Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Venerable Jampa Ignyen explores the profound doctrine of dependent arising, the principle that all phenomena arise in dependence on causes, conditions, and their component parts. In this 45-minute talk, he begins with a foundational definition and then focuses on how compounded, impermanent things are paradoxically profound: moment by moment they are completely destroyed and renewed, yet appear to abide continuously. He uses concrete examples—a piece of wood, the human body, music, a candle flame—to illustrate that nothing from one moment continues into the next, though there is a similar appearance of continuity. He then introduces the twelve links of dependent arising, traditionally depicted on the Wheel of Life, and explains how contemplating this interdependence can diminish attachment rooted in the false belief that things are fixed and independent. The talk is pitched toward practitioners with some familiarity with Buddhist philosophy and imagery.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 DA 2001 06 09.mp3
UUID: fffb94c0-e27c-447e-a519-afbcc97cc13c
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Dependant Arising (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-06-09
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.8 minutes
Words: ~4,109
So here we’re dealing with the general meaning of dependent arising. So the definition of dependent arising is that established in reliance on its parts. So anything which is established in reliance on its parts is in fact the dependent arising. And there’s nothing if we investigate, there’s nothing which is not reliant on its parts. So anything we choose to look at, permanent or impermanent, physical or non physical, external or internal, is in fact established in reliance on its parts.
And in fact, anything which is established in reliance on its parts also is empty. So this is important. So this morning we covered some of the meaning of dependent arising. And in fact, that dependent arising itself is profound because of five attributes. It’s profound by cause, definition, generation, abode, or how it abides, and by occurrence.
And So dependent arisings are profound by the manner in which they abide. So here we’re talking about compounded dependent arisings. So here we’re talking about impermanent objects. And they are destroyed in each moment. But even though they’re destroyed in each moment, they appear to abide.
In fact, they don’t abide for a moment. They don’t abide from one moment to the next, in other words. Although they appear to abide. So for that reason, compounded dependent arisings are profound. Does that make sense?
Actually, these objects are destroyed moment to moment to moment, but they do continue or there is a continuation of a similar type from one moment to the next. It’s not that there’s anything there that actually continues from one moment to the next, but there appears to be something which continues. Just the object itself appears as if it continues from one moment to another or what is what exists in the second moment is what existed in the first moment. That’s how it appears. Objects appear to be fixed.
Right. We have to be careful with our language here. Although impermanent objects are destroyed moment by moment by moment, it appears as if something continues to abide from the first into the second. But even though there appears to be an abidance that is merely appearance, impermanent objects do not survive longer than a moment. They’re momentary.
Yes. Yep. That’s right. Yes. Yeah, when we say they’re destroyed, it means that there’s nothing in the first moment that continues to exist in the second moment.
In saying that, it means that everything changes moment to moment within an object. Although there’s something similar in the second moment, there’s nothing which is the same in the second moment. Yes. No. For instance, an object like this piece of wood does continue from moment to moment.
There is a piece of wood there in the first moment. There is a piece of wood there in the second moment. But that piece of wood that existed in the first moment doesn’t continue to exist in the second moment. That piece of wood in the first moment, in other words, is destroyed. Yep.
No, the whole thing. It’s destroyed because it’s changed in the second moment. From a shift? Well, there’s nothing there from the first moment that continues into the second moment. Is it a shift of time or a shift?
Yes, the time itself does change. So we do have a series of moments in which something exists. But what exists in the first moment? If we ask, Does that also exist in the second moment? But really, it doesn’t.
Like a candle flame? Like music? When we think about music, it’s also music is a series of sounds over time. What occurs in one moment is different than what occurs in the next moment. That’s true, isn’t it?
Yeah. No. No. That’s how we we exist in that way. To say that we destroy moment by moment doesn’t mean to say say that we cease to exist.
It just means that we’re impermanent. That’s all that it’s really saying. Right. That’s on a gross level. Here we’re talking about subtle.
