“When this exists, this comes to be.” The Buddha called it deep and told Ānanda not to say it was plain. What the teaching claims about causes, which Western philosopher saw the same thing in a game of billiards, and how to explain it without saying “everything is connected.” 「此有故彼有。」佛陀說它甚深，並且告訴阿難不要說它淺顯。這個教法對「因」主張了什麼？哪一位西方哲學家在一場撞球裡看見了同一件事？又該怎麼解釋它，而不說「萬物都相連」？
D4 Dharma and the West · 佛法與西方哲學Self and Reality · 自我與真實Advanced · 高級about 30 min
Closest: David Hume on what a cause is, and A. N. Whitehead on what a thing is. Hume found no hidden power in causes, only regular dependence, and even stated it in the Buddha’s form: had the first not been, the second had never existed. The likeness ends at the use. Hume’s result was a doubt that he set aside at dinner. The Buddha’s was a map of how suffering is produced, drawn so that it could be undone.
中文翻譯Every paragraph has a Chinese translation. Tap 中譯▾ under a paragraph to open that one, or use Show Chinese · 顯示中譯 at the top to open them all.每一段都有中譯：點段落下方的「中譯」只開那一段，或按上方的「顯示中譯」一次全部打開。
1 · What the Dharma says · 佛法怎麼說
A law, a chain, and a middle 一條法則、一條鏈子，與一個中道
The teaching has a general form and a particular application. The general form is one sentence: “When this exists, this comes to be; due to the arising of this, this arises.” Its reverse follows: when this does not exist, that does not come to be, and with the ceasing of this, that ceases. Nothing arises by itself, from nothing, or from a single cause. Whatever arises does so in dependence on conditions, and lasts as long as they do. The Buddha presented this as a fact about the world that he had found and had not made. “Whether Realized Ones arise or not, this law of nature persists, this regularity of natural principles, this surety of natural principles, specific conditionality.”
The particular application is a chain of twelve links that traces how suffering is produced. “Ignorance is a requirement for choices. Choices are a requirement for consciousness. Consciousness is a requirement for name and form,” and so on through the six senses, contact, feeling, craving, grasping, continued existence, and rebirth to old age and death. Each link is a condition for the next. It is not said to be its sole cause. The monk Sāriputta explained the relation with a simile: “Suppose there were two sheaves of reeds leaning up against each other.” Each stands because of the other, and “if the first of those sheaves of reeds were to be pulled away, the other would collapse.” The chain is given in order to be run backward. “When ignorance fades away and ceases with no residue left behind, choices cease,” and so on to the ceasing of “this entire mass of suffering.”
The teaching is also called the middle. A monk named Kaccāna asked what right view is, and the Buddha answered: “‘All exists’: this is one extreme. ‘All does not exist’: this is the second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, the Realized One teaches by the middle way,” and he recited the twelve links. What arises dependently is not nothing, since it arises and has effects. It does not exist in its own right either, since it is there only while its conditions are. When Ānanda remarked that dependent origination, though deep, seemed to him “as plain as can be,” the Buddha replied: “Don’t say that, Ānanda, don’t say that!” Elsewhere the tradition reports him as saying that one who sees dependent origination sees the teaching.
Hume asked what we observe when one billiard ball strikes another. We see the first move, the contact, and the second move. We do not see a power passing between them. “All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected.” A cause, on his account, is an object regularly followed by another, and he added a second definition in other words: “where, if the first object had not been, the second never had existed.” Set that beside “when this does not exist, that does not come to be.” Both describe causation as dependence that can be relied on, with no inner force required. They differ in confidence. Hume concluded that our belief in causes rests on custom and cannot be justified by reason. The Buddha treated the regularity as a discovered law and built a practice on it.
When investigators say that a short circuit caused a fire, they do not mean that it was enough by itself. There had to be oxygen, something flammable nearby, and no sprinkler. They do not mean that it was necessary either, since other things can start fires. Mackie proposed that what we call a cause is an insufficient but necessary part of a set of conditions that is together sufficient, though other sets would also have done. We pick one member of the set and call it the cause because it interests us. This is the analysis the reed simile requires. Each link of the twelve is a condition among others, and the tradition says in so many words that many conditions give rise to each thing. Mackie was analyzing ordinary talk about causes. He drew no conclusion about suffering.
