Los doce eslabones del surgimiento dependiente budista

Today, as we discussed, we will talk about the 12 links of dependent origination. We will approach it, as always, from a slightly broader perspective, perhaps not entirely orthodox, but one that I believe will help in understanding the process. We will also relate it to how the mind viewed the Yogacara, the famous eight consciousnesses, and touch upon practical aspects of our meditation and daily lives, and so on. As an introduction, it's worth noting that this teaching is even older than that of the eight Yogacara consciousnesses; it appears in the Pali Canon and is therefore directly and initially attributed to the historical Buddha. It is thus a primordial and original teaching of Buddhism. In short, it aims to explain how ignorance gives rise to samsara, the cyclical existence in which we suffer. Many authors have stated that this is the Buddha's most important teaching, even more so than the Four Noble Truths or the Eightfold Path. These 12 links have been interpreted in two different ways. The more orthodox and Buddhist interpretation is that they explain how the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth occurs, driven by karma and attachment. Another way of looking at it is more mental and explains how this cycle of attachment, samsara, and suffering occurs, but on a mental level, not so much through physical death or birth. As we explain the links, we can try to see the differences and what each link implies. A little more. We will group the links into three blocks. I think a large part of the difficulty in understanding the 12 links stems from the assumption that they have to be 12 consecutive steps. They aren't. Or at least I don't think they are. And the way I will explain them doesn't imply that they are always 12 consecutive steps. In some cases they are consecutive, and in others they are not. As I said, we will group the links into three blocks. The first part will address the starting conditions, the initial conditions, and these are not consecutive. Then, consecutively, we will see how the mind operates based on these initial conditions. And the third section will focus primarily on how the mind projects a future. Starting from the beginning, we will group the first three or four links as starting conditions. I think that makes understanding the process easier. And then we will see why I said three or four, depending on your view of the universe. Even the first link is ignorance. This is because, for Buddhism, the cause of samsara is ignorance, and therefore the cause of the resolution of samsara, that is, nirvana, is wisdom, and no other criterion. This already tells us a lot about some practices that focus excessively on only meditation or mindfulness, or even virtue. The next link is karma, or karmic formations; that is, ultimately, the "llaviñana," as we saw a few days ago, which is where, according to Buddhism, our karma is stored. Sometimes it's called samskara in Sanskrit, sometimes vasanas. For example, in the Anka Sutra, it's called basanas. And sometimes it's translated as the energy of habit. This is also the translation used in the Enkabatara. In other words, we are ignorant, and that's where we accumulate karma. Even if you don't believe in rebirth and don't have inherited karma. Therefore, in just a few years, you will have already accumulated those karmic seeds we saw the other day. And these aren't just Buddhist facts; it's obvious to anyone who observes the mind that this happens. What we call it, where it is, and so on, is another matter. The third link is the fact that we are conscious. Consciousness exists. As you can see, it's difficult to establish a causal chain between these three elements. You can force it, but it's not necessary. It's enough to understand that we are ignorant, we accumulate karma, and we are conscious beings. These three blocks constitute our starting points. The fourth element is name and form. Here we're already talking about what happens as a result of our having consciousness, which is that name and form appear. We could also call name and form conceptuality or intellect, right? And form, well, qualia, phenomenon, consciousness. Well, not consciousness because it has its own meaning. Qualia, phenomenon? What we're saying here again is that Buddhism equates conceptuality—the fact that names appear, that we assign names to forms—with forms themselves. Of course, the fact that all this arises is because we are conscious, and in my opinion, even in relation to our karma. We see the way we do because of our karmic past. etc...