Compared to teachings on mindfulness or the eightfold path, dependent arising may be easy to overlook. It can seem somewhat complex, abstract, or arbitrary. Spend a little time with it, however, and you begin to realize that this is the hinge upon which the whole practice turns.

Why is Dependent Arising so Important?

Dependent arising reveals the possibility of change

Dependent arising describes the interwoven nature of existence. That nothing is alone, nothing stands independently, nothing is separate. Everything is affecting everything else. We are being affected by so many conditions in every moment and in turn we are affecting everything around us. Dependent arising is a dynamic process occurring moment to moment in our lives, in our days, in our consciousness.

The basic principle of dependent arising is:

• When there is this, that is.
• When this is not, neither is that.
• With the cessation of this, that ceases.

Understanding dependent arising can have a profound effect not only on our individual consciousness—our way of being, the degree of freedom or the degree of suffering that we experience—it can also have a profound impact at social and community levels.

I think the most important teaching of dependent arising is understanding this possibility of change—that we can step out of repetitive cycles in any moment if there's sufficient awareness, sufficient understanding present. The key to understanding freedom of the heart, the key to understanding peace and wellbeing lie within this map. This is a journey, it's a process. It requires stillness. It requires commitment. It requires curiosity and interest. But it is a journey of awakening.

Dependent arising frees us to live better

The centrality of dependent arising is found in a statement that we find attributed to Sariputta, one of the Buddha's chief disciples, where he says, "The one who sees dependent arising sees the Dharma, and the one who sees the Dharma sees dependent arising."

By focusing human experience through the lens of dependent arising, by using it as a framework for how we might live better in the world—in our relations with other people, in our relations with ourselves—it opens us to embracing fully the contingent, conditional nature of life itself. And I find that although this may not be an idea that I'm constantly thinking about or repeating to myself, over the years in having worked within this frame, I feel that this sensibility to contingency, to change, to conditionality has begun very much to somehow become internalized.

I think dependent arising is constantly challenging us to answer the question, "What do I do now? What do I do next?" In other words, it is an idea that frees us from fixed ideas that we hold on to. There are many deep gut feelings that many of us have about ourselves. By holding on to those ideas, we actually block the whole capacity we have to respond creatively, imaginatively, kindly, and wisely to the specific momentary situation in which we find ourselves at any given time.

Dependent arising is an invaluable contemplative tool

I see dependent arising primarily as a contemplative tool, not as an explanation of the world, not as an explanation of saṃsāra, not as an explanation of rebirth, but as a contemplative tool applied to one's own private experience. It helps us to cultivate the seeds for wholesome conditions that bring this mind to flourishing, to fostering stillness, to clarity, to understanding, and ultimately to a freedom that comes from living in accordance with values that are actually helpful to make individuals and our societies more harmonic, more happy, and more content.

I do think that there is tremendous worth to the effort to understand dependent arising because it underpins all notions of growth, all notions of development, all notions of maturation, all notions of purification, all notions of being able to change through choices and deliberate emphasis on how we use the forces our minds offer to us. Now, some of this is gradual. Some of it is minute in its effect, and it's cumulative. It will need time, unpacking, and continuity in our efforts. These efforts are in terms of investigation and they're also in terms of cultivation. And obviously in terms of ethical living.

Dependent arising is deeply practical

For me, this is an extremely practical teaching. It's an intellectual teaching—and I think we have to understand it to a degree intellectually with our minds, we have to understand how these patterns work—but also we have to understand and see it upon reflection in our ordinary lives, in the ways that we are living and responding to what is around us as we encounter others, and as we move through the world doing all the things that we have to do.

So for me, this is the most important aspect of dependent arising, but it is not easy. As you can see, we are setting ourselves a huge task. To actually identify destructive patterns and liberate ourselves from them is what this teaching is about. I think this is the possibility offered when we really begin to inquire into dependent arising, what it is, and how it plays out in our lives.