Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this guided meditation, Venerable Thubten Chodron leads students through a contemplative exploration of dependent arising, the second pillar of the far-reaching attitude of wisdom. She walks through three interconnected ways that all phenomena arise dependently: through causes and conditions, through parts, and through conceptual labeling by mind. Using the body as a concrete anchor throughout, she instructs listeners to trace back the infinite causes and conditions that created their form, to mentally dissect the body into its many layers of parts, and to observe how the mind conceptually constructs the label “body” from a collection of non-body elements. She extends this analysis to the self or “I,” showing how personal identity likewise exists only through dependent arising rather than any independent, solid essence. The meditation cultivates a felt sense of this interdependence, allowing phenomena to appear less fixedly solid and more transparently dependent, reinforcing the ultimate wisdom that understands emptiness of inherent existence.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 45 GM.mp3
UUID: 6022c133-3578-4528-9b6c-488d9251a9ec
Teacher: Thubten Chodron Guided Med
Collection: Guided Meditation (Thubten Chodron Guided Med)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~835
The last of the far reaching attitudes is the far reaching attitude of wisdom. There are various types of wisdom that which understands what is virtuous and nonvirtuous that that knows how to benefit sentient beings, and then the wisdom that knows the ultimate nature of phenomena, the lack of inherent existence. To understand the ultimate nature or the lack of inherent existence, the empty nature of all phenomena, it’s very helpful to understand how all these things arise dependently. In that way, we come to understand how they not only complement each other but reinforce each other. And then we understand that although things lack inherent existence and are empty, they do exist conventionally because they arise dependently.
First, we’ll meditate on the dependent arising nature of phenomena. And there’s three different ways in which functioning things arise dependently. So the first is that they’re dependent on causes and conditions. So think of your body, for example, and all the causes and conditions that went into creating it. And really think deeply about this.
Now all the different things that had to come together. So take your body, for example, and contemplate all the causes and conditions that had to be present for your body to exist. And so really trace it back, not only the sperm and the egg and the food that we’ve eaten, but all the causes and conditions that came even before that that created the sperm and the egg and the food to all the causes of that. And as you’re doing this and dissecting all these causes and conditions, try to get a feeling of how your body exists only because those causes and conditions existed. And if any single one of them were missing, your body would not be what it is, or it may not even exist at all.
So when you’re contemplating this, don’t just think about it intellectually, but really get a sense of this body. Feel your body and think this body exists only because the causes and conditions exist. Doesn’t exist in dependence upon its own. Second way things are dependent is that they’re dependent on their parts. So, again, examine your body and mentally dissect it and see how many parts there are.
It’s a head and legs and arms and stomach, intestines, liver. And each of those parts is in turn made of smaller parts. A hand has fingers and a palm. And then one of those parts, like a finger, also has parts. So we come to understand that everything that functions in this way depends on parts.
And as you’re contemplating this, using your body as an example, Also reflect on how none of the parts is the thing. In other words, our body is composed of various parts, but the leg is not a body. The intestines are not a body. The head is not a body. So the body is composed of parts, all of which are non body.
So again, as you’re reflecting on this, really get a sense on how the body exists dependent on its part. It doesn’t exist independently. It doesn’t exist under its own power. And the third way that things are dependent is that they exist by being merely labeled by term and concept, in dependence on a valid base. So for example, there’s the accumulation of parts, the arms, the legs, the internal organs, and so forth that forms a valid base.
And then our minds put the pieces together conceptually and come up with the label body to describe that. So reflect here using your body as an example how things exist by being labeled by mind and concept, how things exist, by being merely labeled, by term and concept, in dependence on a valid base. So it might be helpful to think of just the collection of parts and then watch how your mind forms a concept and gives it the label body and how at that moment when you do, then body appears to you. But before the term and concept were labeled on that base, body didn’t appear to you. It’s also helpful to reflect upon this in terms of the self or the I, the person, me, for example, exists only because there were causes and conditions, previous moments of the self, previous moments of the body and mind.
And I exist in dependence upon the parts, the body, and all the aspects of consciousness or mind. And then in dependence upon the accumulation of all these parts, on the collection of the parts, the body and the mind, we develop the concept I and label I. And it’s in that way in which the self exists by being merely labeled in dependence upon the mental and physical aggregates, the body and the mind. So when we meditate on dependent arising, things seem a little bit less solid. We really get a sense of their dependent nature.
That’s very helpful to hold in mind.