Ven Analyayo on Dependent Origination

[mikenz66]

In this post: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=30921#p451325
I mentioned Ven Analayo's discussion of Ven Nananada's discussion of name-and-form.

Here is some more from Ven Analayo's discussion of the Nibbana Sermons:
https://www.bcbsdharma.org/resources/bh ... -lectures/
At the beginning of Lecture 4 (12 May)
Transcript: https://www.bcbsdharma.org/wp-content/u ... ana-04.pdf
Lecture: https://rz-olat-conn01.rrz.uni-hamburg. ... ode=normal

***UPDATED LINK

There is an extensive discussion of Dependent Origination.

Starting at about 2:00 minutes, there is a discussion about the diagram at the beginning of the Transcript, which helpfully points out how DO is not necessarily something linear.

Starting about 7:30 minutes, there is an illustration of time vs timelessness in DO, using Ven Analayo's cup and ruler (so you need to watch the video, not just listen to the audio). He points out that the later links (contact, feeling, craving, clining, etc...) can be interpreted as a temporal sequence, but the early parts are hard to intrepret temporally.

Ven Analayo points out that Theravada and other sects had both a three-lives and a one-mind-moment interpretation co-existing in their texts. He also relates to the Vedic sequence, as discussed by Jurewicz and discussed here: viewtopic.php?t=7464

Whether or not you agree with him, there is much food for thought there. The interesting interpretation he give is that the early links are related to Vedic creation myth, so would give a sense of familiarity to the audience, but then instead of the creation of the world, DO leads to creation of dukkha...


Mike

[cjmacie]

In this post: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=30921#p451325
I mentioned Ven Analayo's discussion of Ven Nananada's discussion of name-and-form.
...Ven Analayo points out that Theravada and other sects had both a three-lives and a one-mind-moment interpretation co-existing in their texts. He also relates to the Vedic sequence, as discussed by Jurewicz and discussed here: viewtopic.php?t=7464
...

An article by Linda Blanchard is mentioned in one of those threads, but, oddly, not her book (Dependent Arising In Context)
(https://www.amazon.com/Dependent-Arisin ... 1481259547)
which plays-out Johanna Jurewicz's theory in some detail, adding some spin of her own.

That book is mentioned in other threads (earlier 2017), and she's been a student of Richard Gombrich.

[mikenz66]

Thanks. I think the book is relatively new?


Mike

[cjmacie]

Thanks. I think the book is relatively new?

Came out about 4 years ago. Here's a 1/2-hour SBA interview with her from about that time:
http://secularbuddhism.org/2014/06/07/e ... n-context/

[DooDoot]

Ven Analayo points out that the later links (contact, feeling, craving, clining, etc...) can be interpreted as a temporal sequence, but the early parts are hard to interpret temporally.

The above limitation is from a limited mind. Thanissaro in his Shape of Suffering has no difficulty with temporal interpretation of all parts. Ven Analayo has obviously abandoned the definitions found in the suttas in preference for something else.

The interesting interpretation he give is that the early links are related to Vedic creation myth, so would give a sense of familiarity to the audience ...

Sounds like the nonsense of Jurewicz & Gombrich. The impression is Analayo in interested in worldly controversy.

[nowheat]

The interesting interpretation he give is that the early links are related to Vedic creation myth, so would give a sense of familiarity to the audience, but then instead of the creation of the world, DO leads to creation of dukkha...

Thanks for pointing me to this thread from over on suttacentral, Mike. I had a brief moment today to watch a small bit of Analayo's video, the part with the cup and ruler, and enjoyed how that ruler wouldn't quite fit in the cup, perhaps leaving five inches poking out the top, equivalent to the first five links of what I've taken to abbreviating as 12DA -- the 12-step program for ridding ourselves of dukkha, that is dependent arising.

I'd say it's useful to see links six through twelve in the chain as moving linearly through time as an explanatory principle, moving at various speeds depending on the complexity of problems. Much as I love John Lennon's music, I have never experienced "Instant Karma" with dukkha arriving in the same moment as my ignorant actions, which is my problem with a moment-to-moment explanation.

But I see those five inches sticking out of the cup as a different animal altogether from the rest. Yes, those first five links get their order, their shape, and some of their terminology from the Vedic creation myth Prof. Jurewicz pointed out, and it adds a layer of meaning to what is being said to understand the relationship between the two, a layer that was missing because it describes a process, and there apparently were no great words for "process", I'd guess because it was a concept not yet developed and discussed.

But when I'm translating those five links for an audience not much into Vedic creation myths, I call them "The Givens". They describe how we come into the world with certain problems of human nature we need to learn to see to break the dukkha-making process. Given that we're ignorant of what's about to be described, given that we have this drive for self-preservation (which requires a strong sense of having a self worth preserving), given that our minds will work to see that self (even if we have to create it), given that we look for ourselves in everything around us (like us? not like us? good? bad? indifferent), given that our senses are busy busy busy seeking that information... It's a template, a pattern, a description of the forces that move us through the rest of the chain, adding meaning and depth to the rest.

This, I believe, is why some things seem out of order, particularly contact, defined by taking three pieces from those first five links: consciousness, a sense organ, and its matching form. "How can consciousness come before the actions that feed it?" I see asked. Because those first five links are an overview of what is happening, no action yet. That consciousness is hungry and needs to be fed, and it doesn't get fed till later.

Anyway, thanks again for the link here. I'm so happy to have left behind (hopefully for a long time) a mysterious illness that prevented me being up to studying the dhamma for most of a decade. And Dhamma Wheel has long been my favorite community to chat with on the internet.

[mikenz66]

Hi nowheat,

Thanks for pointing me to this thread from over on suttacentral, Mike. ...

Great to have you back.

Mike