[Buddha-l] Dependent arising variants

[Mike Austin]

In message <1138925242.5986.17.camel at localhost.localdomain>, Richard P. 
Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu> writes
>On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 23:36 +0000, Mike Austin wrote:
>
>> So is birth sufficient for death? Only if we extend our meaning of the
>> word 'birth' to include conditioning factors that link it to death.
>
>Exactly so. If we are speaking of birth and death in the conventional
>sense, not of dharmas but of blokes and birds, then it is ridiculous to
>say that birth is a sufficient condition for death.

That is what I thought was being said, so I challenged it.

This reminds me of teachings on karma. Tsongkhapa says:

"Consequently, happiness and suffering do not occur in the absence of
  causes, nor do they arise from incompatible causes such as a divine
  creator or a primal essence. Rather, happiness and suffering, in
  general, come from virtuous and non-virtuous karma, and the various
  particular happinesses and sufferings arise individually, without even
  the slightest confusion, from various particular instances of these two
  kinds of karma."

In a similar fashion then, one reduces dharmas and instances of karma to 
what is basically akin to fundamental particles (i.e.  equivalent to the 
'particular instances' he refers to).  At the same time one knows such a 
phenomenon cannot actually exist in and of itself.

Instead,  one zooms out to embrace a larger set of causes and conditions 
and makes statements about it based on a fundamental principle - without 
fundamental evidence.  One of the four imponderables remains unaddressed 
(and rightly so), but statements are still made about the bigger picture 
comprised of these simpler (yet still misunderstood) components.

Ho hum. Time for my medication.

-- 
Metta
Mike Austin