A film appears to us as a reality that has its own existential value, one that is initiated from the existential value of the photographed being or object in the past. Yet, it remains a set of sense data, an assemblage of light and shadow that runs 24 frames per second.

But because consciousness is painful—soaked and steeped in pain and not steeped in pleasure—sentient beings do grow disillusioned with it. Being disillusioned, desire fades away. When desire fades away they are purified. This is a cause and reason for the purification of sentient beings.

Mahāli the Licchavi reports to the Buddha that the rival teacher Pūraṇa Kassapa asserts that there is no reason for beings to be either defiled or pure. The Buddha denies this, and goes on to explain how it happens.

Fed and fuelled by that, the great tree would stand for a long time.

When Ānanda suggests that dependent origination is simple, the Buddha rebukes him and explains how stable and hard to eradicate it is with the simile of a great tree.

Bhikkhus, I do not see even one other thing that, when developed and cultivated, leads to the abandoning of the things that fetter so effectively as this

What fetters one? And what leads to release?

…the sign of the beautiful: frequently giving careless attention to it is the nutriment for the arising of unarisen sensual desire…

Just as the body depends on food, the hindrances and the awakening factors feed on specific nutriments. In this sutta, the Buddha gives the specific condition for each of these mental qualities.

Perceiving is the process by which evanescent sensations are linked to environmental cause and made enduring and coherent through the assignment of meaning, utility, and value.

In a lecture which he gave in his monastery on the 12th of June 1971, Buddhadāsa criticised this Three Lifetimes Theory with sharp words. He compared this presentation of paṭiccasamuppāda with ‘cancer, an incurable tumour of Buddhist scholarship’.

… in Huayan philosophy in particular the notion of interconnectedness or interdependence arose, according to which all phenomena relate to each other in one way or another. Despite its traction in the contemporary setting, this notion needs to be recognized as a later development that is by no means identical with the basic Buddhist teaching on dependent arising.

… dependent origination in early Buddhism was transmuted from a causal chain binding beings to samsara—something to get free from—into contemporary interpretations of interdependence as a web of interconnected beings and events to celebrate, embrace, and become one with.

The early conception of dependent origination is first reframed in the Mahayana, through ideas such as interpenetration in the Avatamsaka Sutra and the reverence for the natural world in East Asia. The concept then picks up western influences from Romanticism, Transcendentalism, systems theory, deep ecology, and popular accounts of quantum physics. The recent synthesis of these elements is a hybrid concept of interdependence unique to contemporary Buddhism that combines cosmology and world-affirming wonder with ethical, political, and ecological imperatives.

Reverends, do you see this large tree trunk?

And what, Bhante, is the purpose and benefit of the knowledge and vision of things as they really are?

The purpose of ethics, concentration, and wisdom are that they lead to liberation.

Nagarjuna relentlessly analyzes phenomena or processes that appear to exist independently and argues that they cannot so exist, and yet, though lacking the inherent existence imputed to them either by naive common sense or by sophisticated, realistic philosophical theory, these phenomena are not nonexistent-they are, he argues, conventionally real.

But gaining mystical experience is not the purpose of our spiritual practice. The purpose of spiritual practice is to empty ourselves of self-identity.

A fascinating conversation between Master Sheng-Yen and former astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, narrated by Professor Raymond Yeh. The discussion began with Mitchell recounting his mystical experience upon returning to Earth after a lunar mission.

Besides serving as the condition for the possible arising of craving, feeling tone is also part of name-and-form. Exploring these two contexts helps to put dependent arising into temporal perspective.

this not being, that is not;
from the cessation of this, that ceases.

Dependent Origination is the answer to this famously pithy Dharma summary.

What is the gratification, what is the danger, what is the escape in the case of feeling … perception … volitional formations … consciousness?

How the Buddha investigated the aggregates.

Since thoughts are produced by what is not-self, how could they be self?

But that which is called ‘mind’ and ‘sentience’ and ‘consciousness’ arises as one thing and ceases as another by day and by night.

An ignorant person might become free of attachment to their body, but not their mind. Still, it would be better to attach to the body, as it is at less changeable than the mind, which jumps about like a monkey.

Bhikkhus, I will teach you the origin and the passing away of suffering. Listen to that and attend closely, I will speak.

Sense contact gives rise to craving… or to cessation.

Bhikkhus, I will teach you the origination and the passing away of the four establishments of mindfulness. Listen…

A profound sutta helping us understand what the Buddha meant by the four satipaṭṭhāna.

…a mendicant arousing knowledge
of the outcome of greed, hate, and delusion,
would cast off all bad destinies.

Greed, hatred, and delusion as planting karmic “seeds.”

If something is interdependent, it is necessarily emptiness.

In this short teaching, Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo summarizes five logical arguments of Nagarjuna’s Mādhyamaka (Middle Way).

Bhikkhus, this body is not yours, nor does it belong to others. It is old kamma, to be seen as generated and fashioned by volition, as something to be felt.

