Paṭicca-samuppāda - a theory of causation?

"The doctrine of Dependent Origination is a
fundamental Buddhist teaching on causation
and the ontological status of phenomena."
-
Encyclopedia of Buddhism [1]

~~~

THIS IS THE FIRST SENTENCE from the definition of dependent-origination from the Encyclopedia of Buddhism, and it made me think "no, it isn't!" The fact is that this kind of source - a general encyclopedia - is not going to make much difference in Buddhist circles since Buddhists aren't likely to be consulting an encyclopedia on Buddhism, but it will get taken up by students, especially students of comparative religion, who will propagate the view.

I'm very doubtful about this word 'doctrine'. It leads to the phrase 'dependent-arising' being capitalised, when dependent-arising is purportedly a description of a process of 'things' arising, i.e. adjectival; it is not a thing itself, so I don't think it should be a proper noun. In any case "doctrine" sounds too fixed, too certain, and too dogmatic for my ear. So I won't use it, and will instead talk about the theory of dependent-arising.

First paṭicca-samuppāda is not a teaching on, or a theory of, causation at all. While the Buddha did use the term hetu 'cause, reason' sometimes, it was always synonymous with words like paccaya 'condition', samudaya 'origin', etc. The English translations are all synonyms as well, according to my Oxford Thesaurus. Paṭicca-samuppāda is about dependency and contingency, but it is not about causation. As far as I can tell the Buddha doesn't use hetu in its verbal form (hinati, pahiṇati), in this context. I've done a detailed analysis of the word paṭicca-samuppāda and you can consult that if need be, but the gist is that things arise on the basis of conditions. We do not say that the condition causes the thing to arise (and thereby we avoid assigning agency to them), only that something arises having depended on (paṭicca) something else. This form - 'having depended on' or 'depending on' - (a gerund) sounds awkward in English, but is a very common way of creating subordinate clauses in Pāli. The gerund refers to an action immediately preceding the main verb (here indicated by the verbal noun samuppāda arising). The arising is preceded by the condition, and arising is dependent on the condition - this is all that is being said.

When the Buddha said imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hoti (that being, this becomes) he used a particular grammatical form known as a locative absolute: both imasmiṃ and sati are in the locative case. Here sati is an action noun from √as 'to be', and not related to sati 'remember' (Sanskrit smṛṭi). The sense is of the locative absolute sub-clause is one of duration: 'while this exists' or 'when this exists'. Then idaṃ hoti just means 'this is'. So the sentence says: "while there is that, there is this" (imasmiṃ and idam are the same deictic pronoun and should both be 'this', but that gets confusing). There is no sense, nor any implication of causation here. We might say, following the metaphor used by Bhikkhu Ñāṇavīra, that while there are walls, the roof stays up; and when the walls are absent there can't be a roof, if the walls crumble the roof falls down. The walls do not cause the roof, nor are they in themselves sufficient to bring the roof into existence (it requires some other factors as well). To take the walls as causing the roof would be to give them agency as builders.

The most common way of explaining paṭicca-samuppāda is with reference to the nidānas:

"from the condition of ignorance [there are] volitions (avijjā-paccayā saṅkhārā)" etc.

The verb 'to be' (i.e. 'there are', 'there is') is missing because it is permissible, and idiomatically correct in Pāli. Just as above avijjā is a condition without which there can be no saṅkhārā, but it does not cause it - ignorance doesn't have agency of itself, but causes the agency I do have to go awry. Another frequent expression goes like this: with the eye and forms as conditions, eye-consciousness arises. (cakkhuṃ ca paṭicca rūpe ca uppajjati cakkhu-viññāṇaṃ). Again think of the house analogy - when the foundations and the walls are in place, you can put up a roof. As Bhikkhu Bodhi, articulating a more orthodox Theravāda view, says of the nidānas:

"The sequence of factors should not be regarded as a linear causal process in which each preceding factor gives rise to its successor through a simple exercise of efficient causality. The relationship among the factors is always one of complex conditionality rather than linear causation. The conditioning function can include such diverse relationships as mutuality (when two factors mutually support each other), necessary antecedent (when one factor must be present for another to arise), distal efficiency (as when a remotely past volitional formation generates consciousness in a new life), etc." [2]

The second point is about ontology. Ontology is one of these big words I've gotten into the habit of using without ever saying much about it. The Online Etymology Dictionary tells us that word comes from the Greek verb einai 'to be' (present-participle: on 'being', genitive ontos.) and refers to the study of, and theories about 'being'. The primary question ontology asks is "what is there?" Similarly epistemology is the study of knowledge and asks "what can we know about what's there?" These are the basic questions of Western philosophy down the ages. And, as I have previously argued, there is a fundamental mismatch between Buddhism and Western philosophy because the Buddha had no interest in either of these questions. The domain (visaya) for Buddhist inquiry is the 'world' which arises out of the interaction between between sense faculty and sense object. The Buddha has little or nothing to say about sense faculties except to list them; and little or nothing to say about sense objects except that desire for them is unhelpful. Because he is not interested in the question "what is there?" we must conclude that the Buddha was not interested in ontology. As I pointed out in my commentary on the simile of the chariot, from the point of view of the Buddha only disappointment (dukkha) arises, and only disappointment ceases. Paṭicca-samuppāda is an insight into how dukkha arises - dukkha being a synonym for 'the world of experience' [see also What Did the Buddha Mean by World?].