Whitehead, who had written Principia Mathematica with Russell, turned in later life to metaphysics and rejected the picture of a world made of enduring substances that have properties. The basic units of reality, he proposed, are momentary events, which he called actual occasions. Each one arises by taking account of the occasions before it, comes to completion, and becomes in its turn a condition for those that follow. What we call a thing, a stone or a person, is a society of such events with a common pattern. Relation comes first on this view, and the thing is what the relations compose. Of Western systems this is the nearest to the Buddhist analysis of persons and things into dependently arising events, and Whitehead himself remarked on the kinship. He kept a God in his system, as the source of order and novelty, where the Buddhist account has none.
Who is closest, and where the likeness ends 誰最接近，相似到哪裡為止
Apply the three questions of the first lesson on this shelf. On the conclusion, Hume is closest about causes and Whitehead about things. Hume and the Buddha agree that causation is regular dependence and that no further power is found behind it. Whitehead and the Buddha agree that what looks like an enduring thing is a pattern of dependent events. Mackie supplies what both leave unsaid, that the dependence is always on many conditions together.
On the argument, the three reach these views by different roads. Hume looked for the source of an idea and failed to find it. Whitehead built a system to fit modern physics. The Buddha examined how grief and craving arise in his own experience. On the purpose, the likeness ends. Hume said that his doubts, strong in the study, vanished when he dined and played backgammon with his friends, and he thought this a good thing. For the Buddha the analysis was made in order to be used. If suffering has conditions, and the conditions can be found, the effect can be removed by removing them. Western philosophy studied causation chiefly to understand how we know nature. The Buddha studied it to find out where a chain can be cut.
A condition without which the thing does not arise一個條件；沒有它，那樣東西就不生起
An object regularly followed by another一個有規律地被另一個對象跟隨的對象
A necessary part of a sufficient set of conditions一組充分條件裡不可少的一部分
Earlier events taken up into a new one被攝入新事件裡的先前事件
Matter, form, agent, or purpose質料、形式、動力，或目的
Is there a hidden power?有隱藏的力嗎？
None is asserted. “When this is, that is.”沒有主張有。「此有故彼有。」
None can be observed觀察不到
The question is set aside把這個問題擱下
Each event has its own creativity每個事件有它自己的創生性
Yes. Things act by their natures有。事物依其本性而作用
One cause or many?一因還是多因？
Many conditions together眾緣和合
One kind of event after another一類事件跟著另一類
Many, explicitly明說是多
The whole past of each event每個事件的整個過去
Four kinds for each thing每樣東西有四種因
What are things?事物是什麼？
Patterns of dependent events, empty of own-nature依存事件的模式；沒有自性
Bundles of perceptions一束束的知覺
No view offered沒有提出看法
Societies of momentary occasions剎那事件所成的社會
Substances with essences有本質的實體
What is the analysis for?作這番分析是為了什麼？
To end suffering by removing its conditions拿掉苦的條件，使苦止息
To find the limits of human knowledge找出人類知識的界限
To clarify what we mean釐清我們的意思
To fit philosophy to modern science使哲學合乎現代科學
To understand nature理解自然
5 · The step the Dharma takes further · 佛法多走的一步
Where the chain can be cut 鏈子可以從哪裡切斷
The first further step is practical. The twelve links are not equally within reach. No one can decide to stop feeling pleasure and pain when the senses meet their objects. Between feeling and craving there is a gap. A pleasant feeling arises, and wanting more of it usually follows so quickly that the two seem one. With training in attention the feeling can be known as a feeling before the wanting takes hold, and at that point the next link does not form. The teachers of the tradition point to this joint as the place where practice does its work. A theory of causation, in Buddhist hands, becomes an instruction about where to look.
The second step is philosophical, and it was taken by Nāgārjuna about six centuries after the Buddha. If a thing arises only in dependence on conditions, it has no nature that is its own apart from them. That absence of own-nature is what he meant by emptiness. His best-known verse says that whatever arises from conditions is what he calls empty, that this is a provisional designation, and that this is the middle way. He drew the consequence: no thing whatever arises without conditions, and so there is nothing that is not empty. Emptiness in this sense is dependent origination seen from the other side. It is the opposite of nothingness, since only what lacks a fixed nature can arise, change, and cease. Chinese Buddhists later pictured the result as a net of jewels in which each jewel reflects all the others. Hume stopped at the loose and separate events. Nāgārjuna went on to say that the events too have no being apart from their relations, which is a step Whitehead would recognize.
