Thoughts on Dependent Origination
Historical and Philosophical Thoughts on Dependent Origination:
From the Twelve Nidānas to Universal Interdependence
Summary
In contemporary global Buddhism, “dependent origination” is commonly understood to mean that all things are interconnected. This broad interpretation now shapes modern Buddhist ethics, philosophy, and comparative religious thought. However, in the earliest Buddhist texts, the term paṭicca-samuppāda refers primarily to the twelve nidānas — a specific analytic model that explains how suffering arises. This essay traces how that original, tightly focused doctrine gradually expanded into a universal principle of relational existence. We examine developments in early Buddhism, Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka, Yogācāra philosophy, Tibetan scholasticism, and modern Buddhist interpretations.
I. Background
Today, “interdependence” has become one of the most recognisable and frequently cited ideas associated with Buddhism in the global thought-scape. It is invoked in environmental ethics as a philosophical foundation for ecological stewardship, framing the planet as a web of mutually sustaining relationships. In psychotherapy and trauma studies, it appears in discussions of relational selfhood and the ways in which human identity is shaped through interpersonal and environmental conditions. In mindfulness literature, interdependence is presented as a practical insight that can soften rigid self-boundaries, cultivate compassion, and deepen awareness of the interconnected flow of experience.
Beyond these popular contexts, the idea plays an important role in interfaith dialogue, where it serves as a conceptual bridge between Buddhist thought and ecological theologies, process philosophy, or relational metaphysics in various religious traditions. Even in contemporary theories of mind — including enactivism, embodied cognition, and systems neuroscience — the language of interdependence often resonates strongly with Buddhist accounts of the contingent, distributed, and dynamic nature of consciousness. For many people, whether scholars, practitioners, or casual readers, “interdependence” is taken to be almost synonymous with Buddhism itself.
Yet this widely circulated contemporary meaning rests on a teaching — dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda; Pāli paṭicca-samuppāda) — whose earliest formulation was far more restricted, technical, and closely tied to the Buddhist soteriological project. In the Nikāyas and Āgamas, the term is not a sweeping metaphysical claim about the nature of all reality. Rather, it refers quite specifically to the twelvefold chain of causes and conditions — the nidānas — that describe how dukkha, or suffering, comes into being. This early model is diagnostic and pragmatic: it maps the temporal and psychological processes by which suffering arises, with the practical aim of showing how those processes can be reversed or brought to cessation.
In those early sources, dependent origination functions more like a finely tuned medical analysis than a universal philosophy. It isolates key experiential and cognitive conditions — ignorance, craving, clinging, and so forth — in order to illuminate the structure of samsaric experience. The early Buddhist concern is not to describe the interdependence of mountains, rivers, organisms, and societies, but to identify the internal dynamics that bind sentient beings to the cycle of birth and death. Although the idea of conditionality certainly appears in the Nikāyas and Āgamas, it does not yet carry the expansive cosmological, ethical, and ontological meanings that later Buddhist traditions would attach to it.
This discrepancy between early specificity and later universality gives rise to the central historical and philosophical question of this essay: How did a focused early teaching about the causal structure of suffering evolve into a comprehensive doctrine of universal interdependence?
Understanding this transformation requires tracing a long arc of reinterpretation — from the early canonical emphasis on the twelve nidānas, to the abstract formula of conditionality also found in early texts, to Nāgārjuna’s sweeping philosophical generalisation of dependent origination as the basis of emptiness, to Yogācāra’s phenomenological expansion, to Tibetan scholastic syntheses, and finally to the modern global reframing of Buddhism as a religion of relational ecology and interconnectedness.
Only by following this historical trajectory can we appreciate how a technical doctrine embedded in a specific soteriological context became one of the most influential relational concepts in contemporary global thought.
II. Dependent Origination in Early Buddhism: The Twelve Nidānas
In the early Buddhist canon, dependent origination is presented most explicitly and systematically through the twelve nidānas or “links”, which together form a structured explanation of how suffering arises within the cycle of saṃsāra. These nidānas appear repeatedly across the Nikāyas and Āgamas and constitute one of the oldest doctrinal frameworks in the Buddhist tradition. They are typically arranged as follows:
1. ignorance (avijjā)
2. formations (saṅkhārā)
3. consciousness (viññāṇa)
4. name-and-form (nāma-rūpa)
5. the six sense bases (saḷāyatana)
6. contact (phassa)
7. feeling (vedanā)
8. craving (taṇhā)
9. clinging (upādāna)
10. becoming (bhava)
11. birth (jāti)
12. aging-and-death (jarāmaraṇa)
Each link in this chain represents a conditioned process that both arises from and gives rise to other processes. The sequence begins with avijjā (Skt. avidyā) a fundamental misapprehension or non-knowing of the nature of reality, and culminates in jarāmaraṇa, the inevitable unfolding of aging, decay, and death: the experiential core of dukkha (Skt. duḥkha).