I had a go at explaining the various meanings of dhamma in Oct 2009. Dhamma is often translated as 'phenomena' - with the sense that it applies to any phenomena. It can simply mean 'thing' and this may give the impression of an ontological position. The nidānas are sometimes referred to as dhammas (items in a list). However over some years now I've been arguing for the adoption of one of Sue Hamilton's key insights: that the Buddha was always talking about experience, and not about ontology. [3] Even Bhikkhu Bodhi who apparently remains convinced that the Buddha did talk about ontology from time to time, concludes:

“The world with which the Buddha’s teaching is principally concerned is ‘the world of experience,’ and even the objective world is of interest only to the extent that it serves as that necessary external condition for experience.” [4]

To be fair there are some ontological implications of paṭicca-samuppāda: e.g. consciousness (viññāna) apparently precedes body (nāma-rūpa); but the teaching is not about that, it's an incidental aspect of the teaching. [5] I've confessed that these ontological implications cause me some confusion, and I have been so far unable to reconcile them. But in terms of getting on with practice it doesn't matter in the least - my focus, like the Buddha's is not on ontology, but on experience. I'm happy to practice ethics, calm down, observe my 'world' and allow insight to resolve lingering doubts and confusion when it comes - it's a work in progress.

So if I were to reframe that first sentence in the Encyclopedia I would say it this way:

The theory of dependent-arising is a
fundamental Buddhist teaching on conditionality
and the nature of experience.

~~oOo~~

Notes

1. Keown, D. and Prebish, C. Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Routledge, 2007. (p.268.)
2. Bodhi Connected Discourses. p. 523 (introduction to the nidāna-saṃyutta.)
   
3. Bodhi Connected Discourses. p. 394, n.182.
4. I note that there is a contemporary philosophical discourse about the "ontology of experience" but I don't understand it. My view is that experience has an indeterminate ontological status - the language of ontology, i.e. existence and non-existence, simply doesn't apply. This is in line with what we find the Buddha saying in the Kaccānagotta Sutta (SN 12.15); and later in Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamaka Kārikā (which quotes a Sanskrit version of the Kaccānagotta at 15.7).
   
5. See especially: Shulman, Eviatar. 2008. 'Early Meanings of Dependent-Origination,' Journal of Indian Philosophy, 36(2): 297-317. I have some reservations regarding Shulman's assumptions about what is referred to in the nidāna chain, but over-all this is one of the most interesting articles I've read in years.
   

Action and Intention II

In translating and commenting on the Nibbedhika Sutta a few weeks back I neglected to tie my comments in with another idea I have been working on for some time. It's not an obvious proposition that intention is the ethically significant aspect of morality, and some people struggle with this. I think it is because we are mistaken about the range or domain (visaya) in which the teachings apply, and the equation of cetanā and kamma is actually a clue in the puzzle.

I've been researching the way the Buddha talks about paṭicca-samuppāda to try to discern where he thought it applied. We Buddhists are all familiar with the idea that "everything is impermanent"; we often say "all things arise in dependence on causes" but I keep asking the question "what is meant by 'everything' or 'all things'?" I'm working through this territory in a long essay, that has been evolving over a couple of years, and questions some of the basic assumptions in these slogans.

I've already written about the question what arises in dependence on causes? The short answer is 'dhammā'. Dhamma can be translated as 'thing', and it is sometimes that general in Pāli. But in terms of 'arising' it is not talking about things generally, but about mental processes. On the whole it is mental processes that arise in dependence on causes. This raises the question of why we talk of paṭicca-samuppāda as a general theory of conditionality?

