Dependent Arising: This Comes From That – Part 2

From a talk given by Kenn Duncan, June 2026 

Words & Thoughts from Carol Cook, Arinna Weisman and Jean Smith

“The Buddha walked through India after his awakening for 40 years. What he said of his own teaching is that he never taught anything that wasn’t about the nature of suffering-dissatisfaction, it’s cause and its ultimate end” 

As we know these teachings were summarized in the 4 noble truths, there is suffering, there is a cause to suffering, there is a cessation to suffering and there is a path to the end of suffering.

We started looking at a specific teaching the Paticca Samapadda (in pali), translated many ways > dependent origination, dependent arising, conditioned genesis, there’s others but these are the main ones you’ll come across. He realized he had gained insight to an essential truth here about conditions that are present as suffering arises, but, he also realized how difficult it can be to understand this law or process of dependent arising. 

This teaching goes into detail about the 2nd noble truth the cause of suffering and shows us how we cultivate suffering due to conditions that have arisen like ignorance, ignorance about our interconnections with all of life, about the impermanence of all phenomena, about the sources of happiness. 

Something that rings so true about this teaching for me is the ability we have to understand how we bring or exacerbate suffering into and in our own lives right now, but also how we might lessen that suffering by intervening on the conditions that bring dukka into being.

I mentioned the 12 links of dependent arising last week and offered this handout, there are copies on the table.
This model shows us a process of how suffering results from a chain of conditions .. one leading to another.  Stuff happens because other stuff happens.

This process is sort of rooted in ignorance, not knowing, but in a way that is more like ignoring what is actually happening.  
This process can be divided into four sections, what we bring to the experience, the experience itself, what we do with experience and the consequences of what we do, how we react.

We can look at the cycle in this way, we can see what actually happens to us (#6,7) this is kind of a small part of the whole process.                                                   
Then there’s what we bring to it (1-5) and what we do with it (8,9) these have a bigger impact.

In the beginner’s guide to insight meditation by Arinna Weisman and Jean Smith there is a scenario that does a good job of taking us through the process. It’s about a young man, named James who is starting a market research company and he has no understanding of how to cultivate happiness in his life (#1).

His approach to life is rooted in ignorance, an unconscious belief that he is not enough.  (anybody else??).  This can be a common this for us humans and it’s not a bad judgement on ourselves but leads us to bad judgement.

James imagines that having a success in business will change the fact he’s not enough.  He has somewhere along the way learned that the only way to be happy is to make himself into “a somebody” that matters.

The disposition or urge to make himself into “a somebody” is a mental formation (#2) It’s something his mind has put together to help him cope with the world.
Unfortunately, it’s based in ignorance about what brings true happiness, and again he is likely ignoring things that may be right in front of him that would achieve his joy.

Like we all do, James has the capacity of consciousness (#3) to be aware of what is going on and has a mind and body (#4) with which to perceive and navigate the world.  He has 6 sense gates (#5) though which he can experience the world, eyes, ears, nose, mouth/tongue, body/breath and mind but his consciousness is flavored by the dispositions and tendencies that come out of mental formations like his urge to be “a somebody”.

And mind and body, how he thinks and behaves, will be affected by what he has become conscious of.  And sense gates are conditioned by his mind and body.

Now that we have this sort of lay of the land around James and the conditions he is bringing to experience let’s put this to an actual experience: 

James is walking down the street totally absorbed in his mission to be “a somebody”. You see it in his appearance, tight shoulder, clenched jaw, fast pace. He goes by a car dealership and sees this sleek red sporty car. His eyes have been conditioned to awaken to status symbols. Thay make contact (#6) with this car the Brillant red color, the sleek lines, the powerful engine.

As he’s gazing at this vehicle of beauty and power, he has a feeling of extreme pleasure (#7). He feels so good just standing there and looking at this beast.
But just experiencing the pleasure of the sight of it, is not enough, he wants to keep this pleasant feeling rolling.
Not just the visual pleasure but the pleasure he feels when he sees himself being seen by others in this car.
So now he goes beyond what is actually happening and moves in into craving (#8). Uh oh the dreaded craving has started!  He really, really wants to have this car.
He wants to experience the beauty of driving it and the status of being seen in it.
He remembers he can’t afford it, but quickly suppresses that thought, ignores the reality.

And now > he doesn’t just want this car; he has to have it. This is now clinging (#9).  He heads into the dealership and goes for a test drive (oh boy the kiss of death).
As the salesman is likely well aware, this test drive puts James over the edge and makes him start to feel like he’s becoming the somebody his needs to be (#10). This car will surely bring him the happiness he craves, happiness he’s probably never even known.

So he buys the car and drives away feeling he’s given birth (#11) to “a somebody” and created the self he needs to be.

He goes to his parents’ house so he can show them that he’s finally arrived, he’s worthy of praise and respect, maybe a praise and respect he’s not gotten from his folks until now.

But with the birth of anything also comes aging and death (#12). So, after a few weeks the car begins to lose its power to make him feel like “that somebody”.  The newness, the thrill is gone.

Two months later he’s driving to meet with a client and realizes he’s now taking the car for granted.  It’ hasn’t really increased his happiness or his sense of importance.  Hasn’t really made him that somebody he craved to be. In fact, it’s actually increasing his stress because he’s now got some hefty monthly payments and on top of that he worries about keeping it clean, safe and not wrecking the thing.

The temporary sense of importance that he had gained from having the car has eroded by the old conditioning and the lack of understanding that he, himself was already enough, he was already “a somebody”.

So here we are at the bottom of the map and the whole process has reinforced the cycle, reinforced all the conditioning.  So likely he will just remain in this trance and start the cycle all over again, maybe trade this car in for a better one, maybe buy a bigger condo, etc.

You can see that if James could have just allowed his feelings of pleasure to arise and pass away without moving into craving and making a quick brash decision guided by these conditions he would have interrupted the cycle.

If he could have noted craving as craving, and let it rise and fall away he would not have moved into craving. This could have prevented the birth of more suffering.

This scenario with James contains the same ingredients, the same links as any scenario that leads us into unnecessary suffering, it might be over-eating, eating too many sweets, under asserting ourselves, over asserting ourselves, turning away from something that is unpleasant, like maybe the eyes of a homeless brother or sister.  WE may even take it as far as threatening another being who we feel is getting in our way from becoming or getting what we crave.

SO, when we’re unable to sit with what is really going on with the experience itself, we sometimes fall into a trance of unquestioned conditioning that is rooted in ignorance, or ignoring. And then we give birth to suffering.

What is important about this teaching is that it’s a sort of detailed teaching on how the noble truth of the conditions of suffering works.  How we actually bring suffering, dissatisfaction and more stress into our lives by allowing the cycle to play out without interruption.

The Buddha with this teaching turned the conventional understanding from believing that suffering is something that happens to us to seeing that suffering is something we bring on ourselves, or we at very least exasperate them.

Over this next week start paying more attention to stuff that happens, in our meditations and in our daily lives, and how this leads to other stuff.  and the conditionality of unknowing, the cycle of 12 and where you might start to notice, and maybe possibly intercept the cycle.