Dependent origination: the way the world is from moment to moment

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(Excerpt from the Dhamma discussion with Ajahn Sujin on Zoom on Mon, May 10th 2021)

[Jeff] I think one of the most interesting parts that are introduced early on someone who studies Dhamma that's kind of complicated hard to understand would be the dependent origination.

[A. Sujin] Do you read Tipitaka often?

[Jeff] Not always directly, I have read the first couple books of the Abhidhamma.

[A. Sujin] Do you read it just once or read it again and again and again?

[Jeff] Just once, I've only read it once and that's definitely something to read again and again.

[A. Sujin] And do you think that the first time you read is different from later times?

[Jeff] Yeah, every time I read something straight from Tipitaka, the second time is always much better.

[A. Sujin] [What] about just one word or one passage, about the truth of it?

[Jeff] Yeah, and I think that's one of the things, reading Tipitaka like I read any other book, I sit down and I read a large section at a time...

[A. Sujin] And [does] the understanding of such reality, one reality, gets better and better, a little bit?

Can you tell us something, about the word in Tipitaka, no matter what page, what section, and would you like to talk about that?

[Jeff] We could talk about anything :)

[A. Sujin] Anything in your mind now :) about reality.

[Jeff] Nothing specific, my mind's just really got a lot going on right now.

[Sarah] Like you mentioned in passing about dependent origination...

[Jeff] I think we could talk about this one even one segment of it for a while...

[A. Sujin] And what does it mean? Doesn't it mean that nothing can arise without conditions?

[Jeff] Yes, it does say that.

[A. Sujin] No one can make it arise at will, and how can paticca samuppada, the arising of dhammas, be taken, from the first one? The first is ignorance, but what's conditioned by that, [by] the first one? Ignorance conditions... what? It's now: it conditions different ideas. And different actions: speech and deeds, kusala and akusala. So, it's just daily life, not only the word because now who knows that it is ignorance which does not understand seeing as it is, thinking as it is, the truth of it, that from nothing... and then it's there, by conditions and then gone completely.

The meaning of anattaness, the meaning of dhamma, the meaning of no-one: uncontrollable; and that which has arisen and fallen away cannot arise again at all in samsara, only once, but it's not known that is from ignorance and ignorance is there. Ignorance is all around, from birth to death when there is no understanding of the truth of each moment as no one there at all. From nothing... no seeing before seeing arises, no hearing before hearing arises and nobody can condition it to arise, can make it to arise, but there must be conditions for it's arising for sure because no one can do it but it's there by conditions.

And the third one of paticca samuppada? It has to fit with each other moment, what is the truth, what is the reality of sankhara? Because when we talk about dhammas, all dhammas which are conditioned, so, no matter whatever arises, it is sankhara dhamma, conditioned by ignorance. When there's no ignorance anymore, how can there be sankhara conditioning the other realities?

That's why when there is ignorance there [must] be sankhara, so the sankhara of paticca samuppada is not all the sankhara dhammas as the other condition, but it is that which is kamma, the will, intention to do such and such, so the results will be there because there is the will to do, and it is the third paticca samuppada, which is now, this moment.

So studying paticca samuppada is studying whatever is there in life, but we don't use any term. So when there is understanding enough when reading paticca samuppada there can be the understanding the points that the Buddha's pointed out, that this is the way the world is, from moment to moment and it's now too.

There is avijja now and there is sankhara now and [that] will condition vipaka (result), patisandhi citta (rebirth consciousness) and vitakka (the mental factor touching the object) which (kamma) can condition the nama and the rupa, not only once, again and again, time after time in this life.