A Diagnostic Chain Rather Than a Cosmology
According to the Buddha, the purpose of this chain is not to describe the metaphysical origin of the universe or the general structure of all existence. Rather, it is diagnostic and soteriological. The Buddha consistently uses the nidānas to illuminate the internal, experiential mechanisms by which sentient beings perpetuate suffering. The emphasis is on psychological and existential causation, not on cosmological speculation.
Thus, the early Buddhist texts treat dependent origination much like a physician’s analysis of disease: it identifies the conditions that give rise to an ailment and thereby reveals the conditions whose removal would allow the ailment to cease. The practical orientation is evident throughout the Nidāna-saṃyutta of the Saṃyutta Nikāya, where dependent origination is repeatedly presented as something to be seen, understood, and penetrated for the sake of liberation.
The Functional Logic of the Twelve Links
The twelve nidānas can be understood as mapping a cycle that is simultaneously:
temporal, spanning past, present, and future lives,
psychological, describing moment-to-moment processes of cognition and reactivity, and
existential, portraying how beings become bound within saṃsāric existence.
For example:
Ignorance conditions formations, which in early Buddhist thought refers to intentional or karmic activities shaped by delusion.
These formations condition consciousness, which in turn conditions name-and-form, a pairing that refers to the psycho-physical organism.
The unfolding continues into sensory engagement (saḷāyatana), experiential contact (phassa), emotional tone (vedanā), and the affective responses of craving and clinging.
These responses give rise to becoming, an existential momentum that eventually results in birth, which inevitably leads to the dissatisfaction of aging-and-death.
In this way, the nidānas provide a finely articulated map of why suffering arises, not because life is fated to be painful, but because it is structured by habits of misperception and reactive craving.
The Liberative Aim of the Nidānas
The Buddha’s intention in establishing this chain is consistently soteriological. The nidānas are to be contemplated in order to directly understand both origination (samudaya) and cessation (nirodha) of suffering. By identifying the conditional links that maintain the cycle of suffering, one can also identify the points at which the cycle can be broken. In this sense, dependent origination functions as a method for attaining liberation, showing practitioners how to reverse the processes that sustain bondage.
The Nidāna-saṃyutta repeatedly emphasises this liberative application: when ignorance ceases, formations cease; when formations cease, consciousness ceases; and so on, until the cessation of birth, aging, and death. This is not merely a theoretical reversal but a practical insight into how specific mental and behavioural patterns can be progressively dismantled.
Not Yet a Universal Ontology
Significantly, the early canon does not employ paṭicca-samuppāda as a general explanation of how all things exist. The Buddha rarely applies the term outside the context of suffering and its cessation. When the early texts refer to conditionality more broadly — such as in the well-known formula “when this exists, that arises” — they do not explicitly equate this general principle with the specific doctrine of dependent origination. Rather, these broader statements appear as simple observations about causal relations in experience, not as a metaphysical theory of all existence.
Thus, in the earliest strata of Buddhist literature, dependent origination is narrow, precise, and closely tied to the project of liberation. It is a specialised tool for understanding the mechanics of saṃsāric suffering. It is not yet the expansive doctrine of universal interdependence that later Buddhist thinkers would develop.
III. The Early General Principle of Conditionality
However, alongside the specific twelvefold chain of nidānas, the early Buddhist canon also preserves a broader and more abstract formulation of conditionality, attributed directly to the Buddha and repeated at several key points in the Saṃyutta Nikāya. The statement appears in its most distilled and memorable form in Ud.1.3:
Imasmiṃ sati, idaṃ hoti
Imassa nirodhā, idaṃ nirujjhati
“When this exists, that arises; when this ceases, that ceases.”
At first glance, this formula seems almost disarmingly simple. Its elegance lies precisely in its lack of technical vocabulary or doctrinal specificity. Unlike the twelve nidānas, which outline a detailed sequence of mental, psychological, and existential conditions culminating in suffering, this general statement does not reference particular mental states, karmic structures, or experiential processes. It offers instead a structural template for understanding causation itself.
