How to Change
November 30, 2021
When the Buddha describes the steps in dependent co-arising, on the one hand he’s describing how suffering happens, the psychology that goes into how we shape the present moment in a way that leads to suffering. But he’s also describing the psychology of his listeners as they’re listening to him, the rhetorical situation he finds himself in as he tries to teach them how to train themselves. You get an idea of what he’s trying to accomplish by seeing how he understands what his listeners are doing right then and there—and the primary thing they’re doing is that they’re fabricating their experience in ignorance.