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DEPENDENT ARISING
At the end of your analysis it may seem as though no conventional
realities or phenomena exist, including the law of karmic actions and
results. However, they do exist they just don t exist in the way that
you thought they did. They exist dependently; that is, their existence
depends upon certain causes and conditions. Therefore, we say that
phenomena are dependently arising. All the teachings of Buddha
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are based upon the principle of the view of dependent arising. As
Lama Tsong Khapa states in his Three Principal Paths, &
it eliminates
the extreme of eternalism. This means that because things appear
to your perceptions to exist only conventionally or nominally, their
true, or inherent, existence is eliminated. The next line says, ...it
eliminates the extreme of nihilism. So, when you understand
emptiness you will be able to eliminate the idea of complete non-
existence. You will understand that it is not that things are com-
pletely non-existent, it is just that they exist dependently. They are
dependent arisings.
In Arya Nagarjuna s Root Wisdom Treatise, he says that there isn t
any phenomenon that is not dependently existent, therefore there
isn t any phenomenon that is not empty of independent, or inherent,
existence. Dependent arising is what we use to establish emptiness.
Everything exists by depending upon something else, therefore every-
thing is empty of inherent existence. When we use the valid reasoning
of dependent arising we can find the emptiness of everything that
exists. For example, by understanding that the self is dependently
arising, we establish the selflessness of a person.
An example we could use is the reflection of our own face in the
mirror. We all know that the reflection is not the real face, but how is
it produced? Does it come just from the glass, the light, the face? Our
face has to be there, but there also has to be a mirror, enough light for
us to see and so on. Therefore, we see the reflection of our face in the
mirror as a result of several things interacting with one another. We
can investigate the appearance of our self to our perception in the
same way. The self appears to us, but where does this appearance
come from? Just like the reflection of the face in a mirror, it is an
example of dependent arising.
This is quite clear in the case of functional things such as pro-
duced, or composite, phenomena, but there are other phenomena
that are not produced by causes and conditions. However, they too
exist dependently, that is, through mutual dependence upon other
factors. For example, in the Precious Garland, Nagarjuna talks about
how the descriptive terms of long and short are established
through mutual comparison. If there exists something that is long,
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MIND TRAINING, DEVELOPING EMPTINESS
then there would be something that is short. This kind of existence
is dependently arising, but it is not dependent upon causes and con-
ditions. So, dependent arising can mean several things. As we practice
analytical meditation on emptiness we need to bring these different
meanings into our meditation.
Dependent arising also refers to how everything is imputed by
terms and concepts. Everything is labeled by a conceptual thought
onto a certain basis of imputation. There is the label, there is that
which labels things and then there is the basis upon which the label is
given. So, phenomena exist as a result of all these things and the
interaction between them. In his Four Hundred Stanzas, Aryadeva
says, If there is no imputation by thought, even desire and so forth
have no existence. Then who with intelligence would maintain that a
real object is produced dependent on thought? In the commentary,
Mind Training Like the Rays of the Sun, we read, Undoubtedly, those
that exist only through the existence of thought and those that do not
exist when there is no thought are to be understood as not existing by
way of their own entities, just as a snake is imputed onto a coiled
rope. The example I gave earlier is how perceiving snow as yellow is
a distorted perception. The example of distorted perception given
here is mistaking a coiled rope for a snake.
Several conditions and factors need to come together for a person
to misapprehend a coiled rope as a snake. It s not enough just to have
a coiled rope in a corner on a bright day. No one is going to be fooled
by that. There has to be some obscuration or darkness and distorted
perception in the mind as well. Only then can the misapprehension
take place. Even if we analyze every inch of that coiled rope we will
not find a snake. In the same way, even if we analyze every aspect of
self or phenomena we will not find inherent existence.
In the mind training text we find the following explanation. An
easier way of reaching a conviction about the way the innate miscon-
ception of self within our mind-stream gives rise to the misconception
of self of persons and phenomena is that, as explained before, when a
rope is mistaken for a snake, both the snake and the appearance of a
snake in relation to the basis are merely projected by the force of a mis-
taken mind. Besides this, from the point of view of the rope, there is
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not the slightest trace of the existence of such an object [as a snake],
which is merely projected by the mind. Similarly, when a face
appears to be inside a mirror, even a canny old man knows that the
appearance in the mirror of the eyes, nose and so forth and the reflec-
tion is merely a projection. Taking these as examples it is easy to dis-
cern, easy to understand and easy to realize that there is not the
slightest trace of existence from the side of the object itself. The
moment that a person thinks that there is a snake where the coiled
rope lies, the appearance of a snake arises in that person s mind. That
appearance, however, is nothing but a projection.
Similarly, although there isn t a self that exists independently and
objectively, our grasping misapprehends the self to exist in that way.
So then how does the self exist? Like any other phenomenon, the self
exists imputedly. It exists by labeling, or imputation, by terms and
concepts projected onto a valid basis of imputation. We must be able
to clearly distinguish between the imputed self that is the basis for per-
forming karmic actions and experiencing their results, and the inher-
ently existent self that is the object that needs to be negated. When we
consider our own sense of self, we don t really get the sense of an
imputed self. The feeling we have is more as if the self were existing
inherently. Let me explain how the labeling, or imputation, works.
People use names for one another but those names aren t the per-
son. The words John and Francis are merely labels for a person.
Just as the reflection of a face in a mirror does not exist from the side
of the face, in the same way, the names John and Francis don t exist
independently. The names are applied to a valid basis of imputa-
tion that is, the person. When you apply a label onto any base of
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