The next part of the “skeleton” of Buddhist teaching I want to put flesh on is known as the doctrine of Conditioned Arising.
In its simplest form, the doctrine of Conditioned Arising is expressed by the very succinct formula: “When this arises, that arises. When this ceases, that ceases.”
I think this doctrine plays two important roles in the Buddhist worldview.
First, it should be see as one way of elaborating on the doctrine of Impermanence.
If there were any condition in the world that had an existence completely independent of other conditions, then this condition would go on existing forever. But this doctrine says that nothing has independent existence. Every particular “that” which arises in the world has some other “this” which is the cause or condition of its arising; so when “this” ceases to be, the corresponding “that” will also cease to be.
I take this also to refer to the mechanical and purposeless nature of change in the world. Early Buddhists did not believe that “everything happens for a purpose.” In this respect, the early Buddhist worldview resembles that of modern physics, which also explains the course of events in the world as the result of impersonal forces, operating according to causal laws without reference to any guiding purposes. The world out there consists then in a collection of ever changing, conditioned and conditioning conditions, without beginning or end.
In other words, early Buddhism does not address the problem of life’s meaning by asking “what is the meaning of the universe?” The universe has no meaning. Early Buddhism is somewhat unique among world religions in this basically deflationary view of the world out there.
The practical significance of this deflationary view is to urge people to resist the common human tendency to regard the world out there as the primary site of meaning, and to try to fulfill their quest for meaning through some connection to and involvement with the world out there. (The feeling of “oneness with the world” is sometimes associated with Buddhism. Whatever can be said in favor of this idea, it stands in direct conflict with teachings presented in the earliest Buddhist writings treated here.)
I think we should regard all this as an essential aspect of the Buddhist worldview. Buddhist teaching invites those entering on the Buddhist path to try to get in the habit of looking on the world as an impersonal machine. Conditions and events we encounter in the world are governed by impersonal laws of cause-and-effect.
This is probably contrary to optimistic habits that probably come naturally to most of us, who live in the expectation that the world will go on in a way to which you would like to become accustomed. Conditions and events in the world will generally support you, maintaining conditions you need to give you comfort and support and maintain a particular self image and role in the world you are attached to, and treat you as you think you deserve to be treated.
These expectations cause us to be surprised, shocked, and sometimes outraged, that the world does not meet our expectations, suffering to a greater or lesser degree all those aspects of “Distress” illustrated in the way Kisa Gotami reacted to the death of her son. I think that the message of Conditioned Arising is:
Get used to the idea that the universe does not care about you. Don’t take events personally, and feel supported when events make you feel you are winning or upset when they make you feel you are losing.
Do not expect turns of events in the world to treat you fairly or treat you as you think you deserve. Do not expect fairness at all. Live in the expectation that, unpredictably, sometimes things will go well and sometimes they will go badly. Sometimes goodness will be rewarded and sometimes the forces of evil will win out.
Don’t look for support from anything outside yourself. As one passage puts it: “Be an island to yourself” (DN 16.2.33) Instead of looking to the world for support, expect an ever-changing world, and be prepared to “rise to the occasion,” any occasion, confident that you have in yourself the resources to do whatever is the best thing you can do in any situation, because no matter what the circumstances, there is always something that is the best thing, the most ethical and most meaningful thing, you can do under the circumstances.
The psychological meaning of Conditioned Arising.
So one facet of the doctrine of Conditioned Arising accounts for changing conditions events in the world on the basis of completely impersonal forces devoid of purpose. Another facet of this doctrine of Conditioned Arising, perhaps more important for present purposes, is the extension of this same idea to the realm of personal psychology.
People are under the impression that they are making free choices in the way they choose to relate to the world. Buddhism invites them to see this as an illusion. In a person leading a normal human life, responses to the world are not due to free choices. In their normal state, human individuals are in the grip of deeply rooted underlying tendencies to forming Attachments.
Thus from this perspective, the tendency to form Attachments, deeply rooted in normal human psychology, is comparable to the impersonal and mechanical forces governing events in the external world.
The ideal Buddhist will see these as impersonal forces driving her automatically and involuntarily to respond to the world in ways that will only lead to Distress and frustration.
