Dependent Co-origination Research Articles

Refurbishing learning via complexity theory: Buddhist co-origination meets pragmatic transactionalism

Hager and Beckett assert that a ‘characteristic feature of … assorted co-present groups is that their processes and outputs are marked by the full gamut of human experiences involved in their functioning’. My paper endorses and further develops this claim. I begin by expanding on their emphasis upon the priority of relations in terms of Dewey and Bentley’s transactionalism and Buddhist dependent co-origination and emptiness. Next, I emphasize the importance of embodied perspectives in acquiring meaning and transforming the world. Here, too, we will find surprising Buddhist connections. Finally, I examine the primacy of practice: how we acquire our minds and selves by participating in shared social practices. This stance is shared by philosophers as diverse as Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Dewey.

Sameness, Difference and Environmental Concern in the Metaphysics and Ethics of Spinoza and Chan Buddhism

In this paper I contrast the metaphysical philosophies of Benedict de Spinoza and the ‘sudden enlightenment’ tradition of Chan Buddhism. Spinoza’s expressivist philosophy, in which everything can be conceived via a lineage of finite causes terminating in substance as a metaphysical ground of all things, emphasises the relative sameness of all entities. By contrast, Chan’s philosophy of emptiness, which rests on the dependent co-origination of all entities, renders such comparison fundamentally meaningless. Having no source beyond dependent co-origination to generate a thing’s distinct nature leads to a metaphysics in which, rather than being relatively similar or different, all things are at one and the same time absolutely the same and absolutely distinct. As a result, Spinoza grounds ethics wholly is sameness or similarity, whereas Chan transcends the dichotomy of sameness and difference and offers an environmental ethics grounded simultaneously in absolute sameness and absolute difference. As a result, in Spinoza’s case, the dissimilarity between human beings and the non-human world places limits on our concern for it. In Chan Buddhism, however, insight into the emptiness of all phenomena leads to a concern for all entities in their suchness, regardless of whether they are similar or different to human beings. As such, I argue that Chan is in a better position than Spinoza to develop a robust environmental ethic.

Buddhism, Barad, and Materialism

Buddhism, Barad, and Materialism Jim Garrison (bio) The paper is a diffractive reading of Karan Barad's Meeting the Universe Halfway and Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka. One source of constructive interference arises from reading Barad as following the middle way between the eternal and changeless essences of the metaphysical idealists', whether transcendent (e.g., Plato), transcendental (e.g., Kant), or phenomenological (e.g., Husserl) and old materialism's relativistic, sometimes swerving, ephemeral atomism both of which can be equally absolutist and deterministic with their changeless ultimate identities whether mental (Ideas, Categories, Noesis) or physical (Ionian, Lucretian, or Newtonian reductive atomism). The contemporary incarnations of these absolutisms have two prominent forms. First, there are the dogmatic social constructivists that argue only preexisting human social constructions have the causal force to create phenomenal objects of knowledge as their effect. Meanwhile, dogmatic realists argue that only objects preexisting in the world have the causal force to create knowledge as their effect. The idealists/social constructivists tend to expound coherence theories of truth while the atomistic physicalists/realists tend to defend correspondence theories. Nagarjuna transcends such debates by arguing for the dependent co-origination of all phenomena. For him, phenomena are empty of metaphysically or physically inherent fixed forces, properties, or essences. Meanwhile, discursive practices having only conventional reference to phenomena, which nonetheless enables agents to coordinate their intra-actions. This paper begins with a brief overview of Nagarjuna. The next section identifies Barad as a follower of the middle way. Another source of constructive interference is that materialism itself appears as an empty convention having phenomenal reference. The last section identifies three sources of destructive interference. The first regards Nagarjuna's rejection of materialism. The second concerns Nagarjuna's rejection of causation and Barad's conviction that causation is always an aspect of phenomena. The third involves Nagarjuna's Buddhist humanism and Barad's posthumanism. To better align Nagarjuna and Barad a new materialist constructive phase shift is induced into Nagarjuna. A second constructive phase shift is induced into both Barad and Nagarjuna regarding causation. This second shift is achieved by means of a simple, albeit radical, rethinking of Aristotle's ideas [End Page 475] of the entangled powers of actuality (energeia) and potentiality (dynamais). A third source of possible destructive interference involves Nagarjuna's Buddhist humanism and Barad's posthumanism. Here the phase shift may prove slight and mutual, and perhaps not even necessary. Whether Nagarjuna or Barad would accept these constructive phase shifts along with the suggestions offered is open to discussion. However, the result of inducing ampliative phase shifts into Nagarjuna and Barad while exploring the similarities between Buddhist humanism and Western posthumanism might better secure the middle way for a new millennia. Nagarjuna's Middle Way1 Barad's intra-active agential realism is abundantly compatible with the following famous passage from the early discourses of the Buddha: When this is present, that comes to be;From the arising of this, that arises.When this is absent, that does not come to be;On the cessation of this, that ceases. (Kalupahana 1976, 28) Dependent co-origination rejects any metaphysical, physical, or material assumption of independent substances (svabhava) "existing from their own side" and having intrinsic force, inherent properties, or eternal, immutable essences (Westerhoff 2009, 16). Examples of such substances include Platonic forms, Newtonian causal laws, material atoms, and physical forces as well as vitalistic entities such as conatus, élan vital, and entelechy. Dependently co-originated objects, like dependently co-originated selves, are empty of independently existing substantial properties, or essences. As Garfield puts it, "Pure subjectivity is a contradiction in adjecto. Moreover, the idea of an object with no subject is contradictory. The very concept of being an object is that of being the object of a subject" (1995, 185). The self and its objects are not independent, unitary, permanent, or simply located. The relata, subjects and objects, are entangled; they emerge and are extinguished together in co-dependent relation. The self and its objects, knower and known, organism and environment, identity and difference are all dependently co-originated; they intra-actively arise and cease together. If substance (svabhava) does not exist, what does? Emptiness and the dependently arising phenomenal...

