Interdependent Co-arising and Institutionalized Ignorance

Interdependent co-arising (pratītyasamutpāda) is a a key Buddhist teaching most easily described as cause and effect, though it is not necessarily a linear chain of causation. It can be more accurately described as a network of multiple causes and conditions. It is commonly expressed as the following:

This is, because that is.This is not, because that is not.This ceases to be, because that ceases to be.

The Twelve Nidanas are a specific application of pratītyasamutpāda describing the chain of causation from ignorance to suffering. In the original Theravadan tradition I began practicing in, this teaching was usually explained at length after seven or eight days of sitting. It clearly demonstrates how (1) ignorance of the causes of suffering leads to suffering, (2) how awakening to those causes and (3) intervening in the Nidana cycle at the appropriate point leads to the collapse of the chain, or the cessation of suffering. In essence, it is a much more detailed exposition of the Four Noble Truths.While going into each of the Twelve Nidanas is beyond the scope of this post, it is a teaching of great depth with important insights for socially engaged Buddhist practice. This is because interdependent co-arising shows that the individual and its environment are inseparable, without clear demarcation. Without knowing the fundamental causes of suffering (craving and clinging), an individual will continue ignorantly reacting to whatever conditions arise in the world, whatever their source. This of course includes unpleasant phenomena such as racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and economic exploitation, regardless of whether it is perceived to come from an individual or institution.The gift of mindfulness practice is a rehearsed ability to intervene in the process of reactivity, which normally would be habitual and without thought. So rather than immediately and ignorantly reacting in a way that causes more suffering for us and others, mindfulness practice hopefully gives us some breathing space between the event and our response. For many of us, this may mean that we still get angry and upset, but there’s a two second gap in there rather than a nanosecond. Over time, this gap may increase, and perhaps the reactivity will cool off in the gap, and we have a broader range of choices for how to respond. This is how mindfulness intervenes in the chain of causation from ignorance to suffering.As we might know, it is hard enough to intervene on our own individual ignorance and reactivity. Put a bunch of us in a room and you have a group of people reacting to their own and others’ ignorance. Incorporate that group as a social institution—whether a school, police force, government agency, or corporation—and formalize that ignorance through policies, laws, or through informal, unwritten rules of conduct or practice, and you have something that is more than the sum of its ignorant parts, with far-reaching power.Interdependent co-arising is useful for contemplating institutional and structural oppressions, where the first consists of explicit laws, policies, and practices that have an oppressive effect, and the latter consists of seemingly neutral patterns of institutional activity that have a cumulatively oppressive effect, though without explicitly oppressive policies. An example of the first is a company that has a policy of discriminating against people of color or LGBTQ people. An example of the latter is a bank that decides whether to lend money based on a potential client’s zip code—a neutral piece of information, but with a strong tendency to negatively effect poor and working-class people.While the first example can be remedied by changing the policy, the question of accountability can be sidestepped or distributed throughout the company as a legal entity, preventing individual accountability. The latter example is harder to remedy because there is no specific policy, rule, or law that is discriminatory—decisions are being made “objectively” based on “neutral” data. The task then becomes to demonstrate a historic and pervasive pattern of discriminatory and negative effects. But again, how to ensure accountability is a tricky task.Both cases are an accumulation of formal and informal social practices that may or may not be pinned on an individual as the cause. The discriminatory or oppressive effect is the result of an ecology of collective ignorance, both conscious and unconscious. It co-arises interdependently.The US socially engaged Buddhist Joanna Macy has used interdependent co-arising to illustrate the principles of deep ecology, where the individual is just a part of the larger fabric of living beings, and harming any part of the fabric harms the individual. Therefore, the health of our planet is, at base level, an act of self-care and self-preservation. This presupposes that the individual will care, which assumes the best of everyone.In the case of institutionalized oppression, there are many who benefit from both ignorance and suffering. A common liberal assumption is that, if presented with a sufficiently rational argument, someone causing suffering will see their error and stop or change. But if they benefit from the oppressive arrangement, why would they? There is a similar vein of thought I see among some Buddhists, where the assumption is that, if presented with sufficient equanimity and compassion, the other person’s humanity will somehow respond rather than their inhumanity. I would like to believe this is the case, and though sometimes I swing towards cynicism, I see everyday examples of this principle in small ways. But still, armed with insight into the causes of suffering and empathy for all people’s basic desire to be free from suffering, no matter what suffering they themselves have caused, can we intervene into every chain of interdependently institutionalized ignorance? Is this naive? What do you think?