Interdependent Co-arising: A Perspective That Helps Prevent Arrogance

By Thomas McConkie, based on an episode of Mindfulness+.

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Interdependent co-arising. It’s got a nice ring to it. But what does it mean? 

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk in the Zen and mindfulness traditions of Buddhism, explains the principle in a simple way in his classic book The Heart of the Buddhist Teachings. 

He writes, “For a table to exist we need wood, a carpenter, time, skillfulness, and many other causes. And each of these causes needs other causes to be. The wood needs the forest, the sunshine, the rain, and so on. The carpenter needs his parents, breakfast, fresh air, and so on. And each of those things in turn has to be brought about by other conditions. If we continue to look in this way we’ll see that nothing has been left out. Everything in the cosmos has come together to bring us this table. Looking deeply at the sunshine, the leaves of the tree, and the clouds, we can see the table. The one can be seen in the all, and the all can be seen in the one.”

So, what is interdependent co-arising? It’s a recognition. It is a view of reality, a perspective that recognizes that everything, all conditions, are coming up at once and happening at once. And though we may live in a moment of human history where we’re encouraged to feel like an independent self, we can learn to take the view of interdependent co-arising. We can recognize clearly that yes, there is an aspect of individuality arising in this moment, and we can feel that and sense into it. 

If I’m sensitive enough I can even notice that I won’t get to do the kind of work I want to do in the world without the love and support of my family and my friends — without clean drinking water, a stable food supply, some education, and a bit of luck.

It’s that simple. It’s just recognizing in our independence how utterly dependent we are on conditions to exist and to be. 

I love that Thich Nhat Hanh talks about a table because he gets right into the elements — that without water and sunshine, we don’t have wood. And without the skills of a carpenter we don’t have the table. In a similar way, we know that infants can’t make it their first few days of life without contact from other human beings.

So this observation of interdependent co-arising, I would say, prevents us from becoming arrogant. We realize we can’t do it all. We need help from all the conditions. It’s how we celebrate interdependence: by simply recognizing all the beautiful conditions that support this precious human birth we’ve been given. 

Interdependence also means we can hold dependence and independence together deeply. We can recognize our independence (our agency and autonomy), and we can recognize our dependence (our relationship to all things and all beings). 

If we simply focus on independence we become arrogant. We become isolated. We forget the cost of our own arising, what it takes to sustain us moment to moment. 

But, on the other hand, if we’re only dependent — if we are only held in relationship and don’t express ourselves, our own will, our own agency, our autonomy — we become grovelers. We can’t stand up and express what feels right in our own being. 

I just want to point out that this polarity of independence and dependence, of agency and communion. It’s so important to hold both of these so deeply. And when we do, we can get a taste of interdependence, a higher order possibility that’s elaborated on really beautifully in the Buddhist tradition. 

Alright. Let’s take a moment to practice. 

Use this script as a meditation you might read to yourself or others:

*start practice*

Start by taking a couple deep breaths, and really just let go on the out-breath. Let go of everything you don’t need: the stale air at the bottom of the lungs, the tension in your body, the emotional baggage, the stale thoughts that roll over and over in your awareness. Just take a minute to let that go. 

Give yourself a moment to just let the dust settle. You don’t have to make anything happen. You don’t have to meditate. Just doing nothing, taking your foot off the gas pedal is enough. Nature will take care of the rest. 

And now you can bring your awareness into the physical body and really just soaking through all of the physical body like water soaking through a sponge. Just enjoying embodiment in this moment, feeling the boundaries of the physical body. Where you stop and the world begins. Notice what your sense of that boundary is. 

Feel your own emotion. Your thoughts in this moment. Feel a sense of your own personal history. The journey of your life, of your soul, if you think in those terms. All the decisions you’ve made, the will that you’ve exercised to arrive in this very moment. And appreciate for a moment, the power of your own agency. Your own autonomy. Your own freedom to choose a life for yourself. To create a life like an artist. Feel what a gift this is. 

Notice that this gift of freedom, agency, autonomy, can’t exist without countless other conditions. Notice that the very air you breathe is a condition of your freedom. Just to have air to breathe is a profound gift that supports your life, your autonomy, your destiny. Take a moment to just appreciate it, to bring your awareness to it fully. 

Feel the ground beneath you, the stability of the ground. In this moment you can trust your weight to the ground. Relax into it. And allow it to hold you, to support you. 

Appreciate in this moment, that if you’re able to just enjoy this moment of awareness that you live in a place in the world that’s safe enough, that allows you to just venture inward for a moment. In this moment you’re able to let go and go inward. This is a gift. This is a luxury that many people on the planet don’t have. Civil unrest in Ethiopia. Immigrants. Syria. Crossing dangerous waters. There’s so many people who don’t have an environment where they can just rest and let go. 

And for a moment you can bring key relationships into your life. Who are the people in this time in your life who deeply support you. Believe in you. Give you their love. Imagine their faces in this moment. Their presence. The gifts they offer so freely to you just by way of who they are, not even anything they do, but just the people that they are to you. Their presence in your life. Feel of that goodness. Feel this condition co-arising with the condition of your own being. Your own individuality. Your own independence. Feel the way this supports you, sustains you, uplifts you. 

Notice the gift of love itself. Not even bound by a person, but this incredible love that permeates absolutely everything. It’s available if we just open our awareness. Open our hearts. If we raise our sails and feel it guiding us home. 

There are too many gifts to name. Too many conditions to name. That co-arise with our being every moment. To just stop and reflect on everything that makes us and supports us. That makes us possible. We celebrate interdependence. We become the activity of creation itself. Infinite conditions. Mutually co-arising. In a great symphony of life. Of love. Of light.

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Photo by Tom Kenar on Unsplash