Two Boats Fastened Together: Nāgārjuna's Solution to the Question of the Origin of Ideas

The main contention of this article is that Nāgārjuna's peculiar interpretation of the doctrine of "dependent co-origination" (pratītysamutpāda) as the principle of cooriginating and coexisting logical counterparts could be considered a solution to the traditional epistemological problem of the origin of ideas.

Two Boats Fastened Together: Nagārjuna’s Solution To the Questions of the Origin of Ideas

The main contention of this paper is that Nāgārjuna’s peculiar interpretation of the doctrine of “dependent co-origination” (pratītysamutpāda) as the principle of cooriginating and coexisting logical counterparts could be considered a solution to the traditional epistemological problem of the origin of ideas.

Enacting the Violent Imaginary: Reflections on the Dynamics of Nonviolence and Violence in Buddhism

In this paper, I explore the complex ethical dynamics of violence and nonviolence in Mahāyāna Buddhism by considering some of the historical precedents and scriptural prescriptions that inform modern and contemporary Buddhist acts of self-immolation. Through considering these scripturally sanctioned Mahāyāna ‘case studies,’ the paper traces the tension that exists in Buddhist thought between violence and nonviolence, outlines the interplay of key Mahāyāna ideas of transcendence and altruism, and comments on the mimetic status and influence of spiritually charged texts. It is the contention of this paper that violent scriptural metaphors can create paradigms of enactment that are paradoxically illustrative of the core ‘non-violent’ Mahāyāna virtues of compassion (karuṇā), giving (dāna), patience (kṣānti), and vigor (vīrya). The discussion will show that these virtues are underpinned by the Mahāyāna philosophical mainstays of non-duality (advayavāda), bodhisattvic transcendent altruism, skillful means (upāya), and dependent co-origination (pratītyasamutpāda).

VERDADE E VAZIO EM NĀGĀRJUNA: O CAPÍTULO XXIV DOS MŪLAMADHYAMAKAKĀRIKĀ

RESUMO Em nosso artigo, faremos uma breve exposição sobre o capítulo XXIV ("Exame das Quatro Nobres Verdades") dos Mūlamadhyamakakārikā ("Versos fundamentais sobre o caminho do meio"), de Nāgārjuna, e buscaremos oferecer uma defesa de nossa própria interpretação de sua filosofia, comparando-a com as interpretações semântica e pedagógica propostas, respectivamente, por Garfield e Siderits, por um lado, e Ferraro, por outro. Na nossa exposição, discutiremos a relação entre vazio, cooriginação dependente e verdade, apontando a íntima ligação entre esses termos no interior da filosofia de Nāgārjuna e buscando indicar em que sentido as quatro nobres verdades do budismo, de acordo com o filósofo, só podem ser verdadeiras se elas forem vazias. A partir dessa análise, esperamos poder estabelecer uma relação entre verdade convencional e verdade suprema, tal como abordada nesse capítulo, segundo a qual tanto a verdade convencional quanto a suprema são vazias, sendo que a diferença entre ambas consistiria em que a primeira diz respeito à existência convencional das coisas, enquanto a segunda diz respeito à ausência de essência delas. Nesse sentido, tratar-se-á de analisar como seria possível, para Nāgārjuna, uma compreensão acerca da verdade que nos parece tão contraintuitiva, a saber, a de que a verdade só é possível se for relativa (no sentido de se inserir na cooriginação dependente de todas as coisas e ser vazia de essência ou natureza própria). Esperamos, assim, fazer uma pequena contribuição para a discussão de alguns dos conceitos mais relevantes do pensamento desse importante filósofo budista, sobretudo no que diz respeito à relação da verdade suprema com o vazio.

