Turtles all the way down

 

According to some schools of Buddhism, dependent origination denotes the principle of essential dependence of one phenomenon on another, sometimes referred to as ‘mutual interdependence’ which, incidentally, is a Vedanta concept rendered in Sanskrit as parasparapeksa.  In one word, this can be summed up as relativity-only which, I hasten to add, is an important discovery of modern science, but not in Buddhism.  

 

At any rate, it is inaccurate to presume that dependent origination is the main principle of Buddhism being, essentially, relativity.  Buddhism does have an independent absolute, therefore, it is not relativistic in its outlook.  The absolute is disclosed to us when we remove the illusion that phenomena are real.  

 

Buddhists who maintain such a theory as ‘mutual interdependence’, i.e., relativity-only, seem unaware that it can also lead to absurd conclusions.

 

In Stephen Hawking’s book, A Brief History Of Time, he starts with an interesting anecdote.  It seems a well-known scientist gave a public lecture on astronomy.  He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how, in turn, the sun orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.  As Hawking relates the humorous part of the anecdote, at the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the hall stood up and smartly said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant turtle."  The scientist gave a haughty smile before rejoining, "What is the turtle standing on?"  "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."

 

The little old lady's view of the universe is quite Buddhist—Buddhist in the modern relativistic sense, but not as the Buddha's true teaching (saddharma).

 

And just as with the little old lady, modern Buddhists have used the turtle explanation, that is, there are phenomenons going all the way down each mutually dependent on the other.  There is nothing, therefore, which is independent having non-relative being.

 

Ironically, this presents a kind of eternalism of phenomena because these Buddhists don’t actually wish to even consider that what is dependent rests upon the independent, that is, something which is its own support (svabhava) which is rightly nirvana.  

 

Comments

[Reiko]

Thanks, TGL for the excellent reference!

[TGL]

In addition to my earlier comment I would like to ad for those curious on R. Thurmans lectures, his discourse on the
true self versus the skandhic self is found on session 4 part 2.

Best regards

TGL

[TGL]

A wise man once said; Great knowledge makes prodigious journeys.

And indeed so, after having read many of your excellent articles I find this claim quite valid.

A while ago I had the great luck (or good karma) of stumbling over 10 hours of recorded (mp3) lectures from Columbia University in Buddhism by Robert Thurman!

At first I couldnt believe my eyes when I found these recordings online but after making some checks I found them to be really true. Remember that we speak about the translator of the great vimalakirti sutra and many other works. This man is Buddhism on two legs walking around in a world of darkness and ignorance spreading the blissful words of Buddha in ways I can assure you have never heard before.

His lectures includes everything from basic history of buddhism with many anectodes, the widespread misunderstanding among buddhists about the self ( his many humurous arguments really annihilates the materialists and nihilists), interdependant origination, birth life death, rebirth and so on...

The sound quality is perfect.

It is like opening a great book and find it being filled with an ocean of wisdom that never ends. I can assure you that you will feel energized after even listening through his first three lectures. (I skipped my sleep for two days just to enjoy the positive light he offered through his vast understanding of Buddhism!)

I even recommend the author of this blog to somehow upload these jewels of dharma lectures to his homepage. I doubt any other page have these recordings.

Best regards

TGL

(the torrent that downloads the mp3 files is here:

http://btjunkie.org/torrent/robert-thurman-the-jewel-tree-of-tibet-the-enlightenment-engine-of-tibetan-buddhism/44321deadf9246f1df819ec66d11071d78fbe080ae54

You need a torrent client to use this torrent. double click on it once you have installed a torrent client like bitcomet which can be downloaded here:

http://www.bitcomet.com/doc/download-achive.htm

I personally recommend the old version 0.70 that is simple and works without problems)