Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

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daverupa
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Re: Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

Post by daverupa »

mikenz66 wrote:I agree. There are so many variations that there seems to be no reason to think of the 12 link version as particularly special.
I think, this cannot be emphasized enough.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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acinteyyo
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Re: Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

Post by acinteyyo »

mikenz66 wrote:I agree. There are so many variations that there seems to be no reason to think of the 12 link version as particularly special. The common point seems to be relational expansions of the noble truths, i.e. craving -> dukkha.

:anjali:
Mike
Hm... I disagree because I actually don't perceive many variations.
Thag 1.20. Ajita - I do not fear death; nor do I long for life. I’ll lay down this body, aware and mindful.
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piotr
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Re: Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

Post by piotr »

Hi tiltbillings
tiltbillings wrote:
Nanavira wrote: The scholar's essentially horizontal view of things, seeking connexions in space and time, and his historical approach to the texts, disqualify him from any possibility of understanding a Dhamma that the Buddha himself has called akālika, 'timeless'
And Nanavira is making an unwarranted jump here.
Yes, he was wrong about meaning of the word "dhamma" in this context (i.e. equating it with paṭiccsamuppāda) and about meaning of "akālika". It seems to me that he couldn't find better passages from the Suttas to show that paṭiccsamuppāda is a description of a structure and not of a process.
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piotr
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Re: Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

Post by piotr »

Hi acinteyyo
acinteyyo wrote:
mikenz66 wrote:I agree. There are so many variations that there seems to be no reason to think of the 12 link version as particularly special. The common point seems to be relational expansions of the noble truths, i.e. craving -> dukkha.

:anjali:
Mike
Hm... I disagree because I actually don't perceive many variations.
Yet I think that Ñāṇavīra would agree on this with Mike and Sylvester. From "A Note on Paṭiccasamuppāda":
  • Paticcasamuppāda is, in fact, a structural principle (formally stated in the first Sutta passage at the head of this Note), and not one or another specific chain of sankhārā. It is thus an over-simplification to regard any one given formulation in particular terms as paticcasamuppāda.
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acinteyyo
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Re: Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

Post by acinteyyo »

piotr wrote:Hi acinteyyo
acinteyyo wrote:
mikenz66 wrote:I agree. There are so many variations that there seems to be no reason to think of the 12 link version as particularly special. The common point seems to be relational expansions of the noble truths, i.e. craving -> dukkha.

:anjali:
Mike
Hm... I disagree because I actually don't perceive many variations.
Yet I think that Ñāṇavīra would agree on this with Mike and Sylvester. From "A Note on Paṭiccasamuppāda":
  • Paticcasamuppāda is, in fact, a structural principle (formally stated in the first Sutta passage at the head of this Note), and not one or another specific chain of sankhārā. It is thus an over-simplification to regard any one given formulation in particular terms as paticcasamuppāda.
That is exactly how I perceive it. I perceive the variations to be merely different ways to describe but one structural principle.
Thag 1.20. Ajita - I do not fear death; nor do I long for life. I’ll lay down this body, aware and mindful.
daverupa
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Re: Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

Post by daverupa »

acinteyyo wrote:That is exactly how I perceive it. I perceive the variations to be merely different ways to describe but one structural principle.
And yet, some people feel that they can't possibly understand this topic unless they understand the 12-step program, but that's not the case. So, why then do people always seem to use the 12-step program to assess their understanding, or that of others?
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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acinteyyo
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Re: Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

Post by acinteyyo »

Maybe because it's the most prominent?
And maybe because of the details, which may or may not be crucial.

I for example, think it is a huge difference if one thinks a particular feeling arises some time after its determining contact or that there can be contact and after some time there comes a particular feeling and if contact ceases a determined feeling persists for some time and ceases then in oposition to contact and respective feeling arising together, being present together and ceasing together (which is how I understand it).

Then those variations may not describe one and the same principle.

best wishes, acinteyyo
Last edited by acinteyyo on Thu Apr 30, 2015 10:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
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mikenz66
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Re: Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

Post by mikenz66 »

What about MN18, DN15, etc? Are those not prominent suttas? Not to mention the entire 12th Samyutta...

To me, as I think I already said, the most important common element seems to me to be the 2nd/3rd noble truth relationship of craving/dukkha.

:anjali:
Mike
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piotr
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Re: Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

Post by piotr »

Hi Mike,
mikenz66 wrote:My understanding, is that these processes generally take place over time.

I realise that there are some who disagree and favour Ven Nanavira's "timeless" model. In that case, the questions I have posed are probably of little interest.
I don't think that Ñāṇavīra is questioning the fact that for example experiencing a particular pleasant feeling can take some time. What he says is that relation between items in any formulation of paṭiccsamuppāda is not causal (causation involves time) but structural (without involvment of time, timeless so to speak). It seems to me that Buddha was pointing to this type of dependence in Hatthapādupama-sutta (SN 35.236):
  • “Bhikkhus, when there are hands, picking up and putting down are discerned. When there are feet, coming and going are discerned. When there are limbs, bending and stretching are discerned. When there is the belly, hunger and thirst are discerned.

