An Interesting Conversation On Dependent OriginationThe following is edited from a Dharma talk at National University of Singapore Buddhist Society:
(Ven: Venerable Thubten Chodron, Aud: Audience)Ven:
(Holding a cracker) A cracker appears to be a real cracker as there is some "cracker-ness" about it - it seems to exists "out there," independent of our Mind. If it really exists like that, then when we analyze and search for just what the cracker is, we should be able to find it. (The cracker is broken and a piece is held up) Is this piece a cracker?Aud:
Yes.Ven: (Holding up the other piece) is this a cracker?Aud:
Yes.Ven: (Crumbles the cracker pieces) what is this now?Aud:
Crumbs - a mess!Ven: There is no cracker now? What happened to the real cracker we saw before? If it had some cracker-ness quality to it, where is it now? What we have now are the same atoms and molecules as before - but we call it crumbs and not a cracker! Aud: The cracker is the collection of atoms and molecules. It is all the parts together!Ven: But a collection is just a group of parts. If none of the parts by themselves are a cracker, then how can many parts together be an independent cracker with some cracker-ness quality? If you put many non-butterflies, such as grasshoppers together, does that make a butterfly? How can a group of non-crackers or crumbs make a real cracker?Aud: Then there is no cracker at all? What am I eating?Ven: What we are searching for is something that is a cracker independent of its parts. That real independent cracker can't be found because it doesn't exists. But a dependently existent cracker is there! What you are eating is still a cracker!
The cracker exists as a group of atoms and molecules put together in a certain pattern. Our Mind looks at it and conceives it to be a thing and calls it a cracker - it becomes a cracker because all of us together have conceived it in a similar way and agreed, by the force of social convention, to call it a cracker.
That cracker exists dependent on its causes and conditions - the flour, water and baker and so on. It depends on our minds conceiving it to be a thing and labeling it "cracker." Apart from this dependently existent cracker, there is no other cracker. It is empty of being a cracker inherently and independently with some cracker-ness quality to it. It exists - but not in the same way it appears to us to exist. It appears to be independent when it isn't.