This panel examines the remarkable range of Tibetan receptions of the Buddhist law of causation, Interdependent Arising (pratītyasamutpāda; Tib. rten ‘brel, “dendrel”). While this classic Indic Buddhist model of how things emerge describes a process by which living beings are caught in a cycle of ignorance, in Tibet it became a dynamic of flourishing. The first paper will look at a switch in emphasis in the Tibetan philosophical examination of dendrel. The second paper will explore how good interdependence can be created, rather than passively received. The third paper examines the deep appreciation of dendrel in terms of the way that thef land itself acts as an agent of education. The fourth paper explores dendrel in certain Indian Buddhist doctrinal texts and then modified in Tibetan astrology and divination. The final paper will draw on New Materialisms and multispecies ethnographers to lend new language to characterize Tibetan ways of dendrel.
This paper explores the connections between dependent arising (rten ‘brel) and ignorance (ma rig pa), particularly in the work of the 15th century philosopher Je Tsongkhapa. Three distinct philosophical claims are often made about dependent arising and ignorance: (1) dependent arising is a framework for explaining the connection between ignorance and suffering, (2) dependent arising is an object of ignorance, and (3) dependent arising is a remedy for ignorance. I will draw on the work of Tsongkhapa, particularly in his “In Praise of Dependent Arising” and The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, to work out how these three claims about dependent arising and ignorance hang together. I conclude with some reflections on the deceiving simplicity of dependent arising: why is dependent arising so predictably ignored even as it is so seemingly obvious?
The ways of recognizing, witnessing, and celebrating moments of dendrel in Tibetan everyday life can be understood as a process of Land education, which entails active engagement with the natural world and being deeply informed by systems of intergenerational place-based relationships and knowledge. The natural or the more- than-human world, including animals, plants, stars, and rainbows, participates in delivering the signs of dendrel, while Indigenous knowledge teaches us the ways to attend to and understand such moments of tendrel alignment. In this paper, I explore examples of everyday Tibetan practices (songs and ceremonies) of dendrel to argue how such ways make for a process of critical Indigenous education. This can refocus Tibetan attention to their Land and traditions as active and dynamic encounters with the living world. I understand such ways of observing dendrel and living by its logics as contributing to educational freedom and community empowerment.
The hyper-individualism and ecocidal anthropocentrism that have characterized dominant strains of modernity are rapidly becoming failed epistemologies according to a broad swath of contemporary academic disciplines. New Materialists, multispecies ethnographers, and others inspired by “the ontological turn” in anthropology have coined new vocabularies to articulate their insights into interdependence, featuring words like symbiosis, assemblage, kinship, relatedness, entanglement, co-presence, and more. For all the critical and creative dynamism of these varied inquiries into interdependence, few Euro-American critical theorists seem to realize the overlap of their ideas with elements of Buddhist philosophy, most notably dependent origination (Skt. pratītyasamutpāda; Tib. tendrelརྟེན་འབྲེལ།). This paper proposes that we rectify that omission by inviting the full range of meanings of tendrel into the English language in hopes that we can reconsider human freedom as interdependent, generated through the tendrel of auspicious connections between the human and more-than-human facets of our world.
This paper illustrates the concept of dendrel (rten ‘brel) in Tibetan ecological thought, broadly construed. It will focus on the role of dendrel in native astrology and geomancy. I will argue that dendrel is understood as a bridge between objects and consciousness, and facilitates mind-matter mutual influence and transformation. The paper also explores how a sense of dendrel is deliberately cultivated for worldly purposes by applying a “substance” said to be derived from the “secret bodies” of holy mountains and rivers. Finally, I investigate instances where human consciousness seems to change physical objects or nature itself, particularly through the dendrel-connected Buddhist concepts of “the force of merit” and “waves of blessing”. I draw on both Indian Buddhist writings and their adaptation in Tibetan folk texts on astrology and geomancy.
This paper will show how the key skill for good dendrel to confer freedom is the capacity to spot moments and circumstances where auspicious factors are beginning to converge, and can be encouraged to converge further. In order for an auspicious dendrel to come together, one needs to cultivate a creative and in many ways artistic skill first of all to recognize that auspicious ingredients are available, and then to act to nudge them to “click” (sgrig) together. A classic example in Tibetan society would be the offering of a pure white scarf (kha btags) at the exact right moment. This paper will explore a few cases of this phenomenon, ranging from philosophical accounts of “pure dendrel,” an innovative category in Tibetan Buddhism, to narratives where dendrel is essential in order for an elevated revelation to occur, to personal experiences and conversations on a recent visit to the Tibetan plateau.