[MD] conditioned

[MarshaV]

Greetings,  

 
 Call this sharing :-) or call it a method to latch, but here is Albahari's definition of co-dependent:  


     "...  Nibbana is depicted as being unconditioned  --  a notion that will make little sense unless we first understand what it means, in Buddhism, for something to be conditioned.  That is the purpose of this section.  Note that the exercise here is not to defend, but to elaborate Buddhist thought on this matter  ---  although much of it should come across as fairly uncontentious. 
 
     "In Buddhist cosmology, the world of objects  -  as I have specified the term ‘object’  ---  amounts to what is known as 'conditioned existence'.  Each object within conditioned existence is characterised by a co-dependence upon other conditioned objects in a manner that is both synchronic and diachronic.  Synchronic co-dependence means that a given object cannot, at a given time, exist without a concurrently supporting network of other conditioned objects.  'Other conditioned objects' can include the internal structure and functionality of an object, in other words, objects that make up a more complex object.  Our living bodies, for instance, depend upon the mutual function of innumerable internal objects such as organs, DNA, cells and atoms.  Supporting objects also occur outside of the conditioned object, our living bodies depending upon such factors as breathable air, temperature, gravity and sustenance. In Buddhist cosmology, there is no conditioned object  ---  mental or physical  ---  whose existence does not synchronically depend upon other specifiable conditions, such that the withdrawing of those conditions (themselves objects) would not bring about the destruction of that object. There is, in other words, no such thing as an indestructible object, whether this be an atomic particle or a depressed mood.  At any moment in time, the synchronic existence of a conditioned object is made actual by the mutual manifesting of other favourable conditions.   And each of these favourable conditions is itself dependent upon other conditions, suggesting a vast network of interconnected objects.  That is partly what it means for an object to be 'conditioned'.  

     "Along with synchronic co-dependency, Buddhism alludes to a diachronic co-dependency (or conditionality) of objects.  This means that whether on a microscopic level (indirectly accessible to a human subject's perspective) or a psychological level (directly accessible to a human's perspective) each object over time, due to other conditioned objects, undergoing creation, change or destruction in a non-random, law-like fashion.  One micro-moment of objects will condition or influence the next micro-moment according to laws of nature that Buddhism says operate at a number of different levels (mechanical, biological, psychological and so forth).  while some of these laws (e.g., mechanical) apply more often to objects of the external physical world, Buddhism places particular emphasis on the train of objects that appear directly (even if inattentively) to a subject's perspective, and which, relative to this perspective, pass in and out of that subject's field of witnessing, or more colloquially, awareness.   It is the set of objects as occurrently (not just dispositionally) viewed by a subject, whether attentively or inattentively.  I shall for convenience refer to these objects as 'objects of awareness' or simply 'awareness-objects'.  

"Objects of awareness can include many items from the general set of objects such as the surrounding world, one's physical body, sensations, perceptions, thoughts, volitions and emotions.  
 
      (Albahari, Miri, 'Analytical Buddhism: The Two-tiered Illusion of Self ', pp.12-13)

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p.s.  Ms. Albahari's "Buddhist" perspective is informed by Theravada Buddhism and based on her own philosophical inferences drawn from the Pali Canon.   

        Also I can easily translate the reference to "non-random, law-like fashion" and "laws of nature" to static patterns of value.  
 
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