An Interesting Conversation On
Dependent Origination
The following is edited from a Dharma talk at National University
of Singapore Buddhist Society:
(Ven: Venerable Thubten Chodron, Aud:
Audience)
Ven: (Holding a
cracker) A cracker appears to be a real cracker as
there is some "cracker-ness" about it - it seems to exists "out
there," independent of our Mind. If it really exists like that,
then when we analyze and search for just what the cracker is, we
should be able to find it. (The cracker is broken
and a piece is held up) Is this
piece a cracker?
Aud: Yes.
Ven: (Holding up the
other piece) is this a cracker?
Aud: Yes.
Ven: (Crumbles the
cracker pieces) what is this now?
Aud: Crumbs - a
mess!
Ven: There is no cracker now? What happened to the
real cracker we saw before? If it had some cracker-ness quality to
it, where is it now? What we have now are the same atoms and
molecules as before - but we call it crumbs and not a
cracker!
Aud: The cracker
is the collection of atoms and molecules. It is all the parts
together!
Ven: But a collection is just a group
of parts. If none of the parts by themselves are a cracker, then
how can many parts together be an independent cracker with some
cracker-ness quality? If you put many non-butterflies, such as
grasshoppers together, does that make a butterfly? How can a group
of non-crackers or crumbs make a real cracker?
Aud: Then there
is no cracker at all? What am I eating?
Ven: What we are searching for is something that is a
cracker independent of its parts. That real independent cracker
can't be found because it doesn't exists. But a dependently
existent cracker is there! What you are eating is still a
cracker!
The cracker exists as a
group of atoms and molecules put together in a certain pattern. Our
Mind looks at it and conceives it to be a thing and calls it a
cracker - it becomes a cracker because all of us together have
conceived it in a similar way and agreed, by the force of social
convention, to call it a cracker.
That cracker exists
dependent on its causes and conditions - the flour, water
and baker and so on. It depends on our minds conceiving it to be a
thing and labeling it "cracker." Apart from this dependently
existent cracker, there is no other cracker. It is empty of being a
cracker inherently and independently with some cracker-ness quality
to it. It exists - but not in the same way it appears to us to
exist. It appears to be independent when it isn't.
