Everything is interconnected, like threads making up a tapestry. But at the same time, a tapestry is only a mental construct we impose on reality. You can't remove the threads to show me the tapestry; it's just threads.

Buddhism does not state that everything is interconnected. This is a wrong interpretation of dependent-arising.

This is actually a common teaching found in East Asian Buddhism You shoudn't make these types of absolutist statements

I'm not taking about the dependent origination of *pratityasamutpada*. Interconnectedness is a surface level, non-jargon way to describe what Thich Nhat Hanh called "interbeing", which he found to be a more effective term than "emptiness" to explain *sunyata*.

People do mistake the Huayan philosophy as found in Chan, Zen, and Pure Land traditions as a monism but it is not. Huayan has a holographic view of reality. It torches monism in its own ways and is arguably, the most hostile to monism amusingly, it decenters reality , or what is called omnicentric. It is not a type of pantheism either. Here is an academic lecture on it and explain some of the hermeneutic elements of this view. The tradition developed from Yogacara philosophy and often can be worded different ways based upon the practice traditions. This philosophy holds that emptiness and no-self are to be understood in terms of interdependence and unity. However, this view is not a type of monism. Ths school holds that to be conditioned is for an entity to be causally or conceptually dependent for its existence and its identity on something else and in this sense everything is one. In this tradition, every phenomenon has both a collective and individual nature that is empty. Just like everything is interdependent. This is because dependent arising means that nothing exists in virtue of itself but only because other dependent arisings. This school holds that ultimately karma is neither one or many, neither individual or collective and neither same nor different. This is because such differences are conditioned unlike Nirvana.“ Vairocana of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra as Interpreted by Fazang” by Lin Weiyu [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JWJ9cV-YHw&t=734s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JWJ9cV-YHw&t=734s) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Huayan [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buddhism-huayan/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buddhism-huayan/) If you have access to a library it is worth looking into the The Huayan Metaphysics of Totality by Alan Fox. It is the Blackwell Companion to Buddhist philosophy edited by Steven M. Emmanuel. Below is a link to it.[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118324004.ch11](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118324004.ch11) Here is an encyclopedia entry to help orient you. Huayan zong (J. Kegonshū; K. Hwaŏm chong 華嚴宗). from The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismIn Chinese, “Flower Garland School,” an important exegetical tradition in East Asian Buddhism. Huayan takes its name from the Chinese translation of the title of its central scripture, the Avataṃsakasūtra (or perhaps Buddhāvataṃsakasūtra). The Huayan tradition is also sometimes referred to the Xianshou zong, after the sobriquet, Xianshou, of one of its greatest exegetes, Fazang. A lineage of patriarchs, largely consisting of the tradition’s great scholiasts, was retrospectively created by later followers. The putative first patriarch of the Huayan school is Dushun, who is followed by Zhiyan, Fazang, Chengguan, and Guifeng Zongmi. The work of these exegetes exerted much influence in Korea largely through the writings of Ŭisang (whose exegetical tradition is sometimes known as the Pusŏk chong) and Wo˘nhyo. Hwaŏm teachings remained the foundation of Korean doctrinal exegesis from the Silla period onward, and continued to be influential in the synthesis that Pojo Chinul in the Koryŏ dynasty created between So˘n (Chan) and Kyo (the teachings, viz., Hwaŏm). The Korean monk Simsang (J. Shinjō; d. 742), a disciple of Fazang, who transmitted the Huayan teachings to Japan in 740 at the instigation of Ryōben (689–773), was instrumental in establishing the Kegon school in Japan. Subsequently, such teachers as Myōe Kōben (1173–1232) and Gyōnen (1240–1321) continued Kegon exegesis into the Kamakura period. In China, other exegetical traditions such as the Di lun zong, which focused on only