Formerly, Anurādha, and also now, I teach just suffering and the cessation of suffering.

Venerable Anurādha is questioned by a number of ascetics, and ends up by saying that the Realized One is described in terms other than “existing after death” and so on. The wanderers say he’s a fool, so he checks with the Buddha, who says that a Realized One is not even apprehended in this life, so how can he be described after death?

Ven. Sunyo on D&D makes a compelling argument that the Buddha’s final statement here is meant categorically, not pedagogically.

Mendicants, if wanderers of other religions were to ask: Reverends, all things have what as their root? …

What is the cause, sir, what is the reason why some sentient beings aren’t fully extinguished in the present life?

If a mendicant approves, welcomes, and keeps clinging to them, their consciousness relies on that and grasps it. A mendicant with grasping does not become extinguished.

All dhammas are unworthy of attachment.

He sees forms as something separate. He sees eye-consciousness as something separate. He sees eye-contact as something separate. And whatever arises in dependence on eye-contact—experienced either as pleasure, as pain, or as neither-pleasure-nor-pain—that too he sees as something separate.

A meditator must overcome ignorance directly.

… he understands: ‘I feel a feeling terminating with life.’ He understands: ‘With the breakup of the body, following the exhaustion of life, all that is felt, not being delighted in, will become cool right here; mere bodily remains will be left.’

A mendicant (whether enlightened or not!) should thoroughly investigate the causes of their suffering until they see for themselves how it is dependently arisen.

Some suffering ceases with nibbāna, but all with parinibbāna.

‘All exists’: this is the oldest cosmology, brahmin.

The Buddha rejects all such views as too extreme.

When, bhikkhus, a noble disciple has clearly seen with correct wisdom as it really is this dependent origination and these dependently arisen phenomena, it is impossible that he will run back into the past, thinking: ‘Did I exist in the past? Did I not exist in the past? What was I …’

How is it, Master Gotama: are pleasure and pain created by oneself?

The Buddha wins over a wanderer by giving a more nuanced understanding of karma.

Bhikkhus, what one intends, and what one plans, and whatever one has a tendency towards: this becomes a basis for the maintenance of consciousness.

Bhikkhus, one who is engaged is unliberated.

… what is that due to apart from seeing things as they really are?

The Buddha teaches a householder named Soṇa about the nature of the five aggregates and conceit.

It is natural that non-regret arises in a virtuous person, one whose behavior is virtuous.

There’s no need to make a wish to get enlightened; it happens naturally when the conditions are there.

For the independent there’s no agitation. When there’s no agitation there is tranquility.

Nibbāna is true independence.

searches
And the origin of searches,
Where they cease and the path…

With craving his companion, a man
wanders on a long, long time.

What can cause a monk to be reborn?

When a bhikkhu develops and cultivates the Noble Eightfold Path, his fetters easily collapse and rot away.

… with liberation as proximate cause, the knowledge of destruction.

A “tremendously important” sutta showing how liberation is also governed by the law of Dependent Origination.

For Bhikkhu Bodhi’s commentary on this sutta, see Transcendental Dependent Arising.

Mendicants, sensual, malicious, and cruel thoughts arise for a reason…

…the lakes surging cause the pools to surge. So too, ignorance surging causes volitional formations to surge…

Thus, sustained by that oil, fuelled by it, that oil lamp would burn for a very long time. So too, when one lives contemplating gratification in things that can fetter, craving increases…

Craving increases when you linger on pleasing things that stimulate fetters, illustrated with the simile of a lamp.

If, bhikkhus, there is lust for contact…

The Buddha defines the four kinds of “food” or “nutriment”, which include edible food, contact, intention, and consciousness, showing how they lead to suffering according to dependent origination.

… even trifling forms that enter into range of the eye obsess the mind, not to speak of those that are prominent. For what reason? Because lust still exists

Like a tree that yields sap when cut, so long as desire is present it can be activated by the senses.

There exists in the Blessed One the eye, the Blessed One sees a form with the eye, yet there is no desire and lust in the Blessed One; the Blessed One is well liberated in mind.

Mahākoṭṭhita asks Sāriputta whether the interior and exterior sense fields are the fetters of each other. No; it is desire that is the fetter, like the yoke that binds two oxen. One with no desire still experiences the senses but without being fettered.

That perplexity, doubtfulness, indecisiveness in regard to the true Dhamma is a formation. That formation—what is its source, what is its origin, from what is it born and produced?

A beautiful and deep sutta which gives some insight into how to see—and untangle—Dependent Arising.

Whenever there are arguments and quarrels, tears and anguish, arrogance and pride, and grudges and insults to go with them, can you explain how these things come about?

The Buddha is questioned on the source of quarrels and disputes, and on the highest level of spiritual attainment.

One of the main paradoxes of Buddhism’s coming to the West is that the teaching on karma, which in Asia is probably the most basic Buddhist teaching, is the one most Westerns don’t like and is most often dropped from the teaching one way or another.