A General Law of Conditionality in Embryonic Form
In the context of early Buddhism, this terse formulation functions as a philosophical axiom: a minimal yet comprehensive expression of the Buddha’s insight into conditionality. It states neither what the objects of dependence are nor how many conditions may be involved. Rather, it simply asserts that all conditioned phenomena arise in dependence upon their supporting causes and cease when those causes are removed.
Although the early texts rarely elaborate on this principle in abstract terms, its presence alongside the more technical discussion of the twelve nidānas reveals that the Buddha’s teaching on causation had a two-tiered structure:
1. a specific model of conditionality (the nidānas), tailored to the analysis of suffering; and
2. a general principle of conditionality, describing the basic logic of how conditioned events occur.
The second level provides the philosophical scaffolding that makes the first possible. The implications latent within his teaching on causation are far-reaching. The teaching subtly suggests:
that phenomena are not self-sufficient,
that nothing exists in isolation,
that events are contingent rather than necessary or eternal, and
that cessation follows naturally from the removal of conditions, not from divine intervention or fatalistic determinism.
Even without explicit metaphysical elaboration, the teaching expresses a remarkably sophisticated insight into relational existence. It offers a causal worldview that is neither linear nor mechanistic, but fluid, dynamic, and dependent on contextual relations.
The Seed of Later Philosophical Expansion
From a historical perspective, this laconic teaching becomes the conceptual seed from which later Buddhist philosophers — most notably Nāgārjuna and the Madhyamaka tradition — would develop a far more expansive interpretation of dependent origination. By taking the general statement as the primary expression of the Buddha’s insight and the twelve nidānas as merely one application of it, later thinkers reinterpret dependent origination as:
a universal principle of relational ontology,
the basis for the doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā),
a foundation for epistemology, ethics, and cosmology, and
a key to understanding not only suffering but the nature of all phenomena.
Thus, while the early canon refrains from turning conditionality into a systematised metaphysics, the very openness and universality of the formula make it ideally suited for later philosophical expansion. Its interpretive flexibility allows it to be read as both a statement about the conditions of suffering and a profound insight into the interdependent nature of all reality.
A Bridge Between Early Pragmatism and Later Philosophy
In this way, the general conditionality formula serves as a bridge between two worlds:
the pragmatically focused early teachings, which deploy dependent origination primarily as a diagnostic tool, and
the later philosophical traditions, which treat dependent origination as a comprehensive metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical principle.
Without this brief but powerful statement, it would be difficult to trace how a focused, soteriological teaching — the twelve nidānas — ultimately evolved into an all-encompassing doctrine of interdependence that shapes Mahāyāna thought, Tibetan scholasticism, and modern Buddhist philosophy.
IV. Nāgārjuna and the Universalisation of Dependent Origination
A major turning point in the intellectual history of Buddhism occurs with Nāgārjuna (ca. 2nd century CE), the founder of the Madhyamaka (“Middle Way”) school. His work marks one of the most decisive reorientations of Buddhist thought after the Buddha himself. Although Nāgārjuna rarely defines new doctrines, he radically reinterprets existing ones — above all pratītyasamutpāda, dependent origination.
Where the early Buddhist canon applies dependent origination primarily to the psychological mechanism of suffering (the twelve nidānas), Nāgārjuna universalises the concept, treating it as a philosophical law that describes the very mode of existence of all phenomena. In his masterwork, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK), he argues that dependent origination is not simply one teaching among many, but the key to understanding emptiness (śūnyatā), the middle way, and the absence of any intrinsic, self-grounded existence (svabhāva).
Dependent Origination as a Universal Principle in Nāgārjuna
Nāgārjuna’s interpretive leap rests on a single fundamental insight that he repeats throughout the MMK:
“Whatever arises dependently is empty (śūnya);
and whatever is empty arises only dependently.”
The two concepts — dependent origination and emptiness — are therefore not separate doctrines; rather, they are two perspectives on the same reality. This is one of the most influential conceptual moves in the history of Buddhist philosophy. It transforms dependent origination from a soteriological explanation of suffering into a universal account of the relational structure of all phenomena.
In Nāgārjuna’s view:
If a phenomenon arises dependently,
it cannot possess an intrinsic essence-nature (svabhāva),
because an intrinsic essence-nature would mean that it is self-sufficient, unconditioned, and thus not dependent on anything else.
Thus dependent origination becomes evidence that all things lack inherent existence.
Nāgārjuna’s Critique of Causal Theories
A central portion of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is devoted to what is often called Nāgārjuna’s “tetralemma” (catuṣkoṭi), in which he examines the four possible modes of arising and rejects each one:
1. Arising from itself (svataḥ):
If a thing could arise from itself, it would already have to exist before arising, which is contradictory. A fire cannot ignite itself if it already exists as a fire. Self-causation is therefore logically incoherent.
