Y Series: Twelve Links of Dependent Origination
The 12 Links of Dependent Origination
A technical review of Samsara, Nirvana, and Buddha Nature
A fundamental concept in Buddhism is the concept of Samsara, or revolving life. Cyclic existence comes from what are known as the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination and they symbolically bind all the realms of existence.
“Practicing this and abandoning that,
Enter into the teaching of the Buddha.
Like an elephant in a thatch house,
Destroy the forces of the lord of death.
Those who with thorough conscientiousness
Practice this disciplinary doctrine
Will forsake the wheel of birth,
Bringing duhkha to an end.”
The idea of dependent arising is as simple as cause and effect and as complicated as describing the entire cosmos. All things that arise, arise from other things. We are not inherent in existence, rather the culmination of many, many causes that happen to be moving through this particular zone of space-time with this relationship.
The twelve links are common in both Pali and Sanskrit traditions, however, Zen seems to move away from the academic or philosophical discussion of these lists and treatises toward a simple experience of the clarity of wisdom that comes from seeing and accepting the nature of these relationships, without all the verbiage and mental training that goes with them. My personal opinion is that Zen is a very advanced practice that seems to attract either the brilliant or intensely lazy. Or both. Though it eschews the analytical methods of the Sanskrit and Pali traditions, it is foundationally a single-pointed concentration on the wisdom arising from emptiness which is fantastically hard to realize without the analytical. So, I can’t help but wonder if the prevalence of Zen in Western Buddhism isn’t just because people think they have realized something, when actually, they don’t understand how ignorant they truly are. A number of Soto practitioners have struck me like this. Even Roshi. It is confusing, since Zen has the appeal of not involving gods or scary visualizations and has the iron discipline so attractive to soldiers and hard people of any culture. Miyamoto Musashi was a zen practitioner, for example and his Daidokoro is one of the most inspiring ethical treatises on emptiness that I’ve ever read (for all that it’s just a couple pages long). But it requires a level of empirical understanding that I doubt most people ever have without engaging this type of analytical work, yet it is ignored in most Western Buddhism. Presumably because people feel the cultural discontinuity would be too great.
Anyway. The Twelve Links are: ignorance, formative actions, consciousness, name and form, six sources, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, renewed existence, birth and aging or death. These terms are very specific. Ignorance is only the ignorance regarding the root of samsara, for example, not all ignorance. This is important because in order to break the chain and cut the root, only one of these links needs to be fully realized. The practitioner can start anywhere she feels like because they are so interconnected, as I understand it.
Ignorance (avidya).
Ignorance is beginningless. It is a fundamental or innate affliction of life. When life started, it was with ignorance of its own nature and that has been passed from species to species, generation to generation. It is the first intimation of consciousness that apprehends “I am.” It is the ignorance that cannot see the impermanent nature of all things, the pervasive suffering of existence, and the self-that-is-not. So what is the wisdom realizing selflessness?
Meditation, according to Vasubandhu, is the only way to eliminate an innate affliction. This may be done on the path of meditation or all at once (zen) on the path of seeing. Either will cut through the darkness that obscures seeing reality, though the great sages disagree on whether this ignorance is the obsession with a personal identity or a simple blindness to all reality.
Dharmakirti says:
“Here, the antidote, wisdom, is understanding the truth, the meaning of the selflessness of persons. Its opposite is the view of a personal identity, which grasps a self of persons. All faults without exception arise from the afflictive view of self. That is ignorance.”
It is this view of a personal “I” that motivates us enough to complete karmic actions and trigger another rebirth and it is the conscious rejection of self-lessness that is the heart of negative karma. We experience it as intense craving or anger. But we are not the collection of body mind or even something outside of body-mind. The “I” is only a name and only a symbol for this collection of relationships and locations.
REFLECTION
1. Observe your thoughts during the day and identify the causal and immediate motivations for your actions.
Most of my actions seem to be based on threat to ego or power. I am usually concerned that I am not being respected, valued, or treated as unique and special. I am also concerned that I will be penalized or damaged for any perceived noncompliance or difference. The need to please, to be liked, to be above others is a strong motivator from fear and from a misguided idea that I will somehow have to take my power from others, as if it is a zero-sum game that I’m already queued to lose. This is fear from a lack of self-confidence and a ignorance of what I actually am or what people actually are. It adopts a series of social norms and behaviors in lieu of genuine reflection and/or understanding. Knowledge is often not enjoyed for itself, but rather as a way to gain social validation of worth because I don’t understand how to be a person.
2. Try to identify the ignorance of the ultimate nature. Then observe if misconceptions and instances of distorted attention arise.
