Dependent Origination Quotes

All phenomena are empty.

The idea of interdependence is central to Buddhism, which holds that all things come into being through the mutual interactions of various causes and conditions.

The only "definitive truth" for Buddhism is the absolute negation of any one truth as the Definitive Truth.

Our bodies are given life from the midst of nothingness. Existing where there is nothing is the meaning of the phrase, "Form is emptiness." That all things are provided for by nothingness is the meaning of the phrase, "Emptiness is form." One should not think that these are two seperate things.

Furthermore, I shall explain the nature of dharmata: Such a nature as this cannot be determined to be any one thing. So however you label it, that is how it appears.

Just as a tree, though cut down, sprouts up again if its roots remain uncut and firm, even so, until the craving that lies dormant is rooted out, suffering springs up again and again.

Buddha was speaking about reality. Reality may be one, in its deepest essence, but Buddha also stated that all propositions about reality are only contingent. Reality is devoid of any intrinsic identity that can be captured by any one single proposition - that is what Buddha meant by "voidness." Therefore, Buddhism strongly discourages blind faith and fanaticism.

The infinite vibratory levels, the dimensions of interconnectedness are without end. There is nothing independent. All beings and things are residents in your awareness.

If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper? ?To be? is to inter-be. We cannot just be by ourselves alone. We have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.

Appearance is something absolute, but reality is not that way - everything is interdependent, not absolute.

If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are.

Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.

The Now is as it is because it cannot be otherwise. What Buddhists have always known, physicists now confirm: there are no isolated things or events. Underneath the surface appearance, all things are interconnected, are part of the totality of the cosmos that has brought about the form that this moment takes.

A flower is not a flower. It is made only of non-flower elements - sunshine, clouds, time, space, earth, minerals, gardeners, and so on. A true flower contains the whole universe. If we return any one of these non-flower elements to its source, there will be no flower.

When we look deeply into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds there could be no rain, and without rain there would be no flower.

Contemplating the bowl, it is possible to see the interdependent elements which give rise to the bowl.

Just as a chariot is verbalized, in dependence on collections of parts, so conventionally a sentient being, is set up depending on the mental and physical aggregates