Based on Pāli and Sanskrit scriptures, early Buddhist teachings postulate that the doctrine of dependent origination (Pāli: paṭiccasamuppāda, Skt. pratītyasamutpāda) clarifies the cycle of life, in addition to fulfilling its doctrinal demand of the Buddha’s highest wisdom. What comes to light is a precise assessment of a concrete model of dependent origination which unfolds a clear picture of an unsatisfactory mental state between a being’s birth and death. Through the psychological analysis of the twelvefold links in the law of causation, both the Pāli canon (Nikāya) and the commentary (Aṭṭhakathā) demonstrate the three taproots of unsatisfactory mental state and the afflictive state of mind, including: ignorance (avijjā), expectation (taṅhā) and clinging (upādāna). Following early Buddhism, Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā offered a scholarship where the state of ‘no self-nature (Skt. nisvabhāva)’ incorporated by dependent origination leads to the lucid state of mind from mental dissatisfaction, i.e., emptiness (Skt. śūnyatā). Nāgārjuna illuminates nisvabhāva as an absence (empty) of existence, which he indirectly referred to as ‘non-self’ (P. anattā or Skt. anatman) as found in early Buddhism. Prior to disclosing the taproot of the afflictive state of mind, the proposed paper examines the nature of dependent origination with its psychological analysis stemming from Buddhist philosophical thought
目次
Prologue The Notion and Significance of Dependent Origination The Principles of Dependent Origination and its Standard Model in Terms of Pāli Scriptures Interpretation of Twelvefold Formulas Figure I: Buddhaghosa’s categorization of the twelvefold constituents into three lifetimes. (Past, Present and Future) Figure II: The categorization of the twelve-fold constituents into three classes (afflictions or defilements, actions and karmic consequences). Figure III: Nāgārjuna’s analysis of the twelve constituents of Dependent Origination An Application of Dependent Origination and Afflictive States of Mind A Proposed Study of Person A’s Destructive Emotions and Twelvefold Formula of Dependent Origination Applying the Model of Dependent Origination for Mental Recovery Concluding Remarks Abbreviations Bibliography