Western listeners often meet this teaching as “everything is connected,” a phrase that is pleasant, vague, and impossible to act on. Others hear the word “cause” and think of fate. Both miss what the Buddha was doing. Begin with something small and checkable, such as a moment of irritation, and ask what had to be in place for it: a tired body, a noise, an expectation, a habit of reacting. Then ask which of these could have been otherwise. The listener has now seen the two halves of the teaching, that things arise from many conditions and that some of the conditions are within reach. The twelve links and emptiness can come afterward.
The Buddha’s formula is very simple: when this is present, that comes to be; when this is absent, that does not.
佛陀的公式非常簡單：這個在，那個就出現；這個不在，那個就不出現。
Nothing happens from one cause. A fire needs a spark, and it also needs fuel and air.
沒有任何事是出於單一的因。一場火需要火花；它也需要燃料與空氣。
Hume noticed that we never see a force passing from cause to effect. The Buddha agreed, and then asked which conditions we can change.
休謨注意到：我們從來看不到有一股力從因傳到果。佛陀同意；然後問：哪些條件是我們能改變的？
Dependent origination is not fate. A thing that depends on conditions can be changed by changing them.
緣起不是命運。一樣依靠條件的東西，可以藉著改變條件而被改變。
Between a feeling and the craving that follows it there is a small gap. Practice is learning to notice it.
在一個感受，與跟在它後面的渴愛之間，有一道小小的縫隙。修行就是學著注意到它。
“Empty” means empty of independent existence. A flower is full of sun, rain, soil, and time.
「空」的意思是：沒有獨立的存在。一朵花裡，滿滿的是陽光、雨水、土壤與時間。
Phrases to avoid 要避開的說法
“Everything is connected.” 「萬物都相連。」
True and useless. Say what depends on what, and which conditions can be changed.
是真的，卻沒有用處。要說出什麼依靠什麼，以及哪些條件可以改變。
“Everything happens for a reason.” 「凡事發生都有它的道理。」
Heard as purpose or destiny. Say “everything arises from conditions.” Conditions are not intentions.
會被聽成目的或天命。要說「凡事都從條件生起」。條件不是意圖。
“It all starts with ignorance.” 「一切都從無明開始。」
Makes ignorance a first cause. The chain is a circle, and ignorance has conditions of its own.
把無明講成了第一因。那條鏈子是一個圈；而無明也有它自己的條件。
“Quantum physics has proved dependent origination.” 「量子物理已經證明了緣起。」
Borrowed authority that a physicist in the room will reject. The teaching is about experience and stands without it.
借來的權威；在場的物理學家會不接受。這個教法講的是經驗；不靠它也站得住。
Three languages · 三語對照
The vocabulary, in Chinese, Pāli, Sanskrit, and English 術語：中文、巴利文、梵文、英文
中文
Pāli
Sanskrit
English
緣起
paṭiccasamuppāda
pratītyasamutpāda
dependent origination
此緣性
idappaccayatā
idaṃpratyayatā
specific conditionality
緣
paccaya
pratyaya
condition, requirement
十二支
dvādasaṅga
dvādaśāṅga
the twelve links
無明
avijjā
avidyā
ignorance
行
saṅkhārā
saṃskāra
choices, volitional formations
名色
nāmarūpa
nāmarūpa
name and form
觸
phassa
sparśa
contact
受
vedanā
vedanā
feeling
愛
taṇhā
tṛṣṇā
craving
取
upādāna
upādāna
grasping
有
bhava
bhava
continued existence
自性
sabhāva
svabhāva
own-nature, intrinsic existence
空
suññatā
śūnyatā
emptiness
Reading check · 理解測驗
Did it land? 讀懂了嗎
1. What is the general formula of dependent origination?
2. What does the simile of the two sheaves of reeds show?
3. Which two extremes does the teaching to Kaccāna avoid?
4. On what do Hume and the Buddha agree?
5. Where does the likeness between Hume and the Buddha end?
Write · 你怎麼講？
Take one recent moment of irritation or worry. List at least five conditions that had to be present for it, and mark the ones you could have changed. About 150 words.
