How Things Are Produced

by Geshe Sonam Rinchen

Products come into existence through causes and conditions. Asanga in his Compendium of Knowledge mentions three conditions in this context: the condition of no movement; the condition of impermanence; and the condition of potential. The Rice Seedling Sutra says: “Because this exists, that occurs” which indicates the condition of no movement. “Because this has been produced, that has been produced” indicates the condition of impermanence. “Conditioned by ignorance there is formative action” refers to the Condition of potential.

Many hold firmly to a belief that products, namely the physical world (often termed the container) and the living beings in it (referred to as the contents), come into existence through some creative force, such as Brahma, Indra, Vishnu or another creator, and that the act of creation is preceded by an intention. To negate that the physical world and living beings have been created in this way, Buddhist scholars place emphasis on the fact that every product comes into existence in dependence on its own specific causes and conditions and not through the intention of a creator god. This aspect of production is called the condition of no movement because there is no movement of intention involved.

Discourse on dependent arising constitutes discussion of a philosophical view, in this case the cornerstone of Buddhist philosophy. When we consider how things actually exist, which is what philosophy is about, it is important not to be prejudiced in favour of our own views but to be open minded and honest, and to conduct our investigation intelligently with enthusiasm to discover the nature of reality. If we hold certain beliefs, our tendency is to avoid anything that threatens them. Our principal concern should be to discover how things actually are and then build on that. 

“Because this has been produced, that has been produced” refers to the condition of impermanence and counters the belief that our world and living beings have been created by a force which is permanent. This force may be identified as a god or as some other creative principle which is unchanging and eternal. From a Buddhist point of view a condition, which here acts as a cause, is itself something produced by its own specific causes and conditions. It ceases when its result comes into existence. If an unchanging producer of things existed, it should either constantly produce without ever stopping or it should never produce anything at all because it could not undergo change from a state of production to one of no production. The container and the contents have not come from any cause or condition of this kind.

Others believe that the world and living beings have come about causelessly or have arisen from causes that are actually incompatible. A thing can only arise from concordant or compatible causes, which are those that have the potential to produce the particular result. For instance, in the context of the twelve-part process, ignorance gives rise to formative action. The compulsive contaminated actions that keep us in cyclic existence can only come from causes that possess the potential to produce them, namely from disturbing attitudes and emotions. The understanding of reality will never produce such actions. Thus things come into existence from their own specific causes and conditions, from that which is impermanent and compatible. No products, whether external, meaning not connected to our mental continuum, or internal, meaning connected to our mental continuum, come into existence through a creative force that formulates an intention to create them, from a permanent and unchanging principle, causelessly, or from discordant causes.

For instance, does a sunflower seed embody all three of the conditions we have mentioned? It is a condition of no movement for the sunflower because it does not formulate any intention to create a sunflower nor is there any force at work which intends the seed to create the sunflower.

The sunflower seed is an impermanent condition because it itself came into existence through other causes and conditions. At the moment when it ceases, its result, the Sunflower seedling, appears. The sunflower seed is a condition with potential because it has the specific capacity to produce a sunflower — something that is related to it — and will not produce any other kind of flower. The presence of a healthy sunflower seed and the other essential conditions will produce a sunflower. It will not come into existence without the presence of that seed nor will a zinnia seed produce a sunflower. So the sunflower does not come into being causelessly nor from discordant causes.

Similarly ignorance, the first of the twelve links, is a condition embodying all three conditions of no movement, of impermanence, and of potential. It produces formative action, the second link, which, in turn, acts as all three factors in the production of the third link, consciousness.

When we think about how things come into existence, not in terms of the sunflower and its seed but in relation to our own experience of happiness and suffering, we realise that suffering is not inflicted on us by some other force, but that it is a product, a natural outcome and result of certain conditions, as is the sunflower.

Pleasure and pain, happiness and suffering are the result of the three conditions mentioned above. They do not occur through the impetus of a creator who intends us to have these experiences, are not created by any force which is itself permanent, nor do they occur randomly or as a result of discordant causes. If we want to experience more happiness and less suffering, we must change what we think and do. We can create causes and conditions with the power to produce happiness and avoid doing what will bring us suffering. If our experiences were the result of some creator’s will, we could only turn to that creator and pray. However, from the Buddhist perspective, the responsibility lies with us.

The Rice Seedling Sutra explains that all dependently arising products, whether external or internal, have five features.14 These five, like the three conditions mentioned above, negate certain beliefs. The first feature is that products come into existence through causes and conditions, which demonstrates that they do not arise causelessly. The second feature is that they come into existence through a diversity of impermanent conditions. This shows that they cannot be the result of a single cause which is eternal, unchanging, and indivisible. A seedling has not come into existence causelessly, because it depends on its main cause, the seed, as well as on a variety of cooperative conditions, such as moisture, temperature, the growing medium, and other factors.