2. Arising from another (parataḥ):
If something arises from something entirely “other,” then there must be an absolute distinction between the cause and its effect. But this would make causal relation impossible. If the cause is wholly other than the effect, the effect could just as well arise without that cause. Pure other-caused arising collapses into randomness.
3. Arising from both self and other (ubhayataḥ):
If self-causation and other-causation are individually impossible, combining them does not resolve the problem. A combination of two impossibilities does not produce a possibility.
4. Arising from no cause at all (ahetu):
If things arose from no cause, then anything could arise from anything — or from nothing — at any time, without constraint. The world would be chaotic and unintelligible.
Nāgārjuna shows that all four alternatives lead to contradictions. His critique is not aimed at denying causation but at denying inherent causation — that is, causation grounded in self-existing essences.
The Middle Way: Dependent Origination Without Essence
Nāgārjuna’s alternative is neither essentialist nor nihilistic. Rather, he insists that phenomena arise conventionally (saṁvṛtyā) through dependently conditioned relations, without possessing any intrinsic, unchanging core. This is the meaning of the “Middle Way” in Madhyamaka:
not eternalism (things truly or inherently exist),
not nihilism (things do not exist at all),
but a middle position in which things exist conventionally, dependently, and emptily.
Thus, in Nāgārjuna’s hands, dependent origination becomes:
a critique of metaphysical absolutism,
a rejection of substantialism,
an analysis of relational constitution, and
a foundation for the doctrine of emptiness.
It is not an exaggeration to say that for Nāgārjuna, dependent origination is the very structure of reality.
The Universalisation of Dependent Origination
Nāgārjuna’s reinterpretation has enormous philosophical repercussions. Unlike the early Buddhist texts, which limit dependent origination largely to the analysis of suffering, Nāgārjuna applies it to:
all dharmas (phenomena),
all categories of experience and knowledge,
all conceptual constructions,
personal identity,
time, space, motion, and even Nirvāṇa itself.
Nothing escapes dependent origination — and therefore no phenomenon possesses an inherent self-existence.
The shift is so profound that later traditions treat Nāgārjuna’s view as the definitive interpretation of the Buddha’s intention. From this point forward, dependent origination is no longer simply part of Buddhist doctrine: it becomes the central philosophical principle of the entire Mahāyāna worldview.
The Foundation for Later Mahāyāna and Tibetan Thought
Nāgārjuna’s expansion of dependent origination sets the foundation for:
later Madhyamaka commentaries (Buddhapālita, Bhāvaviveka, Candrakīrti),
Yogācāra reinterpretations of dependent cognition,
the Tibetan scholastic systems (especially Tsongkhapa),
and modern Buddhist expositions of interdependence and emptiness.
Every major Mahāyāna philosophical development after the 2nd century is, directly or indirectly, a response to Nāgārjuna’s universalisation of dependent origination.
In this sense, Nāgārjuna does not merely extend the early doctrine: he redefines the entire landscape of Buddhist philosophy.
V. Yogācāra and the Expansion into Phenomenology
The Yogācāra or Vijñānavāda school (flourishing roughly from the 4th to the 5th centuries CE) represents another major philosophical development in the Buddhist tradition. Though distinct from Madhyamaka, it profoundly expands the notion of dependent origination. Whereas Nāgārjuna universalises dependent origination by equating it with emptiness and the relational constitution of all phenomena, the Yogācāra thinkers reinterpret dependent origination through the lens of consciousness itself. Their orientation is more phenomenological and psychological, concerned with the structures by which experience is constructed.
Dependent Origination as a Cognitive Process
In Yogācāra, dependent origination is not restricted to the external or physical relations between phenomena. Instead, it is reinterpreted as a process in which appearances arise dependently through the conditioning of consciousness. That is, the phenomenal world is not simply “out there” as an independently existing reality; it arises in dependence on the mind's underlying cognitive, affective, and karmic structures.
This shift is crystallised in the school’s most famous dictum:
vijñapti-mātra — often translated as “cognition-only,” “representation-only,” or “appearance-as-nothing-but-perception.”
The term does not deny the existence of an external world in a simplistic idealistic sense, but it asserts that whatever is known appears only through the medium of consciousness. Thus, what we take to be external objects are in fact the mind’s own representations, shaped by previous karmic impressions.
