This is an outline of a presentation I gave on January 8, 2022 of two chapters in “Awakening of the Heart,” Dependent Co-arising, & Walking the Middle Path.
Finding out about, understanding the middle way & how to walk the middle path
I was glad to spend some extra time mulling over these two chapters
- “dependent co-arising’ has always been obscure words
- Now see it is trying to describe the indescribable
- Barry’s view: mycelial network in reality; touch one thing and you touch it all.; the dendrites in our brain, neurons being phenomenal manifestations.
- Holding a paradox in focus, two contradictory notions at the same time.
- Using language to explain what is beyond language; language is essentially dualistic. Dependent co-arising is about unity.
What I think Thay has to say about dependent co-arising
- Payoff: meditate on dependent co-arising, end of suffering
- All wrong perceptions no longer exist
- “that’s not it” shifts to “it is something like this”
- How to learn the middle way
Causes and conditions; think about it in a non-linear way
- Not the way I learned causality
- Which came first: chicken or egg? Yes
- Everything is the result of multiple causes and conditions
- Cause = principal condition
- Conditions = necessary but subsidiary
- Not only true that various conditions cause suffering to arise; true of all phenomena
Everything comes to be because of multiple ( infinite? ) causes and conditions
- Constantly changing; not linear
- Buddha (and Thay) “ experience it your self” (‘I can’t explain it; but I can give similes”)
- See for yourself: not revelation; not what the early bishops liked
- Not a “truth” but the truth is there; in the dharma realm
- Beyond phenomena; ?? conditioned vs. ultimate??; Is dependent co-arising at the junction of condioned and ultimate?? hold paradox in hand
- Think beyond being and non-being; death and birth = the middle way; neither and both
- This is because that is: like mono vision in my experience
- Examples don’t really explain; they soften the mind to accept what is beyond concepts, language.
12 links of dependent co-arising
- Ignorance “causes”, informs the others; but they are all inter-related.
- Not see in a linear fashion.
- All depend on one another to exist; concepts help me to understand the dynamics of causality.
- 12 links of dependent co-arising help see the teaching on emptiness.
- I like: Dependent co-arising sometimes called the “great emptiness”
- For me it is the reverse: reflecting on emptiness helps me look into the notion of dependent co-arising.
Payoff: meditating on dependent co-arising allows us to go beyond all other questions
- Overcome all our wrong perceptions; notions of self, living being,etc no longer exist. ( eg. Thay’s latest book )
- No longer suffer because of our wrong views.
This has been about how to understand the Middle Way
Walking the Middle Way
What are the practical implications
- Besides meditating on dependent co-arising, how to apply to our daily lives
Don’t be attached to the teachings
- Teachings are not revelation.
- Teachings are to help us, but have to be handled skillfully.
Ignorance gives rise to habit energies, many are unhelpful
- Repeat the same thing, the same suffering over and over again.
- Transform this habit energy by the energy of mindfulness;
- Energy of mindfulness leads to the energy of concentration, and that to the energy of insight.
- This has been my experience.
- Is there a “good” habit energy??; can be helpful, but it is a problem if, it is not used mindfully.
- Main point: Ignorance, ignorance of the Middle Way, ignorance of dependent co-rising , no longer pushes us to act in negative ways.
Affects how we relate to others
- No longer react in a non-mindful way, based on habit energies.
Habit energy of suffering is inherited
- Resmaa agrees with Thay
- Mindfulness allows a practice of liberation; of freedom.
- Insight of the Middle Way helps us know how to relate to others. Neither this or that. ; see situations with understanding of dependent co-arising.
- Learn to see others with insight; w/o conventional designations.
- See how we are linked to them: the benefit of meditating on dependent co-arising.
- See true nature of self and others: become free; experience the freedom of the Middle Way.
- We get to try, like Thay, to explain dependent co-arising to others because we have experienced it, a little perhaps.