moralobjectivity.net: copyright Robert M. Ellis 2008

Mutual causality and interdependency

A possibly slightly more useful interpretation of dependent origination is offered by the modern American Buddhist teacher, Joanna Macy[1]. She suggests that dependent origination should be interpreted in terms of mutual causality instead of linear causality. Whilst in traditional Western thought we tend to assume a model of causality in which separate individual events lead to other events, the alternative view, now being used particularly by systems theory, is to think of the universe as consisting of interrelating systems which continue to influence each other over time. So, for example, if you were studying the relationship between an animal and the plant that it habitually eats over time, it would not be very useful to try to break down your understanding into individual plants causing specific changes for individual animals and vice-versa: rather the system of the animal species and the system of the plant species interacted as a whole. The beaks of some species of hummingbird are precisely adapted to access one particular type of flower, from which it takes nectar and spreads pollen. The flower, however, is also adapted specifically to be accessible only to that species of hummingbird. It is impossible to say which caused the other in individual terms, so it may be more helpful to think in terms of the mutual adjustment of systems.

This interpretation fits with a long tradition of stressing interdependency in Buddhism. The image of Indra’s Net, in which every node connects with every other node, for some sums up what they see as the truth in dependent origination: that no object exists separately, but only in dependence upon other objects. The spiritual significance of this is that we have a tendency to think of objects in isolation from each other, and have a distorted understanding of the world around us created by greed and hatred. A separately existent object is much easier to possess or to reject than one which is acknowledged to be part of a complex system.

If we think of dependent origination in this way, then it becomes an extension of the doctrines of impermanence and insubstantiality (anatta), discussed in chapter 1. Anatta is useful in pointing out that we mentally construct the objects around us as being a certain way, rather than knowing that they actually are like that. Impermanence also has the merit of pointing out that what we assume to be the continued existence of things is also a construction of our own. Interpreted in this way, dependent origination points out that objects may not exist independently in the way we often assume they do, but only in relation to other objects.

As I pointed out in chapter 1, however, the insights to be found in these doctrines remain useful only insofar as they are not taken to be metaphysical truths about either the real world, or even the phenomenal world. We simply do not know whether there is anything independent in the universe, or that we always make the spiritual mistake of thinking of things as independent when they are actually interdependent. It seems quite possible that we could also make the reverse mistake, of assuming that things are interdependent when they are actually independent. To take a simple example, a jealous wife might assume that there is an interdependent relationship between her husband’s absences on business and the simultaneous absences of an attractive female friend. To get over her irrational jealousy she might need to appreciate that these absences are coincidental, not interdependent in the way that she had been assuming.

It is clearly the case that quite often by recognising interdependency we can gain more control over greed and hatred. For example, by recognising that a piece of meat has an interdependent relationship with an animal and an exploitative farming industry rather than just being a piece of meat from the supermarket, I might overcome the desire for meat with all its negative effects. However, it is not necessarily the case that we gain control over greed or hatred in this way, because we could also have greed or hatred towards objects recognised as interdependent. Someone venting their spleen against “the government” for example, will not necessarily be stopped by it being pointed out that the government is interdependent with the voters, the taxpayers, the civil service and international organisations. The negative feelings towards the government are perhaps just as likely to spread out contagiously towards everything else it touches, possibly extending to everyone and everything. The relationship between that negative feeling and the exact way its object is conceived is contingent.

So it is quite often useful to think of things as related by mutual causality and as interdependent. However, this is very far from being a profound truth about the universe that we should all learn to appreciate in order to be enlightened. For one thing, we do not know that it is always true, and for another, spiritually useful overcoming of illusions does not always coincide with a realisation of interdependency or of mutual causality. The reverse is quite possible: I might get over my illusions about someone by thinking of them as independent rather than interdependent, for example seeing a particular civil servant as an individual person rather than part of a vast (and faceless) interdependent system of government that I might resent.

Once again, a potentially useful practical point applicable to some situations has been overextended and made misleading by being turned into universal metaphysics.  One can only conclude from this section and the previous one that, contrary to many Buddhist claims, pratitysamutpada is far from being the central insightful principal of Buddhist teaching it is often claimed to be. Where it appears to be insightful, this is only insofar as an overextended principle happens to coincide with our experience. The central principle should not be seen as a metaphysical principle, but rather one that provides an overall method for interpreting experience – the Middle Way.