Certainly, tend to impute the term destroyed in a gross sense. When the house is destroyed, there’s no more house. But actually, the house itself, even moment by moment, is destroyed, meaning it changes moment by moment. There’s nothing from the first moment that continues into the second. And in fact, this is also said that everything is always completely new, never existed before.
Everything that’s impermanent, namme saki, never existed before is completely new in every moment. So that’s that’s true, isn’t it? What exists in this moment never existed didn’t exist in the previous moment. The basis of imputation there If we’re talking about impermanent objects, the basis of imputation in the second moment is not the same basis as the first moment. Everything that’s compounded is completely impermanent and destroyed moment by moment.
But this we can understand because if we think even about the physical objects that we deal with, they are constantly in a state of flux. They are the atoms and molecules, the electrons and the protons and the neutrons that make them up are continuously moving. Even if they’re not moving, they’re still impermanent. Because they’re created by causes and conditions. This is developing the understanding of impermanence, which is a stage, in a sense, in developing an understanding of selflessness.
At present, we tend to think that things are fixed and unchanging. Intellectually, when we think about it, oh, yeah, they’re impermanent. But really, we do tend to think that things are fixed. We’re fixed. The person of this moment, three o’clock in the afternoon, is the same person that came here this morning.
We tend to think this. But actually, the person at eight o’clock this morning no longer exists. We’re not the same. Everything. There’s nothing that there’s nothing the same.
When we look at it, our physical body, what’s the same? So this is one reason why dependent arisings are profound by the way they abide, These compounded dependent arisings, we’re one of them. And everything else we see around us, they’re all compounded dependent arisings. They’re all destroyed in each moment. Physical body, completely different, isn’t it?
If we look into the atoms and molecules that make us up, they’ve all changed. Yeah. Of gross on a gross way, we’re different, aren’t we? But the more important in a subtle level, we’re completely different, aren’t we? I mean, our organs continue.
We still have a heart, still have a lung, two lungs maybe. Right? We’ve got, you know, spleens and livers and kidneys and so forth. But when we look into these things, they’re different than they were this morning, aren’t they? For a start, they don’t exist in exactly the same place for a start.
Not only that. Even Well, yeah. When we walk around, they move, don’t they? They have to move with us, hopefully. They stay still.
They’re kind of different moving. That’s right. Yeah. Well, even science accepts that every seven years, our body is completely changed, isn’t it? So the body we’ve got now is completely different, even in terms of the chemicals that make it up, than it was seven years ago.
So who was that person eight years ago? Whose body was that? But on a more subtle level, even moment by moment, our physical body is changing, completely changing. Eternity. Eternity means what?
The eternal. Things that The eternal. Yep. Things that then it depends on how you define eternal because there are some impermanent things we can say do continue to exist forever. And there are permanent things that continue exist forever as well, or they just exist and nothing ever stops them.
Well, if we say that impermanent entities can be eternal if their continuum never stops, then our awareness is eternal. Just our consciousness itself, our mind. The clarity and cognizing component of our awareness always exists, always continues to exist. Our? Our?
Our awareness. It’s in our continuum. It’s in well, each of us has awareness, awareness. And we each have consciousness, six types of consciousness. It’s said that the seed of consciousness is two finger widths to the right of the center here, like the sternum.
Two Without a gross body, our consciousness still continues because it doesn’t require gross form as a supporting basis. It requires subtle form, but not necessarily gross form. Does that mean permanent? No. It’s impermanent.
So it’s not dependent? It’s dependent. But it wasn’t Oh, it doesn’t necessarily depend on a gross physical body. But it certainly depends on a subtle physical body. So what happens in the Doesn’t always depend on a gross physical body.
When a life force is severed, say at the end of this life. Yeah. On the sadness level, it doesn’t end. It’s not permanent. It just doesn’t stop.