NĀGĀRJUNA AND SCHELLING: OUTLINES OF A DIALOGUE ON SELF, WORLD, AND VIEWPOINTS

ABSTRACT The paper intends to build a dialogue between Nāgārjuna and Schelling on Self, world, and standpoints, taking as main references Nāgārjuna's The Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way and Schelling's Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism. Whereas Nāgārjuna criticizes the substantialization of beings by resorting to the discourse of the dependent co-origination in order to overcome suffering, Schelling, on his turn, refutes the fanaticism based on dogmatism's tenets in favor of the criticism interpreted according to its spirit, and not according to its letter, in order to emancipate humanity. Starting with a succint contextualization of the Eastern and Western philosophical discourse, proceeding further to discuss the philosophies of both thinkers, the paper is concluded by assessing their theories.

Buddhologie Und Christologie: Unterwegs Zu Einer Kol-Laborativen Theologie by John D’Arcy May

Reviewed by: Buddhologie Und Christologie: Unterwegs Zu Einer Kol-Laborativen Theologie by John D’Arcy May Paul F. Knitter BUDDHOLOGIE UND CHRISTOLOGIE: UNTERWEGS ZU EINER KOLLABORATIVEN THEOLOGIE. By John D’Arcy May. Salzburger Theologische Studien: Interkulturell 14. Innsbruck: Tyrolia Verlag, 2014. 159 pp. The brevity of this book belies its ambition and its achievement. May wants to further the cause of what he calls “collaborative theology.” He does so by carefully examining the recently born and ever growing body of Christian-Buddhist interchange and then by showing how this interchange bears the characteristics, especially for Christians, of a collaborative theology. His book is both a review of what has been going on in the Buddhist-Christian conversation over the last fifteen or so years and a signaling of where it is going. May first makes clear what he means by collaborative theology. He does this mainly by marking how it differs from the broadly popular comparative theology. Like the comparativists, collaborative theologians recognize the abiding, sometimes contradictory, differences between the religions, but at the same time they affirm the promise of bringing those differences into conversation (p. 30). There is also agreement as to the symbolic nature of all religious language and the central role that narrative plays in religious teachings. But for May, collaborative theology addresses what he identifies as a certain timidity in comparativists like Francis Clooney and James Fredericks; they offer “rich” comparisons between Christianity and Hinduism or Buddhism, but when it comes to drawing conclusions from these comparisons, they evince a theological “distance” or even “untouchability” (Berührungslosigkeit) (pp. 20, 12). For May, comparative theologians are strong on comparison but fail to deliver on theology. Not so collaborative theology. It seeks, May tells us, to gather the fruits of the dialogical comparison—fruits that will often call for real changes in theology and in the community’s self-understanding (p. 108). One hears echoes of John B. Cobb Jr. from back in the early 1980s when he reminded us that to engage in dialogue is to be called to transformation.1 For May collaboration leads to transformation. And this requires another step that comparative theologians appear hesitant to make—a step beyond the “absolutism” that is contained in the so-called Christian (or Buddhist) exclusivist or inclusivist theologies of religions (p. 29). May’s table of contents reads like a checklist of the complex but rich topics on the Christian-Buddhist agenda: “Trikaya and Trinity,” “Bodhisattva and Christ,” “History, Time, Hope,” “Bodies and Nature,” “Meditation and Prayer.” For each of them, he offers a selective, critical survey of the state of the conversation between Christian and Buddhist scholars. As expected, Christian voices dominate. And May, Christian scholar and long-time (but now retired) director of the Irish School of Ecumenics, is understandably more comfortable in highlighting the transformative possibilities that a collaborative theology offers to Christians rather than for Buddhists. May shows why “a deeper understanding of God should be one of the most fruitful [End Page 245] results of a Buddhist-Christian . . . collaborative theology” (p. 113). The axis of this collaborative dialogue on Ultimacy is the Mahayana teachings on the nondual reality of Emptiness/Form. By laying out how various Christian and Buddhist scholars are using the hermeneutical light of sunyata to challenge, clarify, or deepen Christian language of God as ipsum esse subsistens (subsistent being itself), as uncaused cause, as mystery that is both present and absent, as Love and Spirit, or as the source of a “supernatural existential” in which “grace” pervades “nature” (Rahner), May and the scholars he reviews illumine the nondual depths or potential of such Christian symbols. But he also challenges Buddhists and suggests that they can recognize an implicit affirmation of ongoing creation if they see the analogies between dependent co-origination and the love-energy that Christians call the creative Spirit (pp. 52–53). His efforts to draw similar analogies, however, become complex if not strained when he suggests that the Buddha bodies of the Trikaya doctrine and the persons of the Trinity perform similar mediating roles for encountering transcendence (pp. 38–39). May recognizes the tensions if not contradictions in this collaborative Buddhist Christian conversation about Emptiness...

