Buddhist Analysis: Causes, Conditions and Results

Here is the situation that we are analyzing. I don’t have my computer. What’s the immediate cause (dngos-rgyu), which has also been translated as direct cause? This is what brought on this situation immediately. What immediately brought it on was that I picked up the wrong bag. Now what is translated here as indirect cause (brgyud-rgyu), we have to understand what indirect means; it means antecedent causes, the sequence of events that led up to the immediate cause of picking up the wrong bag. What are the antecedent causes? The antecedent causes here are: it was a bumpy airplane ride, which was followed by getting a headache on the plane, then there was a long wait for the luggage, and I was worried that the person who was picking me up was waiting too long for me, and then I got distracted talking to a fellow passenger. All of that led to the direct cause: I picked up the wrong bag. OK? 

We have the immediate result (dngos-’bras), also translated as the direct result. That is what immediately followed after not having the right bag, not having my computer. The direct result was that I walked out of the airport with the wrong bag. Then, what is translated in our material as the indirect result (brgyud-’bras) is referring to all the successive results, in sequence, that happened after that. I couldn’t do my work; then I had to call the airport and go back to the airport to try to recover my computer. All those are the successive results that followed. OK? 

It is quite important in analyzing the situation – to see all the things that led up to what happened and all the things that follow it, sort of in a succession – so that we don’t just limit the way that we look at things in terms of a limited time span. Whatever we experience has a long antecedent of causes, and then it has a long succession of results. One thing leads to another, leads to another, leads to another. 

Then, we have what’s called here the material cause, which I translate as the obtainer cause (nyer-len-gyi rgyu), and the simultaneously acting condition (lhan-cig byed-pa’i rkyen). What are these? Let me first translate the definition here of an obtainer cause: it’s a factor within an individual continuum that transforms into the next phase of the continuum. Now, what does that mean? First of all, we shouldn’t think, when this is translated as material cause or substantial cause, that this kind of cause is some solid thing; that’s not really what the word means. Nor is it talking about successive phases of one solid thing. Literally, the word means obtaining; it is that from which we obtain the result. What this is referring to is something in our mental continuum from which we obtain this item – picking up the wrong bag – as its successor. In most cases, it ceases to exist once the successor arises. 

What are the examples of this? An example would be the seed and the plant. From the seed, we obtain the plant – it’s in a succession – and when we get the plant, we no longer have the seed. Or the unbaked dough is the obtaining cause for the baked bread. It is the obtaining cause in the sense that we obtain the bread from it. But what we have to watch out for is that we’re not talking about the substance of the bread, the substance of the bread in terms of the atoms and these sorts of things. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about that from which we get the item, but the unbaked dough is not there anymore when we have the bread, is it? However, it’s in the succession. That’s why we have this word succession, continuum. 

Here in our example, we’re talking about our mental continuum. I mean, it could be in a general continuum, but now we’re talking about a mental continuum. Sometimes that obtaining cause is finished when we get the result, but sometimes it can give more than one result, so it will continue to be there until it exhausts giving all its results. What we’re talking about is… in Tibetan, we use the same word as seed (sa-bon). Again, we shouldn’t think of it as a material seed; I think it’s better to understand it in this context as tendencies and potentials. 

There’s a tendency not to be mindful, right? That was the obtaining cause for picking up the wrong bag; I wasn’t mindful. Then, I have a tendency for the destructive action of taking what is not mine and a potential to have my computer lost, to have my possessions lost, and I also have a tendency to get angry with myself. All of these are the obtaining causes, or what’s called here substantial causes for this incident that happened, what we’re experiencing. 

What were the simultaneously acting conditions, or the contributing conditions? What contributed to this? I wasn’t wearing my glasses, and I was talking to somebody else. These were the key conditions that were going on at that time that helped this situation to arise. 

Thus, we start to see that what we experience, what happens, is dependent on so many things that went on before, and our own tendencies that are in our mental continuum, the circumstances in which things happened, etc. All of that is affecting what happened. Let’s take a moment to digest that much. The issue is that we can’t blame anything. Because there are so many factors involved, we can’t place the blame on any one of them and feel guilty about it. 

We have a system of six different kinds of causes. Although that might look terribly complicated, especially when we try to work with the specific definitions, nevertheless, it is a very useful scheme if one can work with it in terms of an example and see what it’s talking about. 

Acting Causes

First, we have the acting causes (byed-rgyu), and this is referring to everything else except the actual result. This is implying that whatever happens to us is interconnected with everything that has ever happened. Nothing exists isolated; everything is interconnected. That’s the point of this. 