Distorted attention is constant. Resentment and anger, especially from exaggerating expectations or trying to set ‘boundaries’ of what I do and don’t deserve seem to obscure what is really happening around me and breed a lot of self-centered thoughts that exclude all the conditions around me, save the ones that impact me and my judgments. As in, if it doesn’t happen to me or for me, it’s not important and/or it shouldn’t inconvenience me. I like identifying this thought because it’s very easy to apply engineering principles or scientific principles to question it and say, ‘Oh, that’s very nice that you think so, but look at the way all these things are interconnected. It’s a shame that someone cut you off in traffic, but look how the intersection was designed and the car loading for the area…is it any wonder that it happened? Does it have anything to do with this ‘I’ you’re so worried about, or was it just the nature of the intersection because cars are the devil?’ and so forth.
3. Periodically during the day stop and examine your mental state: Is it virtuous, non virtuous, or neutral? Is it creating the cause for happiness, suffering, or neither?
I have noticed that when I start running a calorie deficit, either through exercise or not eating properly (or a protein deficiency), my brain immediately shifts into threat mode. If I’m well-fed, my mind is relaxed and content. Little threat recognition and usually virtuous thoughts. It is easy to follow precepts and control my behavior. If I am not, however, my mind gets tight and small and everything becomes a threat. It’s a pretty instantaneous survival mechanism with just a few drops in blood sugar. I would not have noticed it if I hadn’t been looking for it. The challenge is to control emotions under fasting conditions for me. Really develop mental discipline and virtuous training that is not dependent on biochemistry. I wonder if that wasn’t why the Army was so hard for me—I was essentially starving all the time and didn’t realize my emotions were so closely tied to metabolism. It does allow me to cheat now. So if I am going to have a hard day at work, I can stuff myself with fat and protein and then I’m very tolerant and virtuous. What a shock to be so controlled by my physical matter.
Formative Action
Formative action is the intention or actual act that results in karma. They are either virtuous or nonvirtuous and are heavily intertwined with the precepts. These acts cause future rebirth. It completes the conscious intention to do something and our pleasure in doing that thing as a part of samsara. These actions create or cause other actions. Ie. They are building blocks that lock us into paths of thought and behavior. Marriage, for example, is a neutral action, but the attachment and physical behaviors that accompany it locks us into non-virtuous conduct that is very hard to escape. Every time we get mad at our spouse, feel resentment, draw ‘boundaries’ and otherwise break precepts, we are conducting a formative action that makes it harder and harder to achieve clarity. To propagate meritorious karma with these actions, we need to be motivated by things outside the eight worldly concerns and abandon anything that will only make us feel pleasure in this life.
Invariable karma can lead to rebirth as a deva or as a special being because they sought happiness in concentration, not sense objects. Those that seek equanimity or single-pointed concentration can use this formative action principle for a rebirth in the four formless realms.
Contemplating the interaction between ignorance and formative actions increases the willingness to renounce Samsara and provides motivation for living an ethical life. According to the author, “We become more interested in learning about emptiness because the wisdom realizing the ultimate truth can eliminate the ignorance that is the root of samsara and bring liberation.”
REFLECTION
1. What are the different types of formative actions?
Formative actions come in demeritorious, meritorious, and invariable. Good, bad, and ‘other’.
2. Trace the process of their arising from ignorance to afflictions to action. Make examples from your life.
Ignorance, that obsession with an ‘I’, makes me see things in all kinds of blurred and distorted way. As I go through the day, I can only see what I want to see and my mind convinces me that if I’m hungry, I’m about to die and I need to get angry and protective and stuff my face or else my lifeforce will disappear, for example. None of that is particularly true. I’m quite safe. I have enough food. I have a place to sleep at night. Everything is fine. But I am so concerned with the protection of my physical form that I blow every little thing out of proportion and then choose to react with anger or fear. All those behaviors are non-virtuous and put me in positions where it’s easier to behave unethically the next time, starting a negative cycle.
3. As you go through the day, be aware that your actions that are complete with all four branches are creating causes for your future lives.
4. How does this awareness change how you think and what you do?
Sometimes just being conscious that you don’t have to accept anger or that you can mitigate your emotions fairly easily just by seeing them is enough to drop back into a positive mental state. Following the precepts is also easier when my mind is clear and I’m paying attention to the situation as a whole, not just my intrinsic responses to ‘threats’ or whatever. A reminder about a precept or even just concentrating on relaxing my mind can stop negative formative actions before they begin and address the ignorant basis I was operating on. Sometimes. Other times, I just get mad and resentful. But I do have a strong desire not to be reborn. I’m fairly unimpressed with samsaric existence and if this is a way to leave, never come back and ease the suffering while I’m stuck here, outstanding. That’s a great motivation for self-reflection, emotional control and meditative stability. I want out.