The third feature is that every product has come into existence from causes which are themselves selfless. There are those who hold that our six faculties and their objects are a truly existent “I” and “mine.” To counter this view it is stressed that the five sense faculties and our mental faculty, referred to as internal sources, and the six external sources, namely sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations, which are the five objects of the senses, and the objects of the mental faculty, have all been produced by causes and conditions that lack independent existence and so lack any truly existent self. Ordinary people regard the senses as a real self and the objects of the senses as objects of use or experience by such a self. Of course, there is a person or “I” who experiences but that person or self does not exist as it appears to do. Nor do the objects we experience through our senses exist objectively as they seem to do.

The fourth feature is that these products arise from causes and conditions that have the potential to produce them. This resembles the third of the three conditions mentioned above. The fifth is that they arise through lack of activity, which is equivalent to the first of the three conditions, the condition of no movement. Emphasis on these conditions and features is intended to help us overcome false beliefs we may have about how things are produced and exist. The Rice Seedling Sutra says: “If you ask why they are said to be dependently existent, it is because they have causes and they have conditions and are not without causes and conditions.”

All of us can understand the more obvious aspects of how a seed produces a seedling and that this requires the presence of the main cause and a number of contributing factors. The seed ceases and the sprout comes into existence without any hiatus in this process. But how do we come into existence, since each one of us is also a product? The production of a seedling from a seed is not as simple as it appears, though rather less complex than our own production. Are we the same substantial continuum as the ignorance that has produced us and is it our main or special cause? We cannot be one substantial continuum with the ignorance responsible for our present rebirth because we would have to be awareness and a mental factor, since ignorance is a type of awareness and a mental factor or activity.

The sperm and ovum of our parents are the main cause for our body of this life and are cooperative causes for the person we are, just as the tools used by a carpenter to make a table are contributing or cooperative causes.

Taking the example of a child: has this child been produced from a cause which is a condition of no movement? Has there been a movement of intention to create it? What about a planned pregnancy? And what about the carpenter’s intention to make the table? An architect draws a plan and then a building is constructed. Did the building come into existence through a movement of intention? We would probably say that mountains, valleys, and rivers are not the outcome of creative effort, but that houses, pots, tables, and persons are. If some products come into being through a movement of intention while others do not, we cannot make the general statement that products do not come into existence through the movement of intention.

In this context a movement of intention refers specifically to an intention formulated by a creator, such as the gods Brahma, Indra, Vishnu, or Ishvara in the Hindu pantheon. Are the things mentioned above created by them, and if they are, is the creative effort made by such a creator the outcome of a movement of intention? According to the Buddhist point of view there is no such creator nor any creation of this kind.

In the twelve-part process is formative action, the second part, the result of a movement of the mind? Who or what creates that formative action? We create and accumulate the action. Doesn’t it occur through a movement of intention? We hear again and again in the Buddhist teachings that there is no external creator, but that everything has come into existence through our actions, which originate in our minds. Our minds are, therefore, the sole creator. I have raised these points to show how much there is to think about.

Those who believe that everything is produced by a creator do not discount the role played by the seed but assert that the basic nature of the seed and that of the seedling are the same and that both are of the same nature as the creator. The creation is seen as an aspect or manifestation of the creator. This is a highly simplified presentation of certain beliefs associated with a creator, and it is worth investigating the sophisticated philosophical systems that underlie such assertions.

According to the Rice Seedling Sutra dependently arising products are profound in five ways. They are profound from the point of view of their causes, because they have not arisen causelessly nor have they been produced by a self that is a separate entity and a creator. They are profound as regards their nature or character, because they do not act as a separate self-existent creative force. They are profound in relation to their mode of production, because though they depend on many factors, they come into existence from their own specific causes and conditions without any confusion, and those factors have not created them with any prior intention of doing so. They are profound with respect to their duration, because they appear to exist for a protracted period even though they disintegrate moment by moment. They are profound in regard to their origins, because they come into existence through causes, but when an investigation is made to ascertain whether they come into existence from that which is of the same nature, that which is of a different nature, that which is both of the former, or whether they come into existence causelessly, they are difficult to understand.

When we investigate the natural world, ourselves, and the objects which surround us, we find there are other aspects of dependently arising products that may also be discussed: how they are not unchanging; how they do not discontinue; how a cause cannot produce a result without undergoing some change; how a small cause, such as an apple seed, can produce a significant result, such as a large fruit-bearing tree; how products are the outcome of a continuum. If we can establish the basis correctly, namely what actually exists and how it exists, we will also be able to establish proper paths of practice, which must be based on reality.

Do non-Buddhist philosophical systems accept dependent existence? And how do Buddhist philosophical systems view dependent existence? Everyone, of course, agrees that seedlings come from seeds, but when we investigate more closely, we are forced to consider the seedling’s actual nature. Is its nature the same as that of the seed? What is its true identity?

As has been said, the basic premise from the Prasangika point of view is that things exist dependently and are empty of intrinsic existence. Because of being empty in this way, their existence is necessarily a dependent one. This is emphasised to bring home to us that there is no self of persons or of other phenomena. Even though they lack such a self or identity and have no independent or objective existence from their own side, because they exist depending on a diversity of factors, they do indisputably exist. What is affirmed is their selflessness, and what is negated is that they come into existence through a permanent, unchanging creative force, that they have arisen causelessly, and that they have arisen from discordant causes.