It’s impermanent but continues without end. Yes. A possessor? Oh, the possessor is just the name imputed upon that awareness. I have consciousness.
The mirror I exists. Yes. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Oh, no.
What are the six levels? Oh, they’re the mental consciousness, eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose, tongue, body. Those six. We always have mental consciousness. The other ones we have when we have a gross physical basis, like at present.
In general, have five sense awarenesses. But all of this is impermanent and changing moment to moment. So this is this fourth one, profound by abode. Contemplating the impermanence of our current physical basis and mental basis does help us to diminish our attachment to things because in general we look at things and we take them to be fixed and not changing. But by contemplating the fact that they’re changing moment to moment can help us develop some detachment from these objects.
And compounded dependent arisings are also profound by occurrence, by how they occur. So the fifth is established because if investigated by means of the four extremes of the mode of occurrence, such as occurring through their own cause or self or other, etc. They are difficult to comprehend. So this actually is referring to the possibility that impermanent things are generated by themselves, by other, by both, or without a cause. So they are the four extremes: either generated by oneself, generated by something other, generated by both self and other, or generated by neither self nor other.
All four extremes are refuted. So because objects are generated beyond the four extremes, they’re profound and difficult to comprehend. So you’re probably thinking, Wait a minute, things are generated from other, aren’t they? Why is that an extreme? Here it means they’re not generated by a truly existent other cause.
So for this reason, even impermanent objects are profound by occurrence in the way that they occur. So the reason for giving this section here is just to, in a way, give an introduction to how profound things are. Being dependent arising is not something easy to comprehend but requires some contemplation. How are we to contemplate this? Simply to contemplate, for instance, the meaning of dependent arising.
That when we think of other things, we should reflect that they’re also dependent arisings. We think of other people, then we should reflect they’re a dependent arising. They depend on their parts. They depend on causes and conditions. They depend on their basis of designation or imputation.
And then to contemplate that meaning. Being dependent on their parts is basically the meaning of dependent arising. Why are we contemplating this? We’re contemplating this because at present we have a level of ignorance that holds objects to be independent, to be self created, self generated. We think of ourselves in that way.
And because of thinking of ourselves in that way, we fail to comprehend how we do depend on others. In fact, we’re totally dependent on a subtle level. When we say we’re totally dependent on others, it doesn’t mean to say that we can’t feed ourselves or buy food for ourselves. It means that what occurs to us, what we experience, is really generated through a process of dependence. We need to diminish our attraction or attachment to others because that attitude will not bring us happiness.
It’s not beneficial for ourselves or others in general. Our attachment doesn’t bring in its wake happiness. But we should remember, we should reflect on just how we are dependent on other beings without being attached to it. It is. It is.
Although it’s said that the time’s attachment can be beneficial, And that’s when we’re if we’re attached to the welfare of others, then that sort of attachment can be of benefit. So that’s regarded as more neutral. But that’s attachment. Like if you see others, like if one has children or other beings, and one’s attached to their happiness, to their benefit, then that sort of attachmentalthough it’s attachmentthere is some benefit that comes about from it. No, that’s not compassion, it’s still attachment.
But if we can use that as a condition for generating compassion, then that’s very good. On? There are more of us than there were before. Perhaps it is more evident now. Yeah, there’s more people in general and we’re all connected up to the electricity grid, the telephone, the Internet, and so forth.
It’s maybe easier to see in an external way, but still, in a sense, we’ve always been dependent whether it’s at this present time or one hundred years ago or a thousand years ago. Beings depend on each other. Weak in the sense of Weak in the you know, a sense of know, know, a know, that’s interesting with the television. Because television does pander to our attachments, doesn’t it? There’s always advertisements telling us to buy this and buy that, and we see a lot of violence on television.
But these things were there in previous times as well. They were just perhaps not as obvious as they are with television. No. That’s right. In the old days, you had to go up to the snow line and get a bucket full of ice and take it down and mix it with the milk.
