FOUNDATIONS OF ZEN 12
What Causes Suffering? Buddha’s Teachings on Cause and Effect

Instructor: Peg Syverson
May 10-June 14, 2021

Location: Appamada (Online)

Our underlying beliefs about cause and effect govern our thoughts, words, and actions. If I take this job, I will have more money; if my child gets into a good college she will have a happy life; cancer is caused by gene mutations; we need a program to eliminate the causes of poverty; the war was lost because of a bad decision; and on and on. Not only individuals, but whole societies have models of cause and effect that shape policies, laws, agencies, and programs such as educational systems, health care, criminal justice, social services.

But what if our models of cause and effect are wrong, or simply naïve?

There were already three schools of thought about cause and effect in India in the Buddha’s time. One held that causes were inherent in things: milk sours because it is in the nature of milk to do so. Rain is inherent in clouds, and so on. Another held that causes were external; things tended to stay the same unless acted upon by some outside force: a glass is knocked off a table and shatters because something has bumped it off. The third school held that all effects are random, and there are no causes: we invent causes to explain chaos and random noise; everything that happens is accidental.

The ongoing philosophical arguments about cause and effect held little interest for the Buddha, but he was well educated about them. He was, rather, most concerned about dukkha, the suffering or dissatisfaction that seemed a part of every life, what caused it, and whether it was even possible to end it.

What he awakened to, in his great enlightenment, was a revolutionary understanding of cause and effect so profound and so subtle that it was only 2500 years later that scientists stumbled into it. That discovery has been revolutionary for fields ranging from medicine to ecology to economics and physics. The Pali term for the Buddha’s realization is paticca samuppada, which means dependent origination. Causes and effects arise together and are mutually dependent.

The Buddha said, whoever comprehends paticca samuppada comprehends the Dharma, and whoever comprehends the Dharma, comprehends paticca samuppada.

In this course we will use the earliest teachings of the Buddha, as well as contemporary teachings from Ayya Khema, Anālayo, and Joanna Macy to explore this revolutionary concept of dependent origination and its practical application in our Zen practice and in our everyday lives. We will engage with these teachings, and with each other, in small groups and activities designed to immerse us in our investigation of this foundational Buddhist teaching.

Sources:

You will find these sources helpful, but they are not required:

  • Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory, Joanna Macy

  • Know Where You’re Going, Ayya Khema

  • In the Buddha’s Words, Bikkhu Bodhi, ed.

  • Compassion and Emptiness in Early Buddhist Meditation, Anālayo

  • Class meetings:

  1. May 10

  2. May 7

  3. May 24

  4. May 31

  5. June 7

  6. June 14

    The course is offered via Zoom and online materials. A Zoom link will be sent with registration.

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Class Recordings