Seeds, Paintings and a Beam of Light: Similes for Dependent Arising

Hi Jasudho,

I don’t think so, but Olalde’s English paper on the nāmarūpa, which is a condensation of her short book (which is her M.A. thesis), is freely accessible here:

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Thanks very much.
I found it several months ago.

I appreciate your reply. :slightly_smiling_face: :pray:

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Hello :slight_smile: I have been re-reading the book, this time mostly for the chapters on dependent origination. The book talks about whether the standard DO sequence is two sequences stitched together or not. I’ve been thinking about how to make sense of the standard sequence. I even made a nerdy flowchart! :nerd_face:

The flowchart is meant to convey how ignorance (avijja) distorts perception in the present moment but also creates the infrastructure it needs in a time lagged manner. Craving in life n depends on ignorance in life n and in life n-1.

By infrastructure I mean the flesh, nerves, tissue, and mental stuff that enable a flow of experience. Ignorance needs something to be ignorant about, and it creates that for itself.

(The infrastructure is necessary but not sufficient for craving in this life. Another way of putting it would be that ignorance will create both the necessary and sufficient causes for its continuation unless it’s stopped by the noble eightfold path.)

I don’t think I’m saying anything new here, just that breaking DO into these chunks made it a lot easier for my mind to think about it, so I wanted to share it.

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You can Google Translate them and they come out decent enough.

I have both–which were gifted me by the respective authors, so there’s no copyright infringement issue, I think (if there would ever even be one). I can share whatever I have with anyone interested.

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Olalde recently uploaded her book here:

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Thanks very much. Will give it a try. :folded_hands: