Dependent origination

via Buddhist Philosophy in Depth, Part 1

An essential concept in Buddhist philosophy. There are three kinds:

1. Dependency of conditions, causes and effects

   Things just don’t come out from nowhere. One thing is always caused by another/many. When we see things and events as isolated, we are falsifying reality.

2. Dependence of parts on wholes and wholes on parts

   I am dependent on my conditions for existence. My parts are dependent on the whole, e.g. if there’s no Ian, Ian’s organs won’t exist. My parts are also dependent on each other e.g. if there’s no Ian’s knuckles, Ian’s fingers won’t exist. I don’t exist as an independent unity but a collection/plurality

3. Dependence of (identity) on conceptual implication

   We ascribe value and meaning to things and their conceptual relationships. For example, the value of a dollar bill is not the same value as any piece of paper. Rather, it depends on how we ascribe value to it.

Ultimately, everything that is real necessarily depends on these three things.

Actionable takeaways

1. Keep practising systems thinking and develop systems literacy!

2. There’s a practice that I’ve come across during the Bright Future Now programme where we had to pay attention to our object of choice and contemplate the “territories” in which it encompasses. For example, I choose a piece of grape as an object I’d like to observe. I not only notice about its physical properties but also contemplate about how it got here, the supply chain, the carbon footprint, the effects of globalisation, etc. The key of this practice is to understand how we make connections between objects, events and concepts to make sense of the world we live in.

3. Appreciate nuance. How we make sense of things depends on the contextual framework that we’re using.