I've also talked about 'the world', and how the world for the Buddha was the world of experience. The very word 'loka' implies the visible world, the sensual world, but a series of other texts make it clear that 'the world' in this context means "one's world". Our own world is neither objective nor subjective, but it arises out of the interaction of the two poles. See for instance M i.259: ‘The consciousness that arises with forms and the eye as condition is called eye-consciousness’ (cakkhuñca paṭicca rūpe ca uppajjati viññāṇaṃ cakkhuviññāṇant’eva sankhaṃ gacchati); or M i.111: ‘dependent on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises: these three together constitute contact’ (cakkhuñcāvuso, paṭicca rūpe ca uppajjati cakkhuviññāṇaṃ, tiṇṇaṃ saṅgati phasso).

This world, this experiential world, is the stage upon which we play out our lives.

And, friend, it is right here in this arm-span measure of body endowed with perception and cognition that I declare the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world, and the way leading to the cessation of the world. (S i.62)

Not only this, but the texts make it clear that loka is synonymous with dukkha. Both are described in precisely the same terms as the product of paṭicca-samuppāda. I have not found any reference to a text saying that an external object arises in dependence on causes, and I would be very interested if any reader could turn one up.

I'm summarising 9,000 words of argument and textual citation here, but what starts to emerge is that the Buddha doesn't seem to think of paṭicca-samuppāda as applying to the world in general, only to the experiential world arising out of contact. To make the point I offer a thought experiment.

Imagine a diamond in ancient India at the dawn of the second urbanisation, say around 1500 BCE. It is polished and sparkling. We can see it, and touch it, but don't have microscopes or lens; and our theory of elements doesn't give us the kinds of insights that modern chemistry and physics do. It is handed down from generation to generation and apart from gathering a little dust, it does not change for a thousand years. This is part of the value of a gemstone: time does not diminish or tarnish it. After a thousand years no one can remember any details of its provenance. It is as it is, and always has been - unchanging. The Buddha is born 1000 years later, and meets the present owner of the diamond. He sees it, and holds it. He questions the owner about it. For all intents and purposes he establishes that the diamond has never changed (in living memory) and there is no real prospect of it ever changing.

It is not quite true to say that everything changes, or at least we can say it is not possible to know that this is true. If the Buddha was intellectually honest (and I'm assuming that he was) then there were many objects in his world that did not appear to change in the span of living memory, and to say that they did change would not be relying on experience.

What I conclude is that paṭicca-samuppāda was applied only to the experiential world; and was not intended to apply, and in fact does not apply, to the world of sense objects in the Buddha's teaching (there is no world of ideal objects inaccessible to the senses in Buddhist epistemology since we could have no knowledge of them). However it is very easy to show, and to understand, that even with reference to a hypothetical unchanging object, that the world of experience arising from contact between that object and our subject is one which is which constantly changing. Experience fully conforms to paṭicca-samuppāda under all circumstances, and this way I, incidentally, side-step the potential charge of eternalism.

No doubt there is cause and effect in the objective world, but physics is a much better description of this than Iron Age Buddhist theories. On the other hand though physics has produced many marvellous discoveries, it has liberated very few minds. In fact the European intellectual tradition has been aware of the changing nature of things as long as the Indian tradition - going back to Heraclitus at least. We all understand that things change, that everything changes.

The Buddha often says "I teach dukkha and the way to make dukkha cease". I think he was speaking quite literally; I think he was not offering an insight into The World, but only into our own world, into our relationship with experience, and how a dysfunction in that relationship causes us suffering. I believe that this is no less profound, but brings the Buddha's insight out of the realm of mystical experiences, inaccessible to the great majority of us, and into the realms of possibility. I believe that any one of us can, with some effort, have this life-changing, world changing insight. I don't discount that it might have a mystical dimension, but I don't see bodhi primarily in terms of mysticism these days.

Of course it was Buddhists themselves who developed the Buddha's initial observations and exposition in the direction of a generalised theory of conditionality. Why Buddhism developed in this metaphysical direction is an interesting question, but one that I haven't the space to pursue. If we understand conditionality in the way I've outlined, then the equation of kamma and cetanā becomes clearer. Cetanā is so vital to Buddhist ethics because Buddhist ethics applies in the realm of the dependently arisen mental processes, and it is in this realm that we have most influence. We might not be able to change the world, but we can certainly change our own minds.

~~oOo~~

image: Phillip Stoner The Jeweller. For, who could resist a diamond seller called 'Stoner'?