This lecture describes the various ways karma has been misunderstood in the West and how a close reading of the Buddha’s words correct such views.

Craving is a cause of seeking. Seeking is a cause of gaining…

Nine things that are rooted in craving.

Embossed tattoos like small notes on sheet music.
Dots and lines, strands and strings

Remember the earth whose skin you are

… what now is feeling?

A mendicant asks the Buddha to explain how feelings relate to the four noble truths.

… consciousness exists dependent on duality

Consciousness arises from the dyad of the interior sense organ with its corresponding exterior sense stimulus. Both are conditioned, impermanent, and falling apart.

What others say is happiness
the noble ones say is suffering.
What others say is suffering
the noble ones know as happiness.

… consciousness exists dependent on duality

This Tibetan text is itself a translation of the Sanskrit version.

We don’t begin with fundamental things. We start with fundamental relations. Our mind and our body are constantly interrelated and interconnected.

This is what we’re trying to do in meditation: we’re recalibrating our whole way of experiencing ourselves and our life

Bad things are easy to think about! It’s the good things that are difficult, because the kilesas don’t like them.

An afternoon chat about emptiness.

… all pathways for verbal expression, terminology and designation converge on this whirlpool between name-and-form and consciousness

The Nivane Niveema are a series of thirty-three sermons on Nibbāna, originally delivered in Sinhala during the period 1988–1991 and given to the assembly of monks in Nissaraṇa Vanaya, Meethirigala, one of Sri Lanka’s most respected meditation monasteries in the strict forest tradition.

The English translations were released in 7 vols. between 2003 and 2012 and continue to brilliantly challenge the traditional Theravāda exegesis.

You can get the lecture notes here and can watch the lectures on YouTube here.

Wisdom and consciousness–these things are mixed, not separate. And you can never completely dissect them

Venerable Sāriputta deftly defines a bewildering array of terms.

When a space is enclosed by sticks, creepers, grass, and mud it becomes known as a ‘building’. In the same way, when a space is enclosed by bones, sinews, flesh, and skin it becomes known as a ‘form’.

The Venerable Sāriputta shows how all of the teachings fit inside the Four Noble Truths.

So, Ānanda, deeds are the field, consciousness is the seed, and craving is the moisture.

How consciousness, karma, and craving create and sustain future lives.

To be female is to have the dukkha of a female. To be male is to have the dukkha of a male. […] If we deludedly think ‘I am happy’ then we must suffer accordingly.

In these three dhamma talks on emptiness delivered at Siriraj Hospital (Bangkok) in 1961, Ajahn Buddhadasa cuts right to the heart of Buddhism, encouraging us in plain and vivid language to stop identifying as or clinging to anything at all.

nibbāna is not a destination after death.

A transcribed sermon arguing against this common misconception of nibbāna.

For at least the Pāli Buddhist tradition, the cessation of suffering is the sole intrinsic good.

Thought is the source of desire.

A fairy sings a love song for the Buddha, and Sakka asks a few deep questions.

You can find part two here.

An eye is a dangerous thing. Left unguarded and misunderstood it unleashes a world “out there” that we become infatuated with, to our detriment. When we understand fully that the eye, the world and the interface between them are fabricated, the world ends, the infatuation ends, saṃsāra ends.

During my first weeks with my teacher, Ajaan Fuang, I began to realize that he had psychic powers.

The key principle in Buddhism is that understanding sets you free. It’s not about attaining or creating anything, it’s about simply understanding things as they are

In this sutta, a bhikkhu named Sāti promulgates the pernicious view that consciousness transmigrates from life to life. The Buddha reprimands him with a lengthy discourse on dependent origination, explaining that all phenomena of existence arise and cease through conditions.

It is wrong perception that leads to the concepts of being and nonbeing.

Just as two sheaves of reeds might stand leaning against each other, so too, with name-and-form as condition, consciousness comes to be; with consciousness as condition, name-and-form comes to be.

Venerables Mahākoṭṭhita and Sāriputta discuss whether the factors of dependent origination are created by oneself, another, both, or by chance.

If a bhikkhu seeks delight in [the senses], welcomes them, and remains holding to them, he is called a bhikkhu who has swallowed Mara’s hook. He has met with calamity and disaster, and the Evil One can do with him as he wishes.

Sense pleasures are like a baited hook.

let a mindful one avoid at every turn
these sense-desires,
with them abandoned,
cross the flood

Our body is not life, but just a house. Life is energy. The coming together of mental, kammic and cosmic forces — that is life.

… this similarity is neither accidental, nor caused by the Buddha’s inability to free himself from the mental paradigms of his culture. I would rather argue that he formulated Pratityasamutpada as a polemic against Vedic thought.

For the Ven. Sunyo and Bh. Sujato’s somewhat sceptical reaction to this article, see “Is Dependent Origination a Parody?” on SuttaCentral.

A very famous example of poetic analysis and hermeneutics in action at the time of the Buddha, this sutta gives several subtle cues on how to read obscure passages.