Layers of Cognitive Conditioning
Yogācāra philosophers such as Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, and later Sthiramati and Dharmapāla develop an extraordinarily detailed account of the mind’s structure. This includes:
the six ordinary consciousnesses (associated with the traditional six sense faculties),
a seventh consciousness (manas), which appropriates experience through the conceit “I am,” and
the ālayavijñāna or storehouse consciousness, which contains the latent impressions (vāsanā) and karmic seeds (bīja) that condition future perceptions.
In this framework, dependent origination operates not only across events and objects but also within consciousness itself. Each moment of cognition arises dependent upon prior impressions, memories, dispositions, and karmic tendencies. In turn, each cognitive moment leaves behind subtle traces that condition future experience.
A Triple Expansion of Dependent Origination
Thus, in Yogācāra thought, dependent origination becomes:
1. Causal:
Cognition arises through the conditioning influence of past karmic seeds. The storehouse consciousness continuously generates new experiential moments based on accumulated karmic potential.
2. Cognitive:
Appearances are not independent objects but depend on the activity of consciousness. The act of perception is itself a conditioned process.
3. Phenomenological:
Experience is structured by modes of awareness, including unconscious biases, habitual tendencies, and constructed conceptual frameworks. The world that one perceives is intimately tied to the way consciousness organises and interprets sensory data.
This threefold expansion is one of Yogācāra’s most distinctive contributions to the Buddhist philosophical landscape.
From Ontology to Epistemology and Phenomenology
In early Buddhism, dependent origination primarily explains the causal arising of suffering. In Madhyamaka, it becomes a principle of relational ontology: things exist only in dependence on conditions and are therefore empty of essence.
Yogācāra introduces a new dimension:
phenomena depend not only on other phenomena but also on the structures and functions of consciousness itself.
This is a profound shift from ontology to epistemology and phenomenology. It suggests that:
The world of experience is inseparable from the mind that experiences it.
The causal chains of dependent origination operate both externally (between events) and internally (within cognition).
The appearance of duality — subject here, object there — arises dependently and can be dismantled through deep meditative insight.
Correcting Misinterpretations: Yogācāra Is Not Naïve Idealism
Modern readers sometimes mistake Yogācāra for a kind of Buddhist “idealism,” akin to Western philosophical systems that claim that only the mind exists. However, Yogācāra thinkers themselves repeatedly insist that they are not denying the world’s existence. Rather, they are denying the assumption that the world appears independently of the conditions of consciousness.
In other words:
Yogācāra does not say that “only the mind exists,”
but that “what appears is always mediated and shaped by mind.”
This subtle but important clarification shows how the Yogācāra project remains entirely consistent with the broader Buddhist commitment to dependent origination.
The Yogācārin Contribution to the Evolution of Dependent Origination
By reframing dependent origination in cognitive terms, Yogācāra accomplishes several important developments:
It expands the early doctrine from a causal analysis of suffering into a deep inquiry into perception, consciousness, and experience.
It provides the first systematic Buddhist theory of unconscious mental processes (ālayavijñāna).
It connects dependent origination with karmic continuity, explaining how experiences arise even when their causes are no longer consciously accessible.
It lays the groundwork for later Tibetan and East Asian elaborations of dependent origination in psychology, ethics, and meditation theory.
A Complementary Perspective to Madhyamaka
Rather than contradicting Nāgārjuna, Yogācāra can be viewed as expanding dependent origination in a different dimension. While Madhyamaka emphasises that no phenomenon possesses intrinsic existence, Yogācāra emphasises how phenomena appear through consciousness. Both agree that things arise dependently, but Yogācāra focuses on the mechanisms of appearance, whereas Madhyamaka focuses on the ontological implications.
Together, these two traditions transform dependent origination into an extraordinarily rich and multidimensional doctrine that spans causation, ontology, epistemology, and phenomenology.
VI. Tibetan Syntheses: Tsongkhapa and the Mature Formulation
In Tibet, the doctrine of dependent origination undergoes yet another major transformation, reaching a level of philosophical clarity and systematic refinement unparalleled in earlier Indian sources. Among Tibetan scholars, Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) — founder of the Gelug school — stands out as the thinker who most thoroughly integrates Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka with selected Yogācāra insights, forging a synthesis that would become normative for much of Tibetan Buddhism and profoundly shape its intellectual identity.
Tsongkhapa’s Complex Inheritance
By the time Tibetan scholastics began consolidating Indian Buddhist philosophy, they inherited:
Nāgārjuna’s radical critique of intrinsic existence (svabhāva),
Candrakīrti’s Prāsaṅgika interpretation, emphasising the emptiness of even the subtlest conceptual reification,
Yogācāra theories of cognition, including the storehouse consciousness and the three-natures (trisvabhāva) doctrine,
Abhidharma causal theories and analytical categories, and
a vast corpus of tantric literature, which introduced yet more perspectives on mind, body, and cosmology.