What are some of the acting causes? There were those who invented computers; I couldn’t have lost my computer if somebody didn’t invent the computer. There are all the people who made it. There are all the people who made the plastic and mined the metal that went into the computer, and these sorts of things. Then, I bought the computer, and so there’s also the store where I bought it from. Somebody must have built the store, and somebody must have sold it to me. How did I get to the store? I took public transportation. Well, somebody must have built it. Somebody must have driven the subway, the U-Bahn that I took. All of these are acting causes for losing my computer. How about getting into really basic things, like my parents gave birth to me, and I’ve gotten older, so I’m less mindful. If we really start to analyze all of this, it’s an unbelievable amount of factors that are acting causes that somehow are responsible for what happened. It’s interesting that if any of these are left out like if nobody ever invented the computer, the whole thing could never have happened. 

Simultaneously Arising Causes

The second one is the simultaneously arising cause (lhan-cig ’byung-ba’i rgyu). These are all the things that are together with what is happening, in the sense that they support the result. They arise simultaneously with the result, in a sense. If we think about it, my arm that was picking up the wrong bag and the action of picking up the bag, this was all happening simultaneously with picking up the wrong bag. Could I have taken the wrong bag and not have my computer if I didn’t have an arm that picked up the bag? Then, if the arm didn’t have muscles and didn’t have blood flowing through it and these sorts of things, the whole thing couldn’t have happened, right? Or seeing the bag, seeing something on the floor. If I didn’t see it, I couldn’t have picked it up. Then, seeing it without paying very much attention, that was what was really involved. Although it starts to sound a little bit funny, nevertheless, if we really think about it, all these things were involved. Again, if some of them were missing, it wouldn’t have happened. Let’s digest that for a moment. 

Equal Status Causes

The third type of cause, here, is known as an equal status cause (skal-mnyam-gyi rgyu), which means the causes for which the results are later moments in the same type of category of the phenomenon as the causes. In other words, we’re talking about a certain status of the cause and effect, and the status – I’ll explain what that status is referring to – is the same for the cause and for the effect. It’s primarily referring to the ethical status (rigs). 

To understand what this is referring to, we have to present yet another division scheme for phenomena. First, we have the division into upsetting (zang-zing) and non-upsetting (zang-zing ma-yin-pa) things. In terms of upsetting, it’s upsetting us; it’s making us upset. It’s upsetting in the sense that – well, I’ll give the definition. Something upsetting is mixed with naivety about reality, and non-upsetting is not mixed with this naivety. It’s more in this division of samsara and nirvana, this type of way of dividing things. 

What would be an upsetting thought? What would be a non-upsetting thought? An upsetting thought would be, out of naivety, “I’m a total idiot. I’m so stupid. How could I be like that?” What would be non-upsetting? “I’m a human being. Human beings make mistakes. These things happen because of all sorts of causes and conditions, etc. What do I expect? I’m getting older. Things like this happen.” It’s important to have very clear thinking here. 

Now we have a division of three: destructive, constructive and neutral. 

Destructive (mi-dge-ba) is something that will ripen into gross unhappiness or the all-pervasive problem of just continuing our samsaric rebirth. Constructive (dge-ba) is what’s going to bring about our ordinary happiness; this is the suffering of change. It’s not going to be satisfying, it’s not going to last and so on, but it is not as bad as unhappiness. That also perpetuates samsara. Finally, the neutral ones (lung ma-bstan) are neither. 

When we talk about destructive phenomena, there’s a whole big list of these, analyzed in different levels of complexity. However, we have what’s called the three poisons (dug-gsum): the three poisonous attitudes of anger (zhe-sdang), greed and attachment (’dod-chags, longing desire) and naivety (gti-mug). Here, there’s actually a difference between naivety and unawareness (ma-rig-pa). 

Unawareness, sometimes translated as ignorance, can accompany either a constructive or destructive or neutral state of mind. We just don’t know, or we know incorrectly, about either cause and effect or reality. If it’s that we don’t know or we know incorrectly about cause and effect, that’s involved with destructive behavior. We think that stealing is going to make us happy; it doesn’t, as it’s something that will bring problems. Then, unawareness about how we exist, how everything exists, this could be behind destructive, constructive, or neutral phenomena. So, there are two types of unawareness: unawareness of cause and effect and unawareness of reality. 