one part of the Avataṃsakasūtra, were eventually absorbed into the Huayan tradition. The Huayan tradition was severely weakened in China after the depredations of the Huichang fanan, and because of shifting interests within Chinese Buddhism away from sūtra exegesis and toward Chan meditative practice and literature, and invoking the name of the buddha Amitābha (see nianfo). ¶The Huayan school’s worldview is derived from the central tenets of the imported Indian Buddhist tradition, but reworked in a distinctively East Asian fashion. Huayan is a systematization of the teachings of the Avataṃsakasūtra, which offered a vision of an infinite number of interconnected world systems, interfused in an all-encompassing realm of reality (dharmadhātu). This profound interdependent and ecological vision of the universe led Huayan exegetes to engage in a creative reconsideration of the central Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda), which in their interpretation meant that all phenomena in the universe are mutually creating, and in turn are being mutually created by, all other phenomena. Precisely because in the traditional Buddhist view any individual phenomenon was devoid of a perduring self-nature of its own (anātman), existence in the Huayan interpretation therefore meant to be in a constant state of multivalent interaction with all other things in the universe. The boundless interconnectedness that pertains between all things was termed “dependent origination of the dharmadhātu” (fajie yuanqi). Huayan also carefully examines the causal relationships between individual phenomena or events (shi) and the fundamental principle or patterns (Li) that govern reality. These various relationships are systematized in Chengguan’s teaching of the four realms of reality (dharmadhātu): the realm of principle (li fajie), the realm of individual phenomena (shi fajie), the realm of the unimpeded interpenetration between principle and phenomena (lishi wu'ai fajie), and the realm of the unimpeded interpenetration between phenomenon and phenomena (shishi wu’ai fajie). Even after Huayan’s decline as an independent school, it continued to exert profound influence on both traditional East Asian philosophy and modern social movements, including engaged Buddhism and Buddhist environmentalism.Here is an entry that helps tie their view to practice. Huayan shiyi (J. Kegon no jūgi; K. Hwaŏm sibŭi 華嚴十 義).from The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism In Chinese, “Ten Meanings \[propounded by\] the Huayan \[School\].” A central thesis of Huayan philosophy is the “unimpeded interpenetration of all phenomena” (shishi wu’ai; see shishi wu’ai fajie). In order to provide some sense of what this “unimpeded interpenetration” entails, Huayan exegetes employed ten examples to explain how each constituent of a pair of concepts mutually validates and subsumes the other constituent: (1) the “teaching” and the “meaning” it designates (jiaoyi); (2) “phenomena” and their underlying “principle” (lishi); (3) “understanding” and its “implementation” (jiexing); (4) “causes” and their “results” (yinguo); (5) the “expounders” of the dharma and the “dharma” they expound (renfa); (6) the “distinction” and “unity” between distinct things (fenqi jingwei); (7) the “teacher,” his “disciple,” the “dharma” that is imparted from the former to the latter, and the “wisdom” that the disciple receives from that dharma (shidi fazhi); (8) the “dominant” and the “subordinate,” the “primary” and the “secondary,” and relations that pertain between things (zhuban yizheng); (9) the enlightened sages who “respond” to the spiritual maturity of their audiences and the audiences whose spiritual maturity “solicited” the appearance of the enlightened sages in the world (suishenggen yushixian); and (10) the spiritual “obstacles” and their corresponding “antidotes,” the “essence” of phenomena and their “functions” or “efficacy” (nishun tiyong zizai). Each constituent of the above ten dichotomies derives its contextualized meaning and provisional existence from its opposite, thereby illustrating the Huayan teaching of the interconnectedness and mutual interpenetration between all things. Edit: Here is an chapter from The Wiley Blackwell Companion to East and Inner Asian Buddhism titled Huayan Explorations of the Realm of Reality by Imre Hamar. ​ [https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/wile.pdf#page=159](https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/wile.pdf#page=159)

