RTEN 'BREL - Dependent Origination

Let's look at rten 'brel again, dependent origination. rten means basis, support, anything from the support of a mandala to the basis of a representation or foundation.

'brel means relationship, connnection, link. So you could already see how the word dependent origination is put together by using separate Tibetan words.

Stephen Beyer's book The Classical Tibetan Language has lots of examples showing the original roots of various Tibetan words, and how they were combined to form new expressions.

It's not so hard to personally realize the dependency of things, this blog could not exist without hard disk space, monitors, networks, someone typing, electrons moving, someone having an 'ahaa' idea of the concept of a blog, and so on, and so on. Try to find an entity that does not have any dependencies! Not finding any such things whatsoever is then pointing back to stong pa nyid, emptiness, lack of inherent existence.

Just remember that things work just fine. Don't expect that being hit by an empty car does not hurt because does not exist from its own side. It does hurt. Now, why that hurts is then the next analysis, where the Tibetan word las is the key.