|
|
|
|
Pratitya-samutpada
|
| |
|
| |
The doctrine of pratityasamutpada (Sanskrit; ; ; ), often translated as "dependent arising," is an important part of Buddhist phenomenology and, some argue, metaphysics. Common to all schools of Buddhism, it states that phenomena arise together in a mutually interdependent web of cause and effect. It is variously rendered into English as "dependent origination", "conditioned genesis", "dependent co-arising", "interdependent arising", or "contingency".
enlightenment (or bodhi, a word that means "to awaken") of the Buddha was simultaneously his liberation from suffering (dukkha) and his insight into the nature of the Universe – particularly the nature of the lives of sentient beings (principally humans and animals).
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Pratitya-samutpada' Start a new discussion about 'Pratitya-samutpada' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
The doctrine of pratityasamutpada (Sanskrit; ; ; ), often translated as "dependent arising," is an important part of Buddhist phenomenology and, some argue, metaphysics. Common to all schools of Buddhism, it states that phenomena arise together in a mutually interdependent web of cause and effect. It is variously rendered into English as "dependent origination", "conditioned genesis", "dependent co-arising", "interdependent arising", or "contingency".
Dependent origination
The enlightenment (or bodhi, a word that means "to awaken") of the Buddha was simultaneously his liberation from suffering (dukkha) and his insight into the nature of the Universe – particularly the nature of the lives of sentient beings (principally humans and animals). What the Buddha awakened to was the truth of dependent origination.
This is the understanding that any phenomenon exists only because of the existence of other phenomena in an incredibly complex web of cause and effect covering time past, time present and time future. This concept of a web is symbolized by Indra's net, a multidimensional spider's web on which lies an infinite amount of dew drops or jewels, and in these are reflected the reflections of all the other drops of dew ad infinitum.
Stated in another way, everything depends on everything else. A human being's existence in any given moment is dependent on the condition of everything else in the world at that moment, but in an equally significant way, the condition of everything in the world in that moment depends conversely on the character and condition of that human being. Everything in the Universe is interconnected through the web of cause and effect such that the whole and the parts are mutually interdependent. The character and condition of entities at any given time are intimately connected with the character and condition of all other entities that superficially may appear to be unconnected or unrelated.
Because all things are thus conditioned and transient (anicca), they have no real independent identity (anatta) and thus do not truly exist, though to ordinary minds this appears to be the case. All phenomena are therefore fundamentally insubstantial and empty (sunya).
Wise human beings, those who "see things as they are" (yatha-bhuta-ñana-dassana), renounce attachment and clinging, transform the energy of desire into awareness and understanding, and eventually transcend the conditioned realm of form becoming Buddhas or Arhats.
General formulation
A general formulation of this concept, found in over a dozen canonical discourses, is (in English and Pali):
When this is, that is.
From the arising of this comes the arising of that.
When this isn't, that isn't.
From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that.
|
|
Applications
The general formulation has two well-known applications, one to the Buddhist conception of suffering, and the other to that of rebirth.
The Four Noble Truths
The application of pratityasamutpada to suffering is known as the Four Noble Truths:
1. Dukkha: There is suffering. Suffering is an intrinsic part of life also experienced as dissatisfaction, discontent, unhappiness, impermanence.
2. Samudaya: There is a cause of suffering, which is attachment or desire (tanha).
3. Nirodha: There is a way out of suffering, which is to eliminate attachment and desire.
4. Magga: The path that leads out of suffering is called the Noble Eightfold Path.
Twelve Nidanas
The application of pratityasamutpada to the process of rebirth is known as the Twelve Nidanas or the Twelve Links of Conditioned Existence. Here each link is conditioned by the preceding one, and itself conditions the succeeding one. These cover three lives:
Former Life
- ignorance
- volitional formations (activities which produce karma)
Current Life
- consciousness
- mind and body (personality or identity)
- the six sense bases (five physical senses and the mind)
- contact (between objects and the senses)
- feeling (registering the contact)
- craving (for continued contact)
- clinging
- becoming (similar to volitional formations)
Future Life
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 Avidya as condition, arises | | With Mental Formations as condition, Consciousness arises | With as condition, Vijñana arises | | With Consciousness as condition, Name and Form arise | With Vijñana as condition, Namarupa arises | | With Name & Form as condition, Sense Gates arise | With Namarupa as condition, arises | | With Sense Gates as condition, Contact arises | With as condition, Sparsa arises | | With Contact as condition, Feeling arises | With Sparsa as condition, Vedana arises | | With Feeling as condition, Craving arises | With Vedana as condition, arises | | With Craving as condition, Clinging arises | With as condition, Upadana arises | | With Clinging as condition, Becoming arises | With Upadana as condition, Bhava arises | | With Becoming as a condition, Birth arises | With Bhava as condition, Jati arises | | With Birth as condition, Aging and Dying arise | With Jati as condition, 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).
There appears to be widespread misunderstanding of the formula in relation to time scales. Many references made to pratityasamutpada are expressed over lifetimes. While this is true in the wider sense, more practically, this is to be seen as a daily cycle occurring from moment to moment throughout each day.
It is necessary to refer to the above in order to fully understand and make use of the concept of pratityasamutpada.
For example, in the case of avidya, 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.
Madhyamaka and Pratityasamutpada
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.
The conclusion of the Madhyamikas is that causation, like being, must be regarded as a merely conventional truth , 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 Nagarjuna, 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 pratityasamutpada 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 Nagarjuna explains that the anatta (or emptiness) of causality is demonstrated by the interdependence of cause and effect, and likewise that the interdependence (pratityasamutpada) 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."
Pratityasamutpada in Dzogchen
In Dzogchen tradition the interdependent origination is considered illusory:
"Being obsessed with entities, one's experiencing itself [sems, citta], which discriminates each cause and effect, appears as if it were cause and condition."
"Transcendental" dependent arising
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 is sometimes glossed as "transcendental dependent arising".
The chain in this case is:
- suffering (dukkha)
- faith (saddha)
- joy (pamojja, pamujja)
- rapture (piti)
- tranquillity (passaddhi)
- happiness (sukha)
- concentration (samadhi)
- knowledge and vision of things as they are ()
- disenchantment with worldly life (nibbida)
- dispassion (viraga)
- freedom, release, emancipation, deliverance (vimutti)
- knowledge of destruction of the cankers ()
The early discourses present nirvana as "unconditioned by dispositions", but it is never considered to be independent, or uncaused.
Interbeing and Deep Ecology
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.
See also
External links
- Christian Thomas Kohl, Buddhismus und Quantenphysik, Windpferdverlag, Aitrang 2005 ISBN 3893854639
|
| |
|
|
