Summary: If we review where the exploration of Dependent Origination has brought us this year, we will notice four perceptional shifts that D.O. has encouraged. The first is that through D.O. we perceive there are an infinite number of influences on every event and that existence itself arises from multiple factors, and therefore there is no separate existences. Everything is tied together through the web of relationship. But D.O. moves it even further by its second perceptual shift in which it shows how the web of somethingness was generated by the mind from nothing. Out of nothing, form arises and becomes the world of connected relationships with "me" arising within it. The "how did that happen," is explained by D.O., as the links build upon themselves to reveal a world of appearances that have no inherent substance. The third perceptual change from D.O. is a variation of the second in which the world arises directly from "my" projections. In essence the world does not have a fundamental existence of its own. It is dependent upon "me" and what I know, for it to be. The fourth shift is the acknowledgment of struggle that is inherent in the arising of form from formlessness. We are birthed from that struggle and ultimately must grow old and die because of it. This talk is also presented in video here: http://seattleinsight.org/Talks/BrowseTalks/DharmaTalk/tabid/90/TalkID/660/Default.aspx