Non-Buddhist Indian schools of philosophy generally do not accept that everything is dependently existent and assert that all phenomena are truly existent. The great Tibetan master Je Tsongkhapa writes that these assertions are not inconsistent nor anything to be ashamed of, since they are following the tenets of their own philosophical systems. He goes on to say that the Vaibhashikas, Sautrantikas and Chittamatrins, who are proponents of Buddhist systems of thought, accept the dependent arising of things produced from causes and conditions but nevertheless assert that these things are truly existent. This, he says, is an absurd contradiction. If one were to say to them that things are not truly existent because they arise in dependence on causes and conditions, they would dismiss this, since for them the very fact of their dependent arising confirms their true existence.

All proponents of Buddhist philosophical tenets accept the dependent arising of produced things. However, dependent arising defined by dependence on parts is not generally accepted by the lower schools of Buddhist philosophy. The Vaibhashikas and Sautrantikas assert the existence of partless functional things, such as partless particles and moments of awareness. Those things could not, in that case, depend on their parts. The Madhyamikas assert that all products and non-products depend on their parts.

There are three Tibetan terms with a similar meaning: tenpa (rten pa), to depend; drepa (’phrad pa), to meet; and töpa (ltos pa), to be related. In this context they are associated with the Tibetan expression for arising in dependence teney jung wa (rten nas byung ba) or its longer form, meaning arising in dependence and relationship, ten ching drel war jung wa (rten cing ’brel bar ’byung ba), mentioned earlier. So when, in reference to dependently arising products, jung wa has the sense of produced, we can say arising or produced in dependence, through meeting, and through relationship. But jung wa, as we have already seen, can also mean existing, and so when we say arising or existing in dependence, through meeting, and through relationship, this refers to the dependently existent nature of all things, both products and non-products.

Now do these three –- arising in dependence, through meeting, and through relationship –- actually mean the same thing? For instance, the seedling has come into existence in dependence upon and in relation to the seed and to heat, moisture, and a growing medium. If something has arisen dependently, does it follow that it has also arisen through meeting? Does it need to meet what it depends upon? Have we come into being in dependence upon the person we were in our last life? Has the person of this life met with the person of the last life? For instance, if we were a god in our last life, have we met with that god? On the other hand meeting does not necessarily involve dependence because a tiger and the deer it kills have met but the two are not in a relationship of dependence. The three terms are similar but not completely synonymous in this context.

In his Compendium of Knowledge Asanga lists eleven points about dependent arising with respect to products: they do not have a creator whose self is a separate entity from the aggregates; they have causes; they are not objects used by self-sufficient substantially existent living beings; they are under the influence of other factors; they come into existence with no movement of intention; they are impermanent; they are momentary because they come in a continuum of many moments of a similar type; they are part of an unbroken continuity of causes and effects; there is concordance between causes and effects; there is a diversity of causes and effects; there are specific and definite causes and effects.

These eleven points demonstrate impermanence, suffering, and, in a general way, emptiness and selflessness. The first, that products are not created by a self which is a separate entity from the aggregates, indicates their emptiness of and lack of relationship to such an eternal, unitary, independent self. The third, that they are not objects of use by a substantially existent self-sufficient person, similarly indicates their lack of such a self.

The last three points show that dependently arising products associated with cyclic existence are unsatisfactory by nature because they correspond to their causes which are contaminated actions and disturbing attitudes and emotions. They arise in multifarious forms through the influence of these and take these particular forms as a result of specific causes and conditions. The other facts all demonstrate their impermanence.

As we have seen, products can be divided into external and internal products. Living beings and the five aggregates that make up their bodies and minds are internal products. Those that are not connected to consciousness, namely the physical environment consisting of mountains, lakes, rivers, and so forth, are produced from their own particular causes and conditions and are external products.

Why are dependently arising products divided into these two categories? Understanding the dependently arising nature of internal products helps us to stop seeing them as a truly existent self, while understanding that external products are dependently existent enables us to overcome the conception of them as inherently existent objects of experience by an inherently existent self.

Dependently arising phenomena are also classified as belonging either to the afflicted side, referring to everything associated with cyclic existence, or to the purified side, which refers to nirvana or the state beyond sorrow and the ending of worldly existence. This is to help us overcome our clinging to true existence by emphasising that neither the afflicted side, of which we need to rid ourselves, nor the purified side, consisting of what needs to be adopted and cultivated, is inherently existent. Dependently arising phenomena of the afflicted side can be summarised as true sources of suffering and their outcome, true suffering. When this is expanded, it can be presented in terms of the twelve-part process of dependent arising by which we remain in cyclic existence. Dependently arising phenomena of the purified side consist of true cessation and true paths of insight. When these are expanded upon, we consider how stopping ignorance stops all the other aspects of the twelve-part process, and how this is the way that we can extricate ourselves from cyclic existence.