Hmm, maybe this questions is lack-of-consideration; but do we really think (or: do we want to introduce this way of thinking into our discussions …), that the Awakened-one had shuffled such ideas like lego-bricks to make it work: "oh, well, if I want to introduce X then I surely should modify Y, so I better teach a modified Y … Good: this point solved. Next section… " ?
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Given that he lived among ascetics-philosophers who professed with finding faults in other people’s philosophies, I wouldn’t rule that out.
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I think the Buddha was innovating, and so inevitably he needed to explain things in a different way, or reformulate.
But what purpose does DO serve in the suttas? Why the need to introduce this level of detail in the first place?
If we’re going to realize the full power of the Dhamma, I think it’s important that we regard the Buddha as the one who went all the way, the one who awakened by purifying his mind and removing all ignorance, the one who knew things as the way things really are.
He didn’t come up with the Dhamma by reasoning it out in the way that we, the unawakened, try to do. Dependent Origination wasn’t shuffling lego bricks around to come up with a teaching tool. To see Dependent Origination is to see the Dhamma. And what is seeing the Dhamma? Removing avijja: ignorance, the unknown, the ignored, the misunderstood, the misinterpreted. By way of fully purifying himself and his mind he saw what nobody else could see.
The Buddha didn’t have a shred of uncertainty. He taught a path to discover for yourself, just as he did. How does one teach what another can’t learn by studying? We have these discussions, we read and ponder and debate the suttas, all part of helping us navigate our path. No prob. But the Buddha didn’t create the Dhamma, he saw and understood it. If we’re going to dispel avijja and ultimately answer the question about rebirth, we trust the Buddha and follow his example and practice of the 37 Wings to Awakening.
with metta!
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To me DO does look like a teaching tool. It’s essentially an elaboration of the Second Noble Truth, and explains that ignorance is the root cause of suffering.
But you could just say: “The root cause of suffering is ignorance, and the proximate cause is craving.” So why the need for all those nidanas? What purpose do they actually serve?
Anyway, the Dhamma principle underlying these teachings is obviously conditionality, and that is a consequence of the anatta doctrine, IMO.
If you remove independent existence (Atman/Brahman) from the equation, then you have no choice but to explain things in terms of dependent or conditional existence.
The nidanas encompass all of what binds us to the samsara of birth, death and dukkha. When the Buddha broke free of the constraints of ignorance, the chain of connecting links between delusion and rebirth became crystal clear to him and the samsara of birth, death and dukkha ended for him. It is so profound that the Buddha rebuked Ananda for underestimating DO.
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It puts the various ideas in the chain into context. It also demonstrates the concept of causality as a chain of events. There are other chains of causal links in EBTs besides DO, such as this one and this one. It probably was a way to teach basic concepts and their relationships to each other as much as anything else.
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I just cottoned on to this about a week ago when I watched an Ajahn @Brahmali talk [clicky clicky]. (Tagging him solely in case I’m misrepresenting his views, which is not my intent). My summary of that talk is: “We don’t have free will, or maybe a very small amount of it, but that’s not as bad as it sounds”. A difficult concept indeed.
I notice that the monastics don’t touch this, perhaps because it is a thicket of views etc. I should likely follow suit but here I am…
Vacca, I hear you buddy…
I’ve fallen into confusion. And I’ve now lost even the degree of clarity I had from previous discussions with Master Gotama.
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I’m so sorry to nitpick, especially to cdpatton, a person I esteem so highly! But I think it’s important to delineate the difference between causality and dependency. Dependent origination isn’t about causality.
Without listening to the talk, here are Ajahn Bramali’s notes on a session of his Dependent Origination course that cover this:
https://discourse.suttacentral.net/uploads/short-url/lat6Jk4yLbNlZyzQnC0IsV0iLfI.pdf
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I agree, it’s not about cause and effect. It’s really about the way that things exist. Do they exist in dependence upon conditions, or independent of conditions? Or not at all?
In the suttas, Nibbana is the only thing independent of conditions, though there are different interpretations of what that actually means.
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That’s what DO is all about, dependence. We can’t isolate and end craving or any other single link because there is an entire chain of dependence. The Buddha’s path brought him beyond the point where everyone else got stuck and he saw the entire chain, dispelling ignorance and breaking samsara for himself. But you can’t just teach DO, one must cultivate the ability to see. Hence the N8FP.
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It doesn’t really work to just look at one framework or principle in isolation, like anatman, or dependent origination, and then speculate about how it could be interpreted and applied to everything. That will just lead to a proliferation of diverging interpretations. When considering these ideas, we have to place them next to the rest of the principles in the EBT’s to get the fuller picture.
This thread started out with a quote that was taken out of context by one teacher. If we instead placed that next to the hundreds of instances of the Buddha teaching rebirth in the EBT’s, then it’s obvious what beliefs were held, and what the historical situation was. There is no need to debate anything in that case.
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I disagree. I think it’s important to identify the underlying principle of any teaching.
In the Buddha’s case, the essential principle is that of conditionality, or dependence. The Four Noble Truths are the most obvious example of this principle, so I don’t see this as a controversial observation.
I have to say I quite, but very respectfully, disagree with this terminology, Ven. @Brahmali 
!
What is here being described as a dependence, modern accounts of causality would call a necessary cause.
E.g. clouds are a necessary cause for rain, for without clouds there is no rain. December 25th is a necessary cause for Christmas, because it can’t be Christmas on other days.
Clouds are not sufficient causes for rain, because there can be clouds without rain. December 25th isn’t sufficient for Christmas, because not all people celebrate Christmas (it’s not Christmas for them, even though it’s December 25th).
However, I think your intuition behind wanting to have a word to talk about causality without
implying sufficiency is right.
Nonetheless, IMO, dependent origination is clearly ‘causal’ given a modern terminology.
There are really only two modern frameworks of causality (who turn out to be mathematically equivalent) that are actually used in practice by scientists. The potential outcomes (PO) framework by Rubin and the structural causal model (SCM) by Pearl.
These frameworks are used e.g. to figure out the causal effects of, say, wearing masks on Covid transmission, so it’s these frameworks aren’t philosophy irrelevant for practice.
It’s only the last decade really that rigorous treatments of causality have become mainstream, so I don’t blame anyone for not being aware of these developments 
TL;DR: I think the terminology is a bit confusing; it’s within convention to say “X causes Y” even if the nature of that causal relationship is that Y depends on X to persist
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DO seems to be a messy mix of necessary and sufficient causes. That might explain the lack of consensus on interpretation.
Or maybe the necessary and sufficient cause model doesn’t apply to DO.
Or maybe DO has been corrupted along the way? Who knows?
IMO, DO is explicitly defined in terms of counterfactual causality (per DN 15), something even modern philosophers have trouble with (according to Pearl, the guy behind SCM).
I highly recommend Pearl’s “the book of why” which is an introduction to causality (as it is used in science, not philosophy) for a general audience.
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I think the basic principle of DO is dependence. You can’t have A without B.
As opposed to A existing independently.
The same principle applies to the Four Noble Truths. And of course DO is an elaboration of the Second Truth.
All this is a consequence of anatta, IMO. If you remove things with independent existence, then you have to rely on things which exist dependently, or conditionally.
My point is that this is just using non-standard terminology to say the basic principle of DO is causality. Dependence relationships are causal.
Non-causal dependence relationships are things like “the birth rate depends on the amount of storks in the area”.
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Not really. Feeling only causes craving when ignorance is present, for example.
This is a causal statement.
Edit: On second thought, I’m not sure what you mean here.