Now we’ve got the ice cream calling out to us. Yeah, there’s probably more potential for distractions today, but really it also depends on ourselves. There’s probably more potential for us to be attached because it’s thrown into our face perhaps more than it was. But still, the basic issues are still there as they were in previous times. But truth, no, the external conditions are changing.
They definitely are changing. From a Buddhist point of view they’re actually declining. The external conditions are declining. The afflictions are increasing in strength. The lifespan of beings is decreasing.
The quality of beings, their intelligence is decreasing. We are going through a period of the five degenerations or more accurately the five dregs. We’re what’s left after after all the cream has disappeared. On a bigger scale, yeah, it’s said that it’s actually decreasing overall, declining. It’s interesting.
If you look at some measures of what’s happening, we can see in a general perspective of all humanity that the conditions are not the population explosion and so forth. But in fact, conditions in many places are actually declining. Some places like here, they’re increasing, they’re getting better, or they have been getting better. Maybe on a longer view they are actually declining and the shorter time span they are developing. There are cycles within cycles.
Sorry? Oh, there’s a It will disappear for a long period in another two and a half thousand years. Yeah. Then on this earth, Dharma will Yeah. It won’t be evident any longer as an external religion, separate religion.
And then it will remain that way for many, many years until the future of Buddha comes. But during the in the current period where we are, it’s said that the lifespan and so forth is declining, but it will reach a certain point and get no shorter and then it will increase from there. And when the lifespan becomes quite long in the future, then Maitreya, the future Buddha, will appear. In a sense, what they are saying is that there are these cycles that we go through of increasing the conditions are improving and generally getting better, and then once they’ve reached the limit of that, then they start to decline. And then from the low point of the decline, they increase again.
Yeah. So this is so that we’re going through a small eon at present of decline where the lifespan is decreasing one year every hundred years. Yep. It said that at the time of the Buddha, was about a hundred years, the lifespan of a human. Now, that’s two and a half thousand years ago, declining one year every hundred years.
It’s about seventy five. Yeah. Yeah. This is it’s difficult to assess these things. Yeah, I mean, we don’t have accurate records to go back and check.
Anyway, the conditions are changing and we should keep in mind that we live in an impermanent environment that is a product that causes set in motion maybe eons and eons ago. And we experience the results of the collective karma of, for instance, the beings that exist on this planet. And all of that comes from a long period in the path. Right. So here we’re dealing with dependent arising.
So we’re a dependent arising. Our environment is a dependent arising. All the beings that inhabit it are dependent arising. They are impermanent. And this fact of dependent arising is quite profound, not easily comprehended.
Then we have the etymology of the term at the bottom of page number two. Take the mundane environment and its inhabitants. There is a reason for calling them dependent arisings because they are established through dependence or contact or reliance. So this really just repeats the points that we’ve already made. They’re established through dependence on causes, on dependence on the basis of imputation and also on their parts.
And then further in Sanskrit, the term is pratītyasamutpāda. Pratītya means dependent or contacting or reliant. Samutpāda means it arises or occurs. So then there’s another text called Abhidharmasamuccaya, which gives the etymology of dependent arising. Because it states, what is the meaning?
The meaning is, one, the meaning of being without an agent is the meaning of dependent arising, and two, the meaning of occurring through a cause, and three, the meaning of being without a sentient being and four, the meaning of by the power of others and five, the meaning of being unmoved And six, the meaning of impermanent. Seven, the meaning of momentary, the meaning of not severing the continuum of cause and result. And nine, the meaning of the cause and result being compatible. And ten, the meaning of a variety of causes and results, and eleven, the meaning of determining each cause and result. So this term in Sanskrit has all these implications: dependent arising.
Sometimes reflecting on these meanings can be useful. The reason we reflect on these different presentations is that it hopefully, it helps us to get to the meaning. It’s not just throwing up too many words for us and we almost obscures the meaning by having too many words. Here again, we’re relying on the words to comprehend the meaning. So the reason for stating the eleven etymologies of dependent arising is to teach the four meanings.
