The History of Why

Concept

2 readings

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Dependent arising

Concept · 2 readings

In dependent arising, particular conditions support arising and cessation, and the account resists treating existence and nonexistence as unrestricted alternatives.

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2 readings · Title A–Z

  • Guided course · Module 3 · Lesson 7

    Suffering, impermanence and not-self

    Early Buddhist discourses challenge the hope of finding a secure self in changing experience, and do so for the sake of liberation. Not-self, the lesson shows, is not the claim that nothing exists.

  • Nāgārjuna: emptiness, dependence and the two truths · Lesson 2 of 8

    What makes a condition a cause?

    Nāgārjuna examines the four ways something might be thought to arise and argues that nothing with intrinsic nature could be produced. The lesson names the assumptions the argument relies on and compares two readings of causal connection.

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  • Nāgārjuna: emptiness, dependence and the two truths

    Follow Nāgārjuna’s arguments that nothing has an intrinsic nature of its own, from causes and motion to persons, the two truths and the charge that the argument undermines itself. Ask what the arguments leave standing: can things exist, change and matter without such a nature?