Tsongkhapa’s philosophical achievement lies in weaving these diverse strands into a single coherent vision, centred on dependent origination.
Dependent Origination as the Key to Correctly Understanding Emptiness
Tsongkhapa repeatedly insists that dependent origination is the very “king” of reasonings (rgyu mtshan) and the most reliable basis for understanding emptiness. His crucial contribution is to show that emptiness cannot be understood as simple annihilation, negation, or non-existence. Rather:
Emptiness is the mode of existence of things precisely because they arise dependently.
He famously states:
“Dependent origination is the most profound and subtle doctrine.
Whoever sees dependent origination sees the Dharma.”
For Tsongkhapa, emptiness (śūnyatā) and dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) are inseparable. One cannot understand the former without the latter.
Three Levels at Which Dependent Origination Operates in Tsongkhapa’s Thought
Tsongkhapa interprets dependent origination as functioning simultaneously on three distinct but interrelated levels:
1. Dependent Origination as a Causal Explanation
The twelve nidānas, karmic causation
At the most accessible level, Tsongkhapa acknowledges the early Buddhist teaching of causal sequences, especially the twelve nidānas. These explain:
how suffering arises,
how rebirth is propelled,
and how the cycle of saṃsāra is perpetuated.
For Tsongkhapa, this causal model remains valid and indispensable. He does not replace early Buddhist causation with abstract ontology; rather, he integrates it as the practical foundation for ethical conduct and meditative practice.
2. Dependent Origination as an Ontological Principle
All dharmas exist only in dependence on causes, parts, and conceptual designation
Here Tsongkhapa embraces Nāgārjuna’s insight that because phenomena arise dependently, they lack intrinsic essence. However, Tsongkhapa elaborates this in greater analytical detail than Nāgārjuna, identifying three principal modes of dependence:
Dependence on causes and conditions (causal dependence),
Dependence on parts (mereological dependence), and
Dependence on conceptual designation (linguistic and cognitive dependence).
This tripartite analysis allows Tsongkhapa to argue that emptiness does not undermine the existence of things but precisely explains how they can function. If phenomena possessed intrinsic nature, they would be static, immutable, and incapable of interaction. Causality would become impossible.
By contrast, because things lack intrinsic essence, they are flexible, dynamic, and interrelated: therefore they can produce effects.
Thus, for Tsongkhapa, emptiness is not a threat to the world’s intelligibility: it is its necessary precondition.
3. Dependent Origination as a Hermeneutical Guide
As a method for interpreting scripture and avoiding philosophical extremes
This is perhaps Tsongkhapa’s most distinctive contribution. He argues that dependent origination provides the correct interpretive framework for reading all Buddhist teachings. It guards against:
eternalism (the belief in inherent existence), and
nihilism (the belief that nothing exists or that emptiness means non-existence).
Through dependent origination, emptiness becomes the middle way between these extremes. Tsongkhapa repeatedly criticises interpretations that turn emptiness into a form of nihilistic scepticism, arguing that such views misrepresent Nāgārjuna and distort the Buddha’s intention.
For Tsongkhapa, dependent origination becomes the single hermeneutical principle through which the entire Dharma — sūtra and tantra alike — must be understood.
A Philosophical Synthesis of Enormous Influence
Tsongkhapa’s synthesis of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra is subtle. He does not simply merge the two schools. Instead:
He adopts the Madhyamaka denial of intrinsic existence as ultimate.
He integrates certain Yogācāra insights into the conventional analysis of mind and cognition.
He uses these Yogācāra elements to explain how illusions arise, how conceptual thought constructs experience, and how meditative transformation unfolds.
In this way, Tsongkhapa preserves the Madhyamaka emphasis on emptiness while employing Yogācāra psychology to illuminate the workings of conventional truth.
The Central Pillar of Tibetan Scholasticism
Because of Tsongkhapa’s enormous influence, dependent origination becomes — in the Tibetan context — nothing less than the central pillar of Buddhist philosophy, underpinning both metaphysics and practice. His writings, particularly the Lamrim Chenmo, the Madhyamaka treatises, and the Ocean of Reasoning, shape:
the curriculum of monastic universities,
the Tibetan understanding of emptiness,
the approach to meditative insight (lhagthong),
the interpretation of tantric texts, and
the philosophical identity of the Gelug school.