    “So too, bhikkhus, when there is the eye, pleasure and pain arise internally with eye-contact as condition. When there is the ear, pleasure and pain arise internally with ear-contact as condition…. When there is the mind, pleasure and pain arise internally with mind-contact as condition.
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acinteyyo
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Re: Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

Post by acinteyyo »

mikenz66 wrote:What about MN18, DN15, etc? Are those not prominent suttas? Not to mention the entire 12th Samyutta...
To me, as I think I already said, the most important common element seems to me to be the 2nd/3rd noble truth relationship of craving/dukkha.
:anjali:
Mike
They are, as far as I can tell. However I see no variation of the principle expressed. I only see a variation in expressing one and the same principle.
Thag 1.20. Ajita - I do not fear death; nor do I long for life. I’ll lay down this body, aware and mindful.
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piotr
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Re: Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

Post by piotr »

Hi Dave
daverupa wrote:And yet, some people feel that they can't possibly understand this topic unless they understand the 12-step program, but that's not the case. So, why then do people always seem to use the 12-step program to assess their understanding, or that of others?
Maybe because of this?

Image
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acinteyyo
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Re: Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

Post by acinteyyo »

piotr wrote:Hi Dave
daverupa wrote:And yet, some people feel that they can't possibly understand this topic unless they understand the 12-step program, but that's not the case. So, why then do people always seem to use the 12-step program to assess their understanding, or that of others?
Maybe because of this?

Image
The wheel of birth could lead to some misunderstandings. It implies that death leads to birth, although birth is a necessary cause for death, death is not a necessary cause for birth. Becoming is the necessary cause for birth.
A similar problem arises with the 12-links being presented as a circle as if death lead to ignorance, which is nonsense.
Thag 1.20. Ajita - I do not fear death; nor do I long for life. I’ll lay down this body, aware and mindful.
Sylvester
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Re: Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

Post by Sylvester »

Thank you acinteyyo for sharing your rationale. I think I will have to say the rationale will have to stand or fall with the validity of this premise -
 As long as ignorance persists all 11 links persist in dependence on ignorance as the root cause simultaneously. 
We're back to the process model if you lens DO through "persistence". This begs the question yet again - does DO (as in the SN12.20 sense of each nidana being DO) arise and cease? DO as a dhammata can do neither; it just "is true".

Secondly, the "process of persisting" doesn't tally with the Ariyasavakasuttas explaining the arising aspect of DO thru the existential locative absolute.

Thirdly, the existence of ignorance serves as requisite condition for volition but one does not crave in the absence of feelings.

More importantly, one cannot reduce DO to the 12 factors but one has to focus on how the 12 factors play out in 11 nidanas/links. Each nidana is DO. There is no suggestion in the suttas to look at ignorance and see how that gives rise to the bundle of 11 sequels concurrently (assuming the grammars are correct the existential locative absolute). It begs the question - how do the nidanas persist and cease when a nidana is a dhammata (an unchanging abstract principle)?
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Re: Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

Post by pulga »

Thanks for the comment, Sylvester.
Sylvester wrote:I wonder if another simile from the Canon might not perhaps be more appropriate to the sutta in question, namely the roaming monkey in SN 12.61.

Certainly, if the analogy entails a vertically stacked structure, then it would be absurd to remove the ground floor to accomodate the upper decks. But the roaming monkey analogy seems like a viable alternative to the building analogy. The initial perception would not need to persist for the sake of the resultant gnosis.
This is why Ven. Ñanavira's Fundamental Structure is divided into the static and the dynamic. The static describes a single, meaningful moment -- not in time -- but constituting time as an "intemporal" whole (cf. akālika in his glossary).

Just consider the essence of the situation you presently find yourself in in its aprioristic immediacy, i.e. before you reflect upon it thereby seeing it as a part of the greater whole of the reflection itself, i.e. as a thing within time. In order for it to have any significance -- any meaning -- it must be contextually layered with other meanings which determine it for what it is. All of these meanings must be present in order to give your present situation its meaning, and so we are left with a timeless reflexive hierarchy of infinite complexity: eternities layered upon eternities.
All this, of course, is tautologous; for 'to be a thing' means 'to be able to be or exist', and there is no thing that cannot exist. And if anything exists, everything else does. Compare this utterance of Parmenides: 'It needs must be that what can be thought of and spoken of is; for it is possible for it to be, and it is not possible for what is no thing to be'. (Parmenides seems to have drawn excessive conclusions from this principle through ignoring the fact that a thought is an imaginary, and therefore absent, experience—or rather, a complex of absent experiences—; but the principle itself is sound. The images involved in thinking must, individually at least [though not necessarily in association], already in some sense be given—i.e. as what is elsewhere, or at some other time, or both—at the immediate level, before they can be thought. Perhaps the method of this Note will suggest a reconciliation between the Parmenidean absolute denial of the existence of no thing, with its corollary, the absolute existence of whatever does exist, and the merely relative existence of every thing as implied by the undeniable fact of change. [emphasis added] ) FS I. Static Aspect
And so he later describes the dynamic aspect of Fundamental Structure, i.e. when things do change, i.e. what unfolds when the monkey roams the forest grabbing and letting go of tree branches -- the "standing flow"* of movement, i.e. of time.