Revisiting the Dragon Princess: Her Role in Medieval Engi Stories and Their Implications in Reading the Lotus Sutra

This article examines how the Dragon Princess, one of the most celebrated characters in the Lotus Sutra, is represented in the noh drama Ama and the Heike Nokyo sutra set. By doing so, it debunks the prevailing consensus in understanding the Dragon Princess and her episode in the sutra, and illustrates a hitherto unnoticed intrinsic affinity between medieval Japanese engi stories and Buddhist scriptural narratives.KEYWORDS: Lotus Sutra-Dragon Princess-henjo nanshi-ryunyo jobutsu- Buddhism-gender and narrativity-Heike nokyo-ama (female diver)(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)The Heike n?ky?, a twelfth-century set of thirty-three scriptural scrolls preserved at Itsukushima Shrine in Hiroshima Prefecture, is one of the most sumptuous and elaborate examples of medieval Japanese illustrated Buddhist scriptural manuscripts. One of the scrolls, the "Devadatta" chapter of the Lotus Sutra, bears a frontispiece that features the Dragon Princess, the celebrated protagonist of the chapter (figure 1). The illustration is arguably the most sublime representation of the princess in visual art. Although recent studies of the Dragon Princess have made her famous for her sudden change of sex and transformation into a Buddha, the princess in the frontispiece simply offers her jewel to the Buddha. She shows no sign of physical metamorphosis. What sort of interpretive strategies are required to understand her act as represented in the frontispiece?Engi Literature and Buddhist Scriptural NarrativesThis article aims at illustrating an intrinsic affinity between medieval Japanese engi ... materials in textual, performative, and visual genres, and Buddhist scriptural materials. The prevailing consensus among scholars has long held that the term engi is an appropriation of the Buddhist doctrinal term "dependent co-origination" (Sk. prat?tyasa?utp?da), which is translated in the Chinese canon as innen sh?ki ... (Ch. yinyuan shengqi) and abbreviated in more common use as engi (Ch. yuanqi). However, the concept of dependent coorigination means that all things in the world are intrinsically neither rising nor ceasing; everything originates from its non-origin. Obviously such a philosophical idea would not accord well with medieval engi narratives, which are designed to account for the specific provenance of temples, shrines, or other sacred sites, the divinities worshipped there, and/or visual and material representations of those divinities.Although it is not as well known today, an alternative etymology links the word engi to another significant Buddhist term, namely, nid?na (Jp. nidana; Ch. nituona ...), which literally means origin (sho ....), provenance (hokki ...), cause (in ...), and original cause (shoin ...). More importantly for this article, nid?na is the name for one of the twelve categories of Buddhist scriptural discourse (Sk. dv?da???ga-dharma-pravacana; Ch. shierbujing; Jp. j?nibuky? ... or ...). Nid?na in this sense is translated more commonly as either engi or innen ... As a category of scriptural narratives, nid?na or engi consist of stories that aim at revealing the original cause of sermons delivered by the Buddha, vinaya rules he established, and strange and miraculous events caused or witnessed by him. In most cases, the origins of the events described are found in the former lives of the Buddha or his disciples in the distant past. In that regard, nid?na are closely linked to two other narrative categories in scriptural discourse, namely, j?taka (Ch. bensheng; Jp. honj? ...), stories of the Buddha's former lives; and itiv?ttaka (Ch. benshi; Jp. honji ...), stories of the former lives of the Buddha's disciples, both ordained and lay.1Because nid?na, j?taka, and itiv?ttaka are often employed as elaborate, didactic narrative figures within the scriptures, they often overlap with avad?na (Ch. piyu; Jp. hiyu ...), yet another narrative entity within the twelve categories, which consists of teaching by means of metaphors and parables. …