That is impermanent, associated with suffering, empty, and selfless. So those four, what are those four? Does anyone Those four are the four qualities of the truth of suffering. So the truth of suffering has those four attributes or qualities: impermanent, associated with suffering, empty and selfless. Right, so those eleven in a sense are contained in the four because the first teaches the meaning of empty.
The first is the first in that quotation which states, The meaning of being without an agent is the meaning of dependent arising. So it’s the meaning of empty. There is no agent as such. Selfless. Empty.
Empty of a self. And the third teaches the meaning of selfless. And the third there is the meaning of being without a sentient being. What that means here is that things are selfless in general. Okay.
And the last three teach the meaning of associated with suffering. So the last three are nine, ten and eleven. The meaning of cause and result being compatible, the meaning of a variety of causes and results, and the meaning of determining each cause and result teach the meaning of being associated with suffering. So that then means that we are just a product of causes and conditions. Whatever result we experience in the present, whatever our experience is, is a product of a cause which is similar to it, compatible with it.
So if we feel frustration, boredom, depressed, and so forth, whatever, that experience is coming from a cause which is similar to the result we experience. All of our internal experience is coming from causes that also exist internally. And so the result that we experience is coming from a compatible cause. And a variety of causes gives rise to a variety of results. So continuously, we experience a variety of results of our experience is many layered, very varied.
This is coming, therefore, from a variety of causes. It doesn’t just occur without a cause. Whatever we experience in the moment, in this current moment, is coming from a variety of causes that exist within our mental continuum. Determining each cause and result, Each of the results that we experience is coming from a particular cause. These need to be determined.
And the other six teach the meaning of impermanence. So the other six there would be like, say, the second, the meaning of occurring through a cause, the meaning of unmoved, the meaning of impermanent, the meaning of momentary, the meaning of not severing the continuum of cause and result. So these are teaching impermanence. So in other words, dependent arising here has seven different sorry, eleven different ways of explaining it. And these are all contained within the four, those four.
And those four are the four attributes of the truth of suffering. What’s the truth of suffering? We are the truth of suffering. But this suffering doesn’t necessarily mean just the feeling of suffering, it means that we have the potential to develop the feeling of suffering. So therefore we are the truth of suffering.
Then the text, Jetsunpa, moves on to the next section explaining in particular afflicted dependent arising. So there now there are different ways of explaining what dependent arising means in a specific way, in a particular way. Here we are talking about what afflictive dependent arising is. So this now is talking about the twelve links of dependent arising. Okay.
So now we’re going to touch a little bit on the twelve links. So I think everyone has a picture of the twelve links. In fact, are different pictures of this. Some are in color, some are in black and white. Everyone got one?
Yeah. It is useful if we have one to look at. Has everyone got one? Or have we got any spare they’re right. They’re outside.
Yep. If I think has everyone got one? Anyone else that needs? I think we’ve got everyone’s got one. Right.
So this this here is a drawing of the wheel of life, sipa khorlo in Tibetan. Sipa means existence. Khorlo means wheel. Sipa khorlo. This image is usually placed at the doors at the front door of a temple or a monastery.
And if you ever visited Tibetan monastery, you can look for this. They should have one there. It’s recommended. In the rules for constructing a monastery and so forth, it’s in the in the doorway, in the main door, outside the main door, usually outside, say in the you know, if there’s an alcove. Yeah.
And I’m sure we got have we got one here? At the Where? On the left hand side. Oh, there. Okay.
So it’s usually placed at the external door but it doesn’t matter. Internal. It’s good to see because it summarizes dependent arising for us. Now here we go into a more specific meaning of dependent arising. And we can see with the image here that outside we have a the wheel is in the center there.
Outside the wheel we have the lord of death, fearsome lord of death, who is