When we look at the term in Tibetan, timuk, or moha in Sanskrit, it’s very difficult to translate. I call it naivety. What it’s referring to is this unawareness only when it is accompanying destructive behavior or destructive phenomena. It’s a subcategory. It’s either not knowing about cause and effect or not knowing about reality when it accompanies a destructive phenomenon – that’s called naivety. I can’t think of any word in our languages that would actually mean that. The whole implication of having a separate term here is that it’s much worse when it’s involved with something destructive. I think this indicates – although this is perhaps getting terribly technical – the importance of knowing the definitions and understanding them; otherwise, terminology just becomes too confusing, and we don’t really know exactly what they’re talking about. Terminology in Buddhism is extremely specific. 

So, what’s destructive? Anger and attachment and this naivety, and the actions that are motivated by them, and all the mental factors that would accompany when we’re having these disturbing emotions. All of these are destructive. 

What would be constructive would be love, compassion, these sorts of things, when they are mixed with this unawareness. “I am so wonderful. I remembered my bag,” “I got it back. I’m so great!” It’s this sort of feeling. “I’m so thankful to you for this,” but with the feeling of “Wow, you’re so wonderful,” and making such a big deal out of it. This is unawareness of reality but mixed with something fairly constructive. What was behind this incident was a big, big thought of me, and “Oh, what am I going to do?” and so on. “And now I can do my work.” There’s a big self-centered thought behind this positive feeling of being thankful and grateful and so on. That leads to happiness, but it’s a type of happiness that doesn’t last and isn’t satisfying. 

Then, neutral phenomena. What’s neutral are things that are neither constructive nor destructive. They could be part of something constructive or destructive; by themselves, they’re neutral. That could be attention, interest, intelligence, these sorts of things. By themselves, they’re neutral. 

In our example with taking the wrong computer, what would be destructive would be anger; I’m angry with myself. What would be constructive would be patience in this situation. Then what is neutral – literally the word is unspecified (Buddha didn’t specify it is destructive or constructive) – what’s unspecified would be the computer. What’s neutral is the computer itself. Me, I’m a neutral phenomenon. The mindfulness. 

What about equanimity?

Equanimity would be constructive. We couldn’t have anger and equanimity at the same time. However, we could have mindfulness while being angry, or we could have mindfulness while being very kind. 

Equal status cause refers to things that happen before what’s going on now that are in the same status – destructive, constructive, or neutral – as what’s going on now. What am I having now? I’m feeling a lot of anger at myself. “I’m so stupid. I’m such an idiot. I’m a total idiot.” What are the equal status causes of this? These would be frustration, impatience, low self-esteem, all these, and what we would call psychological or emotional factors, are involved with this whole syndrome of being so heavy on myself and getting angry with myself. OK? That also is contributing to what I’m experiencing right now: I don’t have my computer. I’m angry with myself. I took the wrong computer bag. 

It’s helpful. It gave us some idea of what we need to work on in ourselves so that we don’t get so upset in these situations. This is upsetting, or this is not upsetting: “Well, I’m a human being. Things like that happen.” We’re not upset. Here we have equanimity in a non-upsetting way. An upsetting way of equilibrium here would be, “Poor me. I’m a human being. Things like this happen. Poor me.” It’s feeling sorry for myself. I have equilibrium, but I’m feeling sorry for myself. So, our whole emotional makeup is what this equal status cause is referring to. 

Congruent Causes

The next one is a congruent cause (mtshungs-ldan-gyi rgyu). What is that referring to? I call it a congruent cause, and it’s conscious: it’s referring to ways of being aware of something. This is a subcategory of the simultaneously arising causes and has to do with phenomena that share five things in common.

In the example of seeing the computer is not mine, there are certain mental factors that accompany that cognition, that moment of experience. We’re talking about things like attention, distinguishing (I’m distinguishing my bag from this bag), naivety about how I exist (I’m a total idiot), anger, unhappiness. All these things are in one package, in a sense, in this moment of experience, what I’m experiencing; they share five things in common. That’s what congruent means. It’s sharing something together. What do they share in common? 

