New book by Brasington on Dependent Origination – free!

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Niels Lyngsø, modified 2 Years ago at 10/30/21 12:03 AM
Created 2 Years ago at 10/30/21 12:02 AM

New book by Brasington on Dependent Origination – free!

Posts: 413 Join Date: 11/15/19 Recent Posts
Leigh Brasington has just published a new book via his website. It's called

DEPENDENT ORIGINATION and EMPTINESS

with the subtitel

Streams
Of
Dependently
Arising
Processes
Interacting.

The book is introduced like this on his website:
"An accessible and demystifying look at Dependent Origination and Emptiness as described in the suttas of the Pāli Canon and in Nagarjuna's Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā.The book is divided into three parts:
Part 1 provides background information that will be needed to understand what follows.
Part 2 discusses the links of dependent origination, examining various interpretations and their implications.
Part 3 dives into the general case of dependently arising phenomena and the deeper implication thereof."

​​​​​​​It can be downloaded for free.
Eudoxos , modified 2 Years ago at 10/30/21 6:00 AM
Created 2 Years ago at 10/30/21 6:00 AM

RE: New book by Brasington on Dependent Origination – free!

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Thanks for the notification. Downloaded & queued emoticon
Martin, modified 2 Years ago at 10/30/21 10:41 AM
Created 2 Years ago at 10/30/21 10:41 AM

RE: New book by Brasington on Dependent Origination – free!

Posts: 746 Join Date: 4/25/20 Recent Posts
Excellent news! Thank you for letting us know, Niels. I've heard Leigh talk about his SODAPI take on DO in an interview and it has stuck with me ever since, so I am really looking forward to this. 
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Noah D, modified 2 Years ago at 11/2/21 12:36 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 11/2/21 12:36 PM

RE: New book by Brasington on Dependent Origination – free!

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Thanks for sharing.
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เอียน พิชฟอร์ด, modified 2 Years ago at 11/20/21 10:51 AM
Created 2 Years ago at 11/20/21 10:04 AM

RE: New book by Brasington on Dependent Origination – free!

Posts: 40 Join Date: 2/10/20 Recent Posts
This is a really good effort by Brasington. I would say it's possible to get a good intellectual understanding of paticcasamuppāda using this and Buddhadāsa's 'Under the Bodhi Tree.' In particular the images taken from the Tibetan Wheel of Life really help to fix the twelve links in memory.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 2 Years ago at 11/20/21 1:38 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 11/20/21 1:38 PM

RE: New book by Brasington on Dependent Origination – free!

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Awesome! I'll listen to it on speechify tonight. 
Martin, modified 2 Years ago at 12/12/21 7:13 AM
Created 2 Years ago at 12/11/21 9:08 PM

RE: New book by Brasington on Dependent Origination – free!

Posts: 746 Join Date: 4/25/20 Recent Posts
Leigh is interviewed about his book on Guru Viking (https://www.guruviking.com/ep122-mysteries-of-dependent-origination-leigh-brasington/) and I've got to say, the interview is almost as good as the book, which is excellent! I think that reading the book and watching the interview is such a great combo, that I just might repeat it. I can't say if the interview stands alone (having already read the book when I saw the interview) but I have a feeling it would be pretty good that way too. 

https://www.guruviking.com/ep122-mysteries-of-dependent-origination-leigh-brasington/

BTW, Some very smart person on this list once described Thich Nhat Hanh's essay, The fullness of emptiness (https://www.lionsroar.com/the-fullness-of-emptiness/) as a complete description of dependant origination, and that essay, understood in that light, fits very well with the second half of Leigh's book, as is particularly apparent from his comments in the interview. 
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เอียน พิชฟอร์ด, modified 2 Years ago at 12/13/21 11:15 AM
Created 2 Years ago at 12/13/21 11:15 AM

RE: New book by Brasington on Dependent Origination – free!

Posts: 40 Join Date: 2/10/20 Recent Posts
I agree with you completely Martin: the interview works brilliantly with the book.

Thanks also for citing the terrific article by Thich Nhat Hanh. I think the essay is really about idapaccayatā, the natural law of conditionality underlying paṭiccasamuppāda, which is the application of that law to phenomenology. This matters because it's possible to take the Buddha's disregard of ontology to it's logical conclusion and assert that dependent origination is true even if nothing exists outside of phenomenal experience, i.e., we don't have to be committed to the idea that anything exists at all to follow the Noble Eightfold Path.

Saṁyuttanikāya 12.2
https://suttacentral.net/sn12.20/en/sujato?layout=sidebyside&reference=main&notes=asterisk&highlight=true&script=latin
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mirage Samana, modified 2 Years ago at 12/22/21 5:16 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 12/22/21 5:16 PM

RE: New book by Brasington on Dependent Origination – free!

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Loved this! A gem. This is the most engagingly written book on the subject I've encountered and really one of the clearest. Loved it as a reader and I'm very grateful for it as a practitioner. The style is very approachable and the academic work underpinning it isn't dry and burdoned with having to prove his academic knowledge by way of footnote papañca. That can be such a bummer! Yet, it's rich with Sutta-based support. And naturally, Nagarjuna emoticon The additional information on Bahiya was eye-opening. Leigh has distilled The Nibbana Sermons here. SODAPI....
Martin, modified 2 Years ago at 1/4/22 8:54 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 1/4/22 8:54 PM

RE: New book by Brasington on Dependent Origination – free!

Posts: 746 Join Date: 4/25/20 Recent Posts
Just to add to the list of good things associated with Brasington's new book, I have now finished Buddhadasa's Under The Bodhi Tree, which is strongly recommended as part of Brasington's book, and it is top-notch. I especially liked the instruction to regard the workings of the nervous system as workings of the nervous system (kind of an updated phrasing of the instructions to Bahiya). 

At the end of the book, Buddhadasa recommends memorizing and reciting a shortened version, which goes, "Through the interaction of eye and form, eye consciousness arises. These three conditions together are contact. Contact conditions feeling, feeling conditions craving, craving conditions clinging, clinging conditions becoming, becoming conditions birth, and birth conditions aging and death. Thus arises the entire mass of suffering." I wanted to mention, if you are looking for a quick memorization hack, this formulation can be sung to the tune of Big Rock Candy Mountain. 
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Niels Lyngsø, modified 2 Years ago at 1/29/22 1:49 AM
Created 2 Years ago at 1/28/22 1:00 PM

RE: New book by Brasington on Dependent Origination – free!

Posts: 413 Join Date: 11/15/19 Recent Posts
Unrelated to Brasington, I found this other take on Dependent Origination. It is by Duncan Barford.

​​​​​​​I have also listened to a handfull of other episodes from his podcast and found them both entertaining, informative and original. I came about Duncan Barford and his podcast in this thread which links to another great episode.

Barford is at least as British as Brasington is American ( emoticon ), and these two quite different styles, both rhetorically and with regards to perspective and interpretation, are IMO a great supplement to each other. Hereby recommended!
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เอียน พิชฟอร์ด, modified 2 Years ago at 2/1/22 10:31 AM
Created 2 Years ago at 2/1/22 10:09 AM

RE: New book by Brasington on Dependent Origination – free!

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Dependent Origination is as much about birth and death as it is about monkeys and boats.

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