Midnight and the Black Box

The parasitic relation is intersubjective. It is the atomic form of our relations. Let us try to face it head-on, like death, like the sun. We are all attacked, together. What is this sudden dangerous noise at the door that prevents me from finishing and leads me to other actions? Michel Serres tells me that I emerge in debt. In another universe, I don't know this cat in my lap. Her human companion and I passed each other by, we never became lovers. I don't know whether she is dead or alive. One of the earliest Buddhist teachings is the twelve-fold chain of dependent co-origination (pratītyasamutpāda). The basic idea is: “That being, this comes to be; from the arising of that, this arises; that being absent, this is not; from the cessation of that, this ceases” (Nāṇamoli and Bodhi 655–56). Through a wide-ranging process of evolution, this deceptively simple observation has become the notion of “interdependence” so beloved by ecologists. But the basic idea is entanglement, about which we are understandably profoundly ambivalent. We cling to reflections of our own independent agency, and this clinging binds us to others. Deep connection is thrilling, but unfreedom is not.

Symbiosis as the way of eukaryotic life: the dependent co-origination of the body.

Molecular analyses of symbiotic relationships are challenging our biological definitions of individuality and supplanting them with a new notion of normal part-whole relationships. This new notion is that of a 'holobiont', a consortium of organisms that becomes a functionally integrated 'whole'. This holobiont includes the zoological organism (the 'animal') as well as its persistent microbial symbionts. This new individuality is seen on anatomical and physiological levels, where a diversity of symbionts form a new 'organ system' within the zoological organism and become integrated into its metabolism and development. Moreover, as in normal development, there are reciprocal interactions between the 'host' organism and its symbionts that alter gene expression in both sets of cells. The immune system, instead of being seen as functioning solely to keep microbes out of the body, is also found to develop, in part, in dialogue with symbionts. Moreover, the immune system is actively involved in the colonization of the zoological organism, functioning as a mechanism for integrating microbes into the animal-cell community. Symbionts have also been found to constitute a second mode of genetic inheritance, providing selectable genetic variation for natural selection. We develop, grow and evolve as multi-genomic consortia/teams/ecosystems.

Dependent Co-Origination and Universal Intersubjectivity

Two essays in a recent issue of Buddhist-Christian Studies dealt with the topic Buddhist and Christian Views of Community. The first essay, by Rita Gross, was a careful analysis of the way in which the separation of home and workplace in contemporary Western society has tended to reduce effective community life to the nuclear family and thus pose significant disadvantages to everyone involved (not only mothers, fathers, and their children but also non-family members, friends, and neighbors) within the broader civic community.1 A consumeroriented culture catering to individual needs and desires has arisen to compensate for the pervasive feeling of loneliness and emptiness created by the relative lack of significant interpersonal relationships. In the second essay Donald Mitchell recounted the origin and unexpected growth of the International Focolare movment of which he is a longtime member.2 He noted how the founder of the movement, Chiara Lubich, and her women friends found inspiration for living together and working for the poor and the homeless around them in what they saw as the self-giving love of the three divine persons of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity both for one another and for all their creatures. This movement over time broadened to include first Protestant members, then Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus, all drawn by the goal of richer life in commu-

The Relevance of the Buddhist Theory of Dependent Co-Origination to Cognitive Science

The canonical Buddhist account of the cognitive processes underlying our experience of the world prefigures recent developments in neuroscience. The developments in question are centered on two main trends in neuroscience research and thinking. The first of these involves the idea that our everyday experience of ourselves and of the world consists in a series of discrete microstates. The second closely related notion is that affective structures and systems play critical roles in governing the formation of such states. Both of these ideas are contained within the Buddhist theory of dependent co-origination. This paper explicates the theory of dependent co-origination in light of the aforementioned developments. It examines the role of the theory of dependent co-origination within Buddhism and it draws attention to critical differences with the neuroscientific account of the same process. Finally, it discusses specific ways in which these differences may be usefully applied to neuroscience research and thinking.

Emptiness as Transparency in the Late Poetry of Thomas Merton

AbstractThis article examines chiefly Buddhist influences in Thomas Merton. Cables to the Ace is a book based on the Buddhist idea of pratitya-samutpada, or dependent co-origination. Beneath everything there is a blissful emptiness, or shunyata. The ace is the poet's selfhood at the point vierge, here interpreted as a Buddhist no-self. Heidegger's Gelassenheit also defines the point vierge. In The Geography of Lograire, a supreme karuna, or compassion, is poured out for all the countries and peoples of the world. Footprints of the Buddha figure in, and so does the transparency which is also emptiness.

Buddhist Emptiness and the Christian God

Buddhist Emptiness and the Christian God