This I think is what finds succinct expression in the middle section of another frequently repeated set of formulas claiming to present a more detailed account of Conditioned Arising. The relevant middle section of this kind of passage consists of only three lines
Feelings are conditioned by Contact
Craving is conditioned by Feelings
Attachments are conditioned by Craving…
Such is the arising of this whole mass of Distress.
As offering a further explanation of Conditioned Arising, this means: Tendencies to Craving and Attachment are so deeply rooted in normal human psychology that in the normal case, whenever a person perceives anything, this perceptual “contact” is automatically followed by involuntary feeling-responses driven by these tendencies to Craving and Attachment.
This passage ends by saying that what it has given is an account of how Distress arises–assuming again that Attachments are the cause of Distress.
Similarity to one modern psychological theory
Those familiar with the work of some modern behaviorist psychological theories will recognize similarities between the first passage above, and some modern psychological theories such as that of B.F. Skinner, which also regard human free-choice as an illusion. On this view, people are like computer-driven robots. Perceptions of the world are like “inputs,” fed into an internal “program,” which then causes the robot to respond in programmed ways. People are mistaken when they think they are making free choices about how to respond to life-situations which they encounter. Like robots, they are only responding to the world in ways that they have been programmed to respond. In the Buddhist version, Underlying Tendencies to Craving and Clinging are similar to the “program” causing a robot to respond in predetermined ways to inputs from the world.
But in the Buddhist case, this is not the whole story. The purpose of pointing out the unfree character of normal human responses to the world in the normal person, is to evoke horror at this unfreedom, and motivate a person to free herself from these unfree programmed responses driven by Craving and Clinging. Freedom from these involuntary responses is one dimension of Buddhist “liberation.”
One passage (Udana 1.1), illustrates this point. It uses the same wording as the passage quoted above, except here imagining a case in which someone has fully achieved the Buddhist transformative ideal. In this case
Contact does not [automatically] cause Feelings
Feelings do not cause Craving
Craving does not cause Attachment…
Such is the cessation of this whole mass of Distress.
Craving.
Readers might notice the term Craving occurring here but not previously mentioned in this book, and this deserves some comment.
In the suttas, the terms Craving (tanha) Attachment (upadana) are often used interchangeably, or used together to describe the psychological factors that are the main obstacles to achieving the Buddhist goal. For purposes of greater analytical clarity, I think it is helpful to treat these as two terms having somewhat different but connected meanings.
Think of Attachment as inflexible Clinging to particular conditions in the world.
Think of Craving as a deeper and more general orientation built into normal human psychology, a compulsive and outward-directed instinct to seek for sources of meaning and a sense of self-worth through some connection to the world out there.
So think of Attachment as Craving particularized. Think of Craving as a general instinctive reaching out to find meaning through some kind of connection to the world out there. Attachment represents a case in which a person has found some particular way of fulfilling this need, and has become inflexibly Attached to this particular way of fulfilling it.
This more particular way of defining Craving as a more general reaching out for some connection to the world out there, serves several purposes here.
The term Craving, understood in this way, does justice to one implication of the psychological meaning of Conditioned Arising described above. Craving as a reaching out for sources of meaning outside oneself is so deeply rooted in normal human psychology that virtually every perception one has of the world out there automatically and involuntarily triggers responses driven by this kind of Craving, which is the source of Attachments, and ultimately, because of universal Impermanence affecting all objects of Attachment, the source of Distress.
Secondly, by understanding Craving as the more deep-seated motivation Attachment, it helps explain the assumption, clearly implicit in early Buddhist writing, that complete liberation from Attachment and Distress is an immensely difficult, heroic, and rare achievement.
It explains why Attachment in Buddhist teaching is not just any ordinary “attachment” such as I might have for chocolate donuts to eat with my coffee in the morning (which I could give up by a simple act of will-power). The fact that Attachment is driven by a very deep need for external confirmation is the reason why it is so inflexible, an “underlying tendency” (anusaya) deeply rooted in normal human psychology and extremely difficult to change.
The present book, directed to a modern general public, is however written on the assumption that it is possible to approach this ideal goal by degrees, and that making gradual progress toward this ideal will also gradually raise one’s life to a higher level, worth doing even if one never achieves complete liberation from Craving, Attachment, and Distress.