• They’re all aimed at the same focal object (dmigs-yul), the computer. The anger is aimed at it, the attention is aimed at it, the distinguishing is aimed at it, and my unhappiness is focusing on this computer, “It’s not mine.”
• They all are involved with the same mental aspect (dmigs-rnam). In other words, when I see it… I mean, there are all these light rays and stuff that hit my eyes, and the electric impulses and chemical things that go to my brain, and somehow my brain makes a mental aspect, a mental hologram, that represents this computer. Actually, if we think of this mental phenomenon, it’s aimed at a mental hologram. They’re all aimed at the same mental hologram. That’s how the brain works, doesn’t it?
• They all are relying on the same cognitive sensor (dbang-po). Here we’re talking about the photosensitive cells of the eyes, so they are all operating through that.
• They’re all occurring at the same time (dus).
• They each come only one from a homogeneous class (ris-mthun), which means that, in the case of each mental factor, there is only one of each from each class of mental factor. For instance, there is only one level of a feeling of happiness, not two, only one level of attention, not two.

That’s a congruent cause. There are all these mental factors that are part of that experience of seeing that this is not my computer and feeling angry. Let’s digest that for a moment. 

[Pause]

Driving Causes

The next one is translated here as the continuing cause (kun-’gro’i rgyu); I call it a driving cause. The word literally in Tibetan means all-going, so it goes. It either continues or it makes something go; we can understand it in two ways. When the result happens, it may or may not be continuing. However, the point being here is that it doesn’t have to be in the same ethical category as the result; if it was an equal status cause, it had to be in the same category. 

We can give examples here of attachment to my computer. Why am I so angry? Arrogance that my work is so important or impatience with my old age. These are equal status; they’re in the same category, and they’re destructive like my anger. Nevertheless, there’s a factor that is not destructive, rather it’s neutral, which here is self-preoccupation. Self-preoccupation is neutral; it’s unspecified. We use neutral because it’s an easy word to say. Unspecified is actually literally correct and more specific because what it means is that it could be either destructive or constructive or neutral; it could be any of them. With self-preoccupation, we could be self-preoccupied when we’re angry with ourselves. We could be self-preoccupied when we’re being so kind and wonderful to everybody. We could be self-preoccupied while we’re eating our lunch. When we talk about this unspecified, it could be with any of the three possibilities: angry with ourselves; we’re so wonderful and so kind; and we’re eating our lunch. Eating lunch is just neutral. Okay? It’s just a further refinement of the emotional background of why we’re feeling so horrible. 

Our self-preoccupation would be a driving cause of being angry with myself, and it could continue when I get my computer and feel so happy with myself. 

Ripening Causes

Then we have the ripening cause (rnam-smin-gyi rgyu), the cause for the full ripening of the karmic fruit; we have here in German a fuller translation. This is talking about the destructive or constructive phenomenon that will bring about an unspecified situation as its karmic result. 

Here we’re talking about something we did in a previous lifetime that left karmic tendencies or potentials that, when activated, brought about what’s called throwing karma (’phen-byed-kyi las) for our present rebirth. On our mental continuum, there are all the karmic potentials from all the destructive and constructive actions we committed in previous lives. At the time of our death from our previous lifetime, we had craving not to be parted from happiness and to be parted from unhappiness; we had this strong craving. This is when we were dying. We also had craving to continue to exist, and of course, naivety about reality, about how we exist. Right? This cluster of disturbing emotions and attitudes activated those karmic potentials so that a throwing karmic impulse arose that threw our continuum into a next rebirth. 

What ripens from those activated karmic potentials are the unspecified components of the body and mind with which we are born. We are born with a body and a brain that experiences old age and a loss of mindfulness with old age; it’s that type of body and brain. It’s unspecified: it can go along with something being destructive, being angry; it can go along with being constructive; it can go along with anything. The cause for that, the ripening cause, is this cluster of karmic potentials that was activated at the time of our deaths in the immediately preceding lifetime. 

These are all the causes. What about the results? There are five types of results here. 

Ripened Results

First, we have the ripened result (rnam-smin-gyi ’bras-bu), and that’s referring to the result of the ripening cause. These unspecified phenomena – our body and brain that is experiencing old age and a loss of mindfulness because of old age. Right? That’s part of what’s happening, isn’t it? What’s responsible for what happened and what we’re experiencing. These are the results, what we’re experiencing. 

Results That Correspond to their Cause

The next is results that correspond to their cause (rgyu-mthun-gyi ’bras-bu), and this can be either in terms of our behavior or what we experience happening to us. Here, if we think about it, the karmic cause for something like this would be, in a sense, taking what is not given to us, this destructive action. In a heavy sense, it would be stealing, so that led to the tendency. Remember, we had this obtaining cause, or material cause, for taking things that don’t belong to me – the tendency to do that. That tendency came from the karmic action of taking something that didn’t belong to me. The result that corresponds to that cause would be an incident of taking something belonging to somebody else; that’s what we experience in our behavior similar to this previous action that we did and experiencing somebody else taking my computer. 

