis", "dependent co-arising", "interdependent arising".
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The enlightenment or awakening of the Buddha (Pāli: Siddhattha Gotama; Sanskrit: Siddhārtha Gautama; c. 480–400 BCE) was simultaneously his liberation from suffering (Pāli: dukkha; Sanskrit: duhkha) and his insight into the nature of reality.[4]
The fundamental reason for suffering is human beings' ignorance (Pāli: avijjā; Sanskrit: avidyā) – our inability to perceive how things really are. We regard "what is impermanent as permanent, what is suffering as pleasure, and what is not-self [Pāli: anattā; Sanskrit: anātman] as self."[5] This is pinpointed in the two first of the Four Noble Truths[6]:
(1) Suffering
(2) The cause of suffering (namely, craving caused by ignorance)
Thus, as long as we do not realize how things really are and continue to crave and thirst (Pāli: tanhā; Sanskrit: trsna) for pleasure and continued existence, we keep on producing unhealthy actions and accumulating karma (Pāli: kamma; Sanskrit: karman) that leads to perpetuating rebirth (Pāli: Sangsara; Sanskrit: Samsāra).[7] The illuminated mind, on the contrary, does not apply the conceptual categories of "being" and "non-being" to the things of experience. Everything that has come to be is dependently originated (Pāli: paticcasamuppāda; Sanskrit: pratītyasamutpāda; other English terms are: conditioned arising, conditioned genesis, contingency, dependent arising, dependent co-arising and interdependent arising).[8] The enlightened individual realizes
(3) The release from suffering,
having developed (4) The path to that release (the eightfold Buddhist path of right view, right concentration, right mindfulness, right speech, right effort, right action, right morality, right livelihood).
The one who has adopted the Four Noble Truths has begun the long journey towards Nirvana (Pāli: Nibbāna; Sanskrit: Nirvāna).[9]
All things in the conventional reality arise, remain and cease:
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. (M II 32)
The Buddha demonstrated dependent arising with the "wheel of life" (Pāli: bhavacakka; Sanskrit: bhavacakra), which depicts the cycle of rebirth.[10] The wheel of life is supposed to illustrate the fact that nothing in our conventional reality "is brought about ... by any single cause alone, but by concomitance of a number of conditioning factors arising in discernibly repeated patterns."[11] Thus, everything is dependent on and relational to something else like in a spider's web, where each entangled string is an important part of the complex. And "as far as one analyzes, one finds only dependence, relativity, and emptiness, and their dependence, relativity, and emptiness"[12] and so ad infinitum.
A general formulation of this concept, found in over a dozen canonical discourses, is (in English and Pali):[13]
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When this is, that is. |
Imasmiṃ sati, idaṃ hoti. |
The general formulation has two well-known applications, one to the Buddhist conception of suffering, and the other to that of rebirth.
The application of pratītyasamutpāda to suffering is known as the Four Noble Truths:
The application of pratītyasamutpāda to the process of rebirth is known as the Twelve Nidanas or the Twelve Links of Conditioned Existence. The nikayas themselves do not give a systematic explanation of the nidana series.[15] As an expository device, the commentarial tradition presented the factors as a linear sequence spanning over three lives; this does not mean that the "past", "present", and "future" factors are mutually exclusive, and in fact as many suttas show, they are not.[16] The twelve nidanas categorized in this way are:
This twelve-factor formula is the most familiar presentation, though a number of early suttas introduce less-known variants which make it clear that the sequence of factors should not be regarded as a linear causal process in which each preceding factor gives rise to its successor through a simple reaction. The relationship among factors is always complex, involving several woven strands of conditionality.[17] For example, whenever there is ignorance, craving and clinging invariably follow, and craving and clinging themselves indicate ignorance.[16]
With respect to the destinies of human beings and animals, dependent origination has a more specific meaning, as it describes the process by which such sentient beings incarnate into any given realm and pursue their various worldly projects and activities with all concomitant suffering. Among these sufferings are aging and death. Aging and death are experienced by us because birth and youth have been experienced. Without birth there is no death. One conditions the other in a mutually dependent relationship. Our becoming in the world, the process of what we call "life", is conditioned by the attachment and clinging to ideas and projects. This attachment and clinging in turn cannot exist without craving as its condition. The Buddha understood that craving comes into being because there is sensation in the body which we experience as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. When we crave something, it is the sensation induced by contact with the desired object that we crave rather than the object itself. Sensation is caused by contact with such objects of the senses. The contact or impression made upon the senses (manifesting as sensation) is itself dependent upon the six sense organs which themselves are dependent upon the psychophysical entity that a human being is. The whole process is summarized by the Buddha as follows:
| English Terms | Sanskrit Terms |
|---|---|
| With Ignorance as condition, Mental Formations arise | With Avidyā as condition, Saṃskāra arises |
| With Mental Formations as condition, Consciousness arises | With Saṃskāra as condition, Vijñāna arises |
| With Consciousness as condition, Name and Form arise | With Vijñāna as condition, Nāmarūpa arises |
| With Name & Form as condition, Sense Gates arise | With Nāmarūpa as condition, Ṣaḍāyatana arises |
| With Sense Gates as condition, Contact arises | With Ṣaḍāyatana as condition, Sparśa arises |
| With Contact as condition, Feeling arises | With Sparśa as condition, Vedanā arises |
| With Feeling as condition, Craving arises | With Vedanā as condition, Tṛṣṇā arises |
| With Craving as condition, Clinging arises | With Tṛṣṇā as condition, Upādāna arises |
| With Clinging as condition, Becoming arises | With Upādāna as condition, Bhava arises |
| With Becoming as a condition, Birth arises | With Bhava as condition, Jāti arises |
| With Birth as condition, Aging and Dying arise | With Jāti as condition, Jarāmaraṇa arises |
The thrust of the formula is such that when certain conditions are present, they give rise to subsequent conditions, which in turn give rise to other conditions and the cyclical nature of life in Samsara can be seen. This is graphically illustrated in the Bhavacakra (wheel of life).