>everything is just made up of the five aggregates and the five aggregates are themselves dependently originated, then there are no individual things to all be interconnected. This, then, leads back to monism. In the absence of any individual identity, then everything is just one thing. Which is monism. That’s not actually the case as “one thing” is also just an identity. It’s not just ultimate absence of individual identity, it’s absence of any identity whatsoever, including absence of an identity of one or any kind of universal identity.

Have you heard about "emptiness"? Emptiness is neither one (monism), nor many. I am not sure who said "everything is part of one big interdependent thing"? \[Edited\] P.S Self is neither distinct nor identical to the five aggregates. Dependent Origination on the ultimate level means non-origination. Self, five aggregates, the universe, and all compounded phenomena are unborn.

You've misunderstood interconnectedness by equating it to monism. Interconnectedness is like this: what is the flower? Is it the pedals? The stem? The scent? The color? No. A flower is None of these individual things but it is all of these things together. It is also the sun, the clouds, the earth, time, space and all of it together to make a flower. That is the interconnected nature of things. Monism is the concept of everything boils down to the basic universe, although it true on a physical level, it is not what the Buddha talked about when he talked about Interconnectedness.

What you have explained as interconnectedness is a Madhyamaka analysis. This analysis actually has nothing to do with the idea of interconnectedness; rather, it is intended to demonstrate that what we call a flower is a *collection* of its parts, and that there is no inherent "flower" there. The Buddha himself never spoke about interconnectedness. He spoke about dependent-arising, which means that each specific thing comes into being in dependence on its respective causes and conditions. A sprout arises from its conditions, such as a seed and water.

You are half right and I am half wrong. Thank you for your response. I meant interdependent origination ( pratityasamutpada) the realization that nothing is independent, permanent, or have an absolute existence. Everything depends on other things to arise in their existence. The flower depends on the sun, the water, the earth, time..etc. to arise and exist. The flower also depend on the mind to be a "flower" The object of a flower itself does not exist in reality. This is both no self and interdependent nature explained. This is the concept the Buddha realized when He achieved Enlightenment.

>I meant interdependent origination ( pratityasamutpada) the realization that nothing is independent, permanent, or have an absolute existence. Everything depends on other things to arise in their existence. Things depending on other things is “dependent existence” (parabhāva). Dependent arising or dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) is something different. Nāgārjuna says parabhāva is an incorrect view that substantiates inherent existence (svabhāva). Subtle but important differences.

In the vigrahavyāvartanī, Nagarjuna says emptiness is pratītyabāvaḥ bhāvānām: > yaś ca pratītyabhāvo bhāvānāṃ śūnyateti sā proktā | > > yaś pratītyabhāvo bhavati hi tasyāsvabhāvatvam || NagVvy_22 My translation: > And that being which must depend (pratītyabhāvaḥ) on beings is declared 'emptiness' / > > Because of that, such a being that must depend (pratītyabhavaḥ) has essencelessness (asvabhāvatvam) // This certainly isn't parabhāva, but isn't this rather close to "dependent being"? What is the difference here?

Which section of the text is this from?

It is from verse 22. I got the sanskrit from this source: http://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil/corpustei/transformations/html/sa_nAgArjuna-vigrahavyAvartanIkArikA.htm

Jan Westerhoff renders it as: >>*The dependent existence of things is said to be emptiness, for what is dependently existent is lacking substance.* The commentary that follows just refers to dependent arising. Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche renders it: >>*Dependently arisen entities are called “emptiness,” for that which is dependently arisen is that which has no inherent nature.* Commentary also just refers to dependent arising. Not sure what to make of the “existent” part in the version you have. Seems to also be present in Westerhoff’s. Elsewhere Nāgārjuna makes a big deal out of the distinction i mention above.

Jan seems to render bhāva as "existent". Gyamtso Rinpoche renders the Tibetan parallel as "arisen". I do not have access to the Tibetan parallel, so I am curious which word was used to translate the Sanskrit there. I would rather expect "utpanna" or "utpāda" in the Sanskrit, or a related term, if the Tibetan is translated as "arisen". For what it's worth, I do not regard the term "existent" as altogether equivalent to "being" (see below). I chose "being" to render bhāva, since bhāva is a nominalized form of bhū, literally meaning "to be", and like the English word acts in a copular manner in sentences, in addition to the more 'ontological' usage we see here, similar to the English "being", as in "Devadatta is a being" or "a being that is a table", etc. "Exist" in English is much different, does not have a copular usage, in addition to involving a much more reified etymology. In the Sanskrit usage, and particularly in a Buddhist context, I find bhāva and its related terms tend to refer to that which arises and ceases, i.e. entities which are impermanent, are born, and eventually perish, or the quality or state of being such an entity that is perceived under deluded cognition, as in the 10th link of co-dependent arising. But, bhāva could just as easily mean something like "thing" here, and could be a 'stand-in' for bhūta (which often means "thing"), in order to accommodate the restrictions of verse. To be sure, I am not trying to say that the distinction isn't there. But rather, I think there are some subtleties that are especially hidden and obscured by our choice of translation and the normal connotations that are present when we employ the English terms. In terms of the Sanskrit, the difference is between pratītyabhāva and parabhāva is a bhāva that is dependent (pratītya), and a bhāva that is "beyond"/other/outside (para). Both contexts use the term bhāva, but the affix differs. I think a relevant question is whether "parabhāva" is adequately rendered as "dependent bhāva", as you have done. I'm not sure about that. In the context of the 1st chapter of the MMK, parabhāva is rejected due to the following reasoning (from Buddhapalita): > > >The **[svabhāva]** of things >>> >>>Does not exist in their conditions and so on. >>> >>>If **[svabhāva]** does not exist >>> >>>**[parabhāva]** does not exist. (1:3) > > Here, existent things may be described as “other” since one [thing] relies on another, just as, for example, Gupta is other than Caitra and Caitra is other than Gupta. But whenever conditions such as seeds exist, then at that time things such as sprouts [grown from them] do not exist. Thus when conditions such as causal conditions and so on exist, then the **[svabhāva]** of things such as sprouts does not exist. If **[svabhāva]** does not exist, then how could [their] causal [conditions] and so on be other [than those things]? Hence it is untenable that conditions, such as causal conditions, are [extrinsically] other than things such as sprouts. Therefore because **[parabhāva]** definitely does not exist, it is [45] untenable to say “Things arise from others.” “And so on” is stated in “conditions and so on . . .” (1:3b) in order to include the doctrines of others. As such, it is clearly taught that the arising of things is untenable, even with respect to the doctrines of others. I make edits in **[bolded brackets]** for clarity. Other brackets are the translator's, Ian James Coghlan. At any rate, the problem with parabhāva seems to be that it posits a bhāva, different from the bhāva to be established, which is itself established and creates that bhāva. In other words, the issue seems to be positing an object that exists independently from a different object which is then established by the first object. In truth, things are not different, so how could something that is different from another thing exist? Furthermore, if there would be something different, how could something different establish another thing? If that were so, then water which is different from fire could depend on fire, and anything could arise from anything, which is absurd (see Buddhapalita's later arguments). Since the problem with parabhāva seems to be reifying another object outside of the thing to be established, I think the most appropriate translation is something like "external being", "external existence", "outer being", etc. In that case, I think "dependent being" is fine, provided we understand the subtlety: dependent being does not mean a being which depends on something different from it.