It’s not my karma that causes that other person to do that. That other person has all these causes happening from their side, why they take something that doesn’t belong to them. Somehow these two connect. My karma causes me to experience my computer being taken by someone else; it doesn’t cause the other person to take my computer. There’s a difference. We can’t place all the guilt on what I did in some previous life, because we’ve seen that there are thousands and thousands of other causes of what’s involved with what’s happening, of what happened. This is very helpful for getting over guilt. It’s not all the other person’s fault, and it’s not all my fault, it’s… a million things have happened, even the fact that somebody invented the computer. Actually, that’s very helpful. If we think how silly it is to place all the blame on the person who invented the computer, or the person who sold us the computer in the store, then we will see that it’s equally silly to place all the blame on me, that I’m so stupid, or all the blame on this other person who took my computer. 

Results That Are States of Being Parted

Then, we have results that are freedom from disturbing emotions (bral-’bras). It is a result that is a state of being parted, being separated, literally, and specifically from disturbing emotions. However, not just disturbing emotions, it can also be grasping at true existence. Such grasping is in a different classification scheme, not exactly disturbing emotions. It’s a larger thing of what we could be parted from, but causes of samsara would be a little bit easier to say. 

An example of this type of result would be a true stopping of anger. If we achieve the state of an arhat, a liberated being, then we would be completely free of anger. That would be this type of result. It is just called a result, but it’s not really a result. Because that state of being parted is a static phenomenon, it never changes, it’s forever, so we’re really talking about the attainment of this state of being parted. The state of being parted is not caused by anything, but all our effort is the cause for attaining that state. It’s a technical difference. 

Man-Made Results

Then, we have what is called here in German effective results (skyes-bu byed-pa’i ’bras-bu); I call it man-made results. Here we’re not talking about something karmic. Let me give examples: I can’t do my work. I can’t do my work is the man-made result of taking the wrong computer. I bang my foot against the table in the dark. The man-made result is that my foot hurts. 

Dominating Results

The last one is the dominating result (bdag-po’i ’bras-bu), and this would be referring (there’s also a karmic thing here) to a general situation in which we are born. Here it would be, for instance, being born in a society in which the airport people will help with locating my lost computer, and they keep lists of passengers and telephone numbers, and people are honest. We could have been born in a society where none of that happens. We leave our computer in an airport in some countries by mistake, and we can guarantee it’s going to be stolen; whereas in other countries, we leave it and it will turn up at the lost and found. 

These are the different types of results.

Causal Conditions

We have causal conditions (rgyu-rkyen). Those are all the five types of causes other than the acting cause. That’s a big, big category of things. 

Immediately Preceding Conditions

We have the immediately preceding condition (de-ma-thag rkyen). What this is referring to are the moments of consciousness and the mental factors the moment before I took the wrong computer. This mental activity, what was going on immediately right before seeing this bag on the floor and taking it, would give, in a sense, a momentum to the mental activity that occurred while I took the bag. That’s the immediately preceding condition. 

Focal Conditions

Then, we have a focal condition (dmigs-rkyen), which is the bag on the floor, the computer on the floor; that was what I focused on when I took the wrong bag. I mean, there was this other person’s bag on the floor when I took the bag. 

Dominating Conditions

The dominating condition (bdag-rkyen) is referring to the photosensitive cells of the eyes, the eye sensors, through which I saw this bag on the floor and took it. 

This is our analysis of cause and effect. In another text, like the text of Asanga, we have a list of 20 different causes, so it could be even more complex. However, I think that this scheme is perhaps enough. I hope that you can appreciate from this that although it’s a complex scheme, it is something that we could actually work with; it is something we could apply to different situations that we’re experiencing. It can be very helpful for deconstructing situations so that we don’t make such a big thing, a big horrible monster out of what we’re experiencing. We can see all the different things that they arose from, all the different results that we’re experiencing simultaneously, and then deal with it in a much more rational way. 

When we become sufficiently familiar with this, then we don’t really have to go through all the very, very specific analyses. Just remembering that “Oh, I can see this is made up of so many different causes and conditions” helps because it could take quite a while to go through the analysis. However, that’s the initial remedy we apply; then, we can go through the more detailed analysis. That initial general understanding helps us to calm down. Once we calm down, then in a more rational state of mind, we can do the analysis, which would give us some indication of what we would need to work on in order to correct the situation.