Contemporary teachers often teach that it can also be seen as a daily cycle occurring from moment to moment throughout each day. There is scriptural support for this as an explanation in the Abhidharmakosa of Vasubandhu, insofar as Vasubandu states that on occasion "the twelve parts are realized in one and the same moment":.[18]
For example, in the case of avidyā, the first condition, it is necessary to refer to the three marks of existence for a full understanding of its relation to pratityasamutpada. It is also necessary to understand the Three Fires and how they fit into the scheme. The Three Fires sit at the very center of the schemata in the Bhavacakra and drive the whole edifice. In Himalayan iconographic representations of the Bhavacakra such as within Tibetan Buddhism, the Three Fires are known as the Three Poisons which are often represented as the Gankyil. The Gankyil is also often represented as the hub of the Dharmacakra.
Nirvana is often conceived of as stopping this cycle. By removing the causes for craving, craving ceases. So, with the ceasing of birth, death ceases. With the ceasing of becoming, birth ceases, and so on, until with the ceasing of ignorance no karma is produced, and the whole process of death and rebirth ceases.
Though the formulations above appear might seem to imply that pratityasamutpada is a straightforward causal model, in the hands of the Madhyamaka school, pratityasamutpada is used to demonstrate the very lack of inherent causality, in a manner that appears somewhat similar to the ideas of David Hume. Many scholars have agreed that the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is one of the earliest interpretations of Buddha's teaching on paramartha originated from Pratītyasamutpāda [19] , [20].
The conclusion of the Madhyamikas is that causation, like being, must be regarded as a merely conventional truth (saṃvṛti), and that to take it as really (or essentially) existing would be both a logical error and a perceptual one, arising from ignorance and a lack of spiritual insight.
According to the analysis of Nāgārjuna, the most prominent Madhyamika, true causality depends upon the intrinsic existence of the elements of the causal process (causes and effects), which would violate the principle of anatman, but pratītyasamutpāda does not imply that the apparent participants in arising are essentially real.
Because of the interdependence of causes and effects (because a cause depends on its effect to be a cause, as effect depends on cause to be an effect), it is quite meaningless to talk about them as existing separately. However, the strict identity of cause and effect is also refuted, since if the effect were the cause, the process of origination could not have occurred. Thus both monistic and dualistic accounts of causation are rejected.
Therefore Nāgārjuna explains that the śūnyatā (or emptiness) of causality is demonstrated by the interdependence of cause and effect, and likewise that the interdependence (pratītyasamutpāda) of causality itself is demonstrated by its anatta.
In his Entry to the middle way, Candrakirti asserts, "If a cause produces its requisite effect, then, on that very account, it is a cause. If no effect is produced, then, in the absence of that, the cause does not exist."
In Dzogchen tradition the interdependent origination is considered illusory:[21]
[One says], "all these (configurations of events and meanings) come about and disappear according to dependent origination." But, like a burnt seed, since a nonexistent (result) does not come about from a nonexistent (cause), cause and effect do not exist.What appears as a world of apparently external phenomena, is the play of energy of sentient beings. There is nothing external or separate from the individual. Everything that manifests in the individual's field of experience is a continuum. This is the Great Perfection that is discovered in the Dzogchen practice.
"Being obsessed with entities, one's experiencing itself [sems, citta], which discriminates each cause and effect, appears as if it were cause and condition." [22]
The early discourses present nirvana as "unconditioned by dispositions", but it is never considered to be independent, or uncaused.[23]
Pratityasamutpada is most commonly used to explain how suffering arises depending on certain conditions, the implication being that if one or more of the conditions are removed (if the "chain" is broken), suffering will cease. There is also a text, the Upanisa Sutta in the Samyutta Nikaya, in which a discussion of the conditions not for suffering but for enlightenment are given. This application of the principle of dependent arising is referred to in Theravada exegetical literature as "transcendental dependent arising".[24] The chain in this case is:
Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh, a follower of the Vietnamese Zen tradition, has coined the term Interbeing as a synonym of pratityasamutpada. This phrase expresses the reality of mutual interdependence in human relationship both in the sense of relating one to another and in the wider sense of humanity's relationship to the natural world as a whole. The Sramanic religious traditions of India (Theravada Buddhism and Jainism) have been characterised by an unusual sensitivity to living beings. Monks of both traditions are strictly forbidden from harming any life form, including even the smallest insects and vegetation. One of the basic ideas behind the Buddha's teaching of mutual interdependence is that ultimately there is no demarcation between what appears to be an individual creature and its environment. Harming the environment (the nexus of living beings of which one forms but a part) is thus, in a nontrivial sense, harming oneself. This philosophical position lies at the heart of modern-day deep ecology and some representatives of this movement (e.g. Joanna Macy) have shown that Buddhist philosophy provides a rational basis for deep ecological thinking.
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