Over time, even non-Gelug traditions engage with Tsongkhapa’s arguments, either adopting or critiquing them, but always responding to the conceptual landscape he helped shape.
The Solidification of the Universal Interpretation of Dependent Origination
Through Tsongkhapa’s synthesis, dependent origination is cemented as:
the key to understanding emptiness,
the fundamental nature of phenomena,
the guiding hermeneutic for all Buddhist teachings, and
the bridge between philosophy and meditation.
From this point on, the interpretation of dependent origination as a universal principle of interdependence becomes definitive in Tibetan Buddhism and deeply influences modern global presentations of the Dharma.
VII. Mipam’s Dzogchen-Inflected Understanding of Dependent Origination
By the nineteenth century, Tibetan Buddhism had developed intricate scholastic traditions, and within these the Nyingma school cultivated a distinctive synthesis of Madhyamaka philosophy and Dzogchen contemplative insight. One of the most important thinkers of this period is Jamgön Mipam Gyatso (1846–1912), whose works reshape Buddhist philosophy by integrating Indian Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, and Tathāgatagarbha doctrines with the non-dual phenomenology of the Great Perfection (Dzogchen). In Mipam’s system, dependent origination remains central, but it is interpreted through the lens of appearance-emptiness and the primordial knowing nature of mind.
Mipam’s Philosophical Context: A Unique Synthesis
Mipam inherits — and critiques — a long tradition of Madhyamaka exegesis. He is deeply versed in:
Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti,
Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla,
Yogācāra epistemology (Dignāga, Dharmakīrti),
Tathāgatagarbha literature, and
the esoteric Dzogchen corpus, especially the Heart Essence texts.
Mipam’s innovation lies in articulating a system where:
dependent origination,
emptiness, and
luminosity (’od gsal)
are not merely compatible but mutually illuminating. Unlike Tsongkhapa, who emphasises inferential reasoning and the non-affirming negation of svabhāva, Mipam develops a non-dual model where emptiness and awareness are inseparable, and where dependent origination reveals the dynamic display of the primordially pure mind.
Dependent Origination as the Dynamic Display of Appearance-Emptiness
Mipam agrees with Madhyamaka that all phenomena arise in dependence and lack intrinsic essence-existence. However, he insists that dependent arising must be viewed not only as negation but also as a positive revelation of the mind’s natural luminosity. He frequently invokes the formula:
“Appearance is empty; emptiness appears.”
This is his key to dependent origination. In other words:
All conditioned things arise dependently, therefore they are empty of essence.
But because they are empty, they can manifest as a playful display of awareness.
Mipam refers to this as “empty appearance” (stong snang), a teaching central to Dzogchen.
Where Tsongkhapa interprets dependent origination primarily as a method to infer emptiness, Mipam interprets dependent origination as the dynamic unfolding of emptiness itself.
Dependent Origination and the Two Truths: Mipam’s Non-Dual Reformulation
Mipam introduces one of the most original re-interpretations of the Two Truths (bden pa gnyis) in the entire Tibetan canon. He identifies:
Emptiness with the ultimate nature (don dam),
Dependent appearance with the conventional nature (tha snyad),
but insists they are non-dual because they are both expressions of a single reality.
He states:
“The ultimate is not elsewhere than the conventional;
the conventional does not obscure the ultimate.
They are different only in mode of apprehension.”
This has profound implications for dependent origination:
Causality, perception, and experience arise through dependent origination
but these very appearances are expressions of the empty, luminous ground.
Thus dependent origination is not a “veil” obscuring emptiness; it is the mode through which emptiness displays itself.
3. Dependent Origination in the Light of Buddha-Nature
Where Tsongkhapa is cautious about Buddha-nature literature, Mipam makes it a cornerstone. For Mipam, Buddha-nature (tathāgatagarbha) is simply the empty-luminous ground from which dependent origination unfolds. This allows him to say:
The mind’s nature is primordially pure (ka dag).
All appearances arise as its spontaneous presence (lhun grub).
Therefore dependent origination is rooted in awareness itself, not in external substances.
Here dependent origination becomes a hermeneutical bridge linking Madhyamaka emptiness with the Dzogchen view of innate enlightenment.
Dependent Origination and the Nature of Mind in Dzogchen
In Dzogchen, the fundamental reality is rigpa, the non-conceptual knowing of the mind’s own essence. Mipam interprets dependent origination through this framework:
1. Ordinary beings perceive dependent origination through the dualistic mind, which constructs subject, object, and causal sequences.
2. Bodhisattvas perceive dependent origination as empty appearances, understanding that phenomena arise only through conceptual designation.