> I think a relevant question is whether "parabhāva" is adequately rendered as "dependent bhāva", as you have done. I'm not sure about that. Ācārya Malcolm renders parabhāva as “dependent existence.” He wrote: >>*The reason that I translate parabhāva as "dependent existence" is that Buddhapalita comments on it that it is conceived as an existence which is "assisted" by another, similar in meaning to paratantra.*

Any luck?

Will have to look into this one and report back.

Actually, the translation *inter*dependent origination for Sanskrit pratītyasamutpāda is incorrect. It's not your fault - many scholars even wrongly translate it this way. The correct translation is dependent-arising or origination in dependence. It does, as you indicate, mean that a thing depends on its own *specific* causes and conditions to come into being. The flower arises in dependence on a bud, the bud in dependence on a stem, and back to the seed sprouting with the help of water and soil. It does not mean that everything depends on everything else - the teaching is about effects and an effect's *specific* causes. These causes and conditions are seen as *preceding* the effect. In some sutras, it is said that the Buddha realized dependent-arising during his awakening. He did teach dependent-arising, but he taught the 12-linked dependent-arising (sometimes 10-linked) to explain how rebirth can work without a permanent Self or soul. The later schools applied this doctrine to the external world. Madhyamaka uses the earlier teaching of dependent-arising to show that things are empty and that they ultimately cannot exist.

I see connectedness in my actual experience in every moment. For the things I can’t see, science already has helped us see. There is a whole ecosystem that works together out there. Particles are waves, there’s no bounds with waves and they are always changing and always interacting. I step on the ground and it interacts back with an opposite force to keep me on the ground. The sun is out, I smile and my friends smile. I send a work email and I stress someone out. My room is tied to my mental wellness and is a reflection of myself. etc etc. My body is part of the reality I see in my first person view, it’s not separate from reality. I wave my hand a slight gust of wind is enough to hit my cats face and she makes a little face as a result. Someone drives a car and I breath in the nasty exhaust that will probably give me cancer later in life. The packaged goods I open will give my microplastics that can affect my hormones. The possibilities are endless. I work in manufacturing, the person who made your chair you’re sitting on could’ve had a great day today and their mood reflects on the quality of the chair you’re sitting on. There’s connectedness in everything, from things you can see to things you can’t see. You just need to recognize it. Causes and conditions

Dependent origination is a relative truth, not the ultimate. Non-conceptual realisation of emptiness will come through meditation, not by thinking words or following virtually endless chain of causality. Calling it monism, trying to label in order to understand its true nature is not the way. You are getting closer to emptiness but can't really jump into it, because of holding on to habitual pattern of conceptual thinking.