He wrote an interesting letter to Mr. Wijerama on the nature of change which contained the following:
Let us now consider the principle that 'when change takes place within one and the same sensible quality or characteristic it is always the more general feature that remains invariable while the subordinate or more particular feature varies'. A little consideration, I think, will show you that this is really a tautology, and cannot therefore be denied. What I mean to say is this. If I am asked what I understand by the words 'particular' and 'general', I shall reply that what is general embraces two (or more) particulars, in such a way that each particular thing is an example or instance of the more general thing. (A number of leaves from different kinds of trees will each be a particular shade of green, and therefore all different one from another; but each and every one of these leaves is an instance of green in general.) And from this definition of 'particular' and 'general' it follows that any two particulars can be interchanged without affecting the general. (I can pick one leaf, and say 'this is green', and then I can throw it away and pick another leaf from a different tree, and say 'this, too, is green'. There is a change in the particular green that is in my hand, and unchange of sameness in the general green.) And it also follows that the converse is not true: there cannot be change of the general leaving any particular unchanged. (If the general colour of all the leaves changes from green to brown, every single leaf will be an instance or example of brown, and I shall be unable to find any leaf that is any shade of green at all [emphasis added].)
If one can see how the principle he is explaining -- especially the last two lines -- applies to one's own experience the result is striking. As a monkey roams about the forest grabbing at branches his experience of roaming remains unchanged, i.e. it is unitary -- each grabbing at a branch doesn't constitute a separate experience of roaming through the forest. But even when he comes to a rest there are still branches visible around him, but those branches no longer signify "roaming", but his state of being at rest - cittena nīyati loko ("The world is led by mind.") SN 1.62.

We are trying to undermine the eternal, but:

"Avijjā cannot be pulled out like a nail: it must be unscrewed."

*Note: While both Ven. Ñanavira and Husserl postulate an extra-temporal nunc stans, given its contingency on the present moment subordinate to it Ven. Ñanavira denies its personal nature, i.e. short of nirodhasamāpatti the world is always present, just not present to someone:
The 'unchange' that is here in question is on no account to be confused with what is described in ATTĀ as an 'extra-temporal changeless "self"'. Experience of the supposed subject or 'self' (a would-be extra-temporal personal nunc stans) is a gratuitous (though beginningless) imposition or parasite upon the structure we are now discussing (emphasis added). See CETANĀ [f] . FS II. Dynamic Aspect
"Dhammā=Ideas. This is the clue to much of the Buddha's teaching." ~ Ven. Ñanavira, Commonplace Book
vinasp
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Re: Dependent Origination as Process (or not).

Post by vinasp »

Hi everyone,

On the aggregates re-creating themselves moment to moment.

"And why do you call them 'fabrications'? Because they fabricate fabricated things, thus they are called 'fabrications.' What do they fabricate as a fabricated thing? For the sake of form-ness, they fabricate form as a fabricated thing. For the sake of feeling-ness, they fabricate feeling as a fabricated thing. For the sake of perception-hood... For the sake of fabrication-hood... For the sake of consciousness-hood, they fabricate consciousness as a fabricated thing. Because they fabricate fabricated things, they are called fabrications."

[SN 22.79 - Chewed Up. Thanissaro Bhikhu - ATI]

As usual, there is no indication of what time scale to use when attempting to understand such passages. But how could sankhara's originated in the previous life (literal sense) be constructing feeling, perception, and consciousness, in the present life?

Boisvert (1) quotes this passage on page 108, and says:

"The Samyuttanikaya states that sankhara (-kkhandha) is thus called for it conditions the five aggregates of the next moment, or the next existence.

He also says (page 110):

" ... craving, clinging and becoming are part of the kamma-process of the present existence. Since we have previously defined kamma-process as the sankharakkhandha, we can state with confidence that the kamma-process is identical with craving, clinging and becoming, and arrive at a distinct correlation between these three links and the sankharakkhandha."

My simplified version:

"And why do you call them 'constructors'? Because they construct the constructed.
What do they construct as a constructed thing? They construct form as a constructed thing.
They construct feeling ... perception ... volitional formations ... consciousness as a constructed thing."

The form, feeling, perception, and consciousness are sankhara's in the passive sense, constructed things, they cannot make or produce anything else. The volitional formations are sankhara's in the active sense, constructive activities which produce other things.

(1) M. Boisvert, The Five Aggregates: Understanding Theravada Psychology and Soteriology.
Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Canada, 1995. ISBN 0-88920-257-5

Regards, Vincent.
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