3. Buddhas (or Dzogchen adepts in non-dual awareness) perceive dependent origination as the spontaneous radiance of primordial purity: the effortless unfolding of awareness beyond concept.
Thus dependent origination reflects three modes of cognition, culminating in the non-dual recognition where cause and effect are understood as the playful display of rigpa.
Mipam’s Critique of Gelug Interpretations
Mipam, without dismissing Tsongkhapa, offers critical correctives:
(a) On the nature of emptiness
He rejects the notion that emptiness must be understood only as a non-affirming negation.
For Mipam, emptiness is a positive potential, the ground of appearance.
(b) On the status of the ultimate
Mipam endorses “presentation of the ultimate in terms of appearance”, which Gelug scholars argue risks reification. Mipam counters that:
“Emptiness devoid of clarity is the emptiness of stones.”
Thus he insists that dependent origination, emptiness, and luminous knowing cannot be separated.
(c) On dependent origination
He argues the Gelug approach treats dependent origination too analytically, focusing on refutation. Mipam instead sees dependent origination as the natural expression of the primordial mind, a process not fully captured by inferential analysis.
Dependent Origination as the Union of Insight and Meditation
Mipam’s approach is deeply experiential. For him, dependent origination is not primarily a philosophical argument but a directly observable fact when one looks into the nature of mind.
Through meditative recognition:
causality dissolves into spontaneity,
multiplicity dissolves into non-dual presence,
emptiness reveals itself as radiant clarity.
In this state, dependent origination is experienced as:
“the effortless unfolding of the ground, free from contrivance.”
This is the Dzogchen perspective: dependent origination is not merely a chain of causes but the radiant expression of the primordial mind.
The Mature Nyingma Interpretation: Universal Display of the Ground
Mipam’s legacy firmly establishes in Nyingma thought that:
Dependent origination is the phenomenal display of the empty-luminous ground.
Emptiness and appearance are inseparable.
Philosophical reasoning must culminate in non-conceptual awareness.
Dzogchen provides the highest articulation of dependent origination.
Thus, like Tsongkhapa, Mipam makes dependent origination the centrepiece of his entire system — but he does so by integrating it into a non-dual ontology and contemplative epistemology grounded in Dzogchen.
IX. Conclusion
The now widespread understanding of dependent origination as a doctrine of universal interdependence is neither an invention of modern interpreters nor a simple restatement of early Buddhist teachings. Rather, it is the culmination of a long, multilayered historical evolution, in which successive Buddhist traditions deepened, broadened, and recontextualised the concept in response to their own philosophical concerns, hermeneutical strategies, and cultural environments.
At its earliest stratum, the Nikāya/Āgama material presents dependent origination in a precise and technical form: the twelvefold chain (dvādasa-nidāna) that diagnoses the conditioned arising of suffering and prescribes the path to its cessation. This model is highly focused, operating primarily as a therapeutic and diagnostic tool within a soteriological framework. Yet even within these earliest sources we already find a more abstract formulation — “when this exists, that comes to be; when this ceases, that ceases” — a terse principle of conditionality that later thinkers would seize upon as the conceptual bridge toward a more universal understanding.
Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka represents the first major expansion of this principle into a comprehensive philosophical doctrine. By identifying dependent origination with emptiness (śūnyatā), Nāgārjuna transforms a narrowly defined model of psychological causation into a universal claim about the relational nature of all phenomena. This move renders dependent origination not only the key to the cessation of suffering but also the core of Buddhist metaphysics, epistemology, and ontology — a shift that would shape the entire trajectory of Mahāyāna thought.
The Yogācāra movement extends this universalisation further by interpreting dependent origination through the lens of cognitive and phenomenological processes. Here, dependent arising is not only external and causal; it is also internal and perceptual. Appearances arise dependently through the conditioning of consciousness itself. This reorientation anchors dependent origination within a sophisticated theory of mind, positioning it as a foundational principle for understanding the construction of experience.
Tibetan scholasticism then synthesises and systematises these developments. With thinkers such as Tsongkhapa, dependent origination becomes the hermeneutical key that unites Madhyamaka reasoning, ethical analysis, and meditative practice. With Mipam, the doctrine is further integrated into a non-dual framework informed by Dzogchen, in which dependent arising expresses not only emptiness but also the luminous dynamism of awareness. Tibetan thought thus situates dependent origination at the centre of a vast philosophical architecture, serving simultaneously as causal principle, philosophical insight, contemplative method, and ontological description.
Nāgārjuna, © Himalayan Arts
