This/That conditionality - good thing it works or we'd have a real problem

The Buddha expressed this/that conditionality [idappaccayata] in a
simple-looking formula:

(1) When this is, that is. SYNCHRONIC (objects)
(2) From the arising of this comes the arising of that. LINEAR (events)
(3) When this isn’t, that isn’t. SYNCHRONIC (objects)
(4) From the stopping of this comes the stopping of that. LINEAR (events)
~ A 10.92

There are many possible ways of interpreting this formula, but only one does
justice both to the way the formula is worded and to the complex, fluid manner
in which specific examples of causal relationships are described in the Canon.
That way is to view the formula as the interplay of two causal principles, one
linear and the other synchronic, that combine to form a nonlinear pattern.
The linear principle – taking (2) and (4) as a pair – connects events, rather
than objects, over time; the synchronic principle – (1) and (3) – connects
objects and events in the present moment. The two principles intersect, so that
any given event is influenced by two sets of conditions: input acting from the
past and input acting from the present. Although each principle seems simple,
the fact that they interact makes their consequences very complex.
To begin with, every act has repercussions in the present moment together with
reverberations extending into the future. Depending on the intensity of the
act, these reverberations can last for a very short or a very long time. Thus
every event takes place in a context determined by the combined effects of past
events coming from a wide range in time, together with the effects of present
acts.

These effects can intensify one another, can coexist with little interaction or
can cancel one another out. Thus, even though it is possible to predict that a
certain type of act will tend to give a certain type of result – for example,
acting on anger will lead to pain – there is no way to predict when or where
that result will make itself felt.

The complexity of the system is further enhanced by the fact that both causal
principles meet at the mind. Through its views and intentions, the mind takes a
causal role in keeping both principles in action. Through its sensory powers it
is affected by the results of the causes it has set in motion. This creates the
possibility for the causal principles to feed back into themselves, as the mind
reacts to the results of its own actions.

These reactions can take the form of positive feedback loops, intensifying the
original input and its results, much like the howl in a speaker placed next to
the microphone feeding into it. They can also create negative feedback loops,
counteracting the original input, much like the action of a thermostat that
turns off a heater when the temperature in a room is too high, and turns it on
again when it gets too low. Because the results of actions can be immediate,
and the mind can then react to them immediately, these feedback loops can at
times quickly spin out of control; at other times, they may act as skillful
checks on one’s behavior.

For example, a man may act out of anger, which gives him an immediate sense of
dis-ease to which he may react with further anger, thus creating a snowballing
effect. On the other hand, he may come to understand that the anger is causing
his dis-ease, and so immediately does what he can to stop it. However, there
can also be times when the results of his past actions may obscure the dis-ease
he is causing himself in the present, so that he does not immediately react to
it one way or another. In this way, the combination of two causal principles –
influences from the past interacting with those in the immediate present –
accounts for the complexity of causal relationships as they function on the
level of immediate experience. However, the combination of the two principles
also opens the possibility for finding a systematic way to break the causal
web.

If causes and effects were entirely linear, the cosmos would be totally
deterministic, and nothing could be done to escape the machinations of the
causal process.

If they were entirely synchronic, there would be no relationship from one
moment to the next, and all events would be arbitrary. The web could break down
totally or reform spontaneously for no reason at all.

However, with the two modes working together, one can learn from causal
patterns observed from the past and apply one’s insights to disentangling the
same causal patterns acting in the present.  
If one’s insights are true, one can then gain freedom from those patterns.

For this reason, the principle of this/that conditionality provides an ideal
foundation, both theoretical and practical, for a doctrine of release.
And, as a teacher, the Buddha took full advantage of its implications, using it
in such a way that it accounts not only for the presentation and content of his
teachings, but also for their organization, their function, and their utility.
It even accounts for the need for the teachings and for the fact that the
Buddha was able to teach them in the first place.

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu, ‘The Wings to Awakening,’ pp 10-12

(the formatting is mine)

Difference between "there is poison ivy" vs. grabbing a handful of "my" poison ivy

Whether physical or mental pain always has a cause. Everything which happens is part of a process. When we sit, pain may develop in the legs, back, shoulders and neck. When it develops, we normally identify the pain with ourselves. Out of habit, we start think ing or rather judging ourselves. We say "I am in pain" rather than "there is pain". Because we have been conditioned to react in this way, we consider this view perfectly normal and justifiable. The first description "I am in pain" is subjective and is an outcome of a defiled view. The second expression "there is pain" reflects more objectivity. It is much more accurate to say that "there is pain". There is no self, with which to identify the pain. In saying "I am in pain, my ear is painful, my shoulder is aching" we are already personalising the pain.

-Venerable Dhammasami

Search->Possession->Loss

People are constantly trying to get beautiful things, animate or inanimate. If they do not get them, they go on searching for them until they succeed.

When they come to possess them, they to keep them and prevent them from being lost or destroyed. Thus, people are constantly striving, and constantly suffering. In the same way, they long to get other pleasant experiences, such as sweet sounds, delicious tastes, delightful touches, and they entertain fond hopes and thoughts. They strive to keep themselves healthy and long-lived so that they may enjoy these pleasures longer. In making these efforts, people have to feel anxious about themselves and others.

Though they try to obtain and maintain these pleasures, things do not happen as they wish. Pleasures go as quickly as they come. Decay soon sets in and destroys them. Then people suffer greatly, not only physically, but mentally too.

This affects not only human beings, but celestial beings too, who also try with similar purposes. Do not imagine that if one becomes a celestial being due to one’s good deeds that one gets to a place where every wish is fulfilled, and one becomes fully satisfied. No one is ever satisfied with what they have, and will always crave for more or better things.

To get more, further efforts must be made, and suffering will result from those efforts.

-Mahasi Sayadaw "A Discourse on the Hemavata Sutta"

Udaya Sutta: Breaking the Cycle (SN 7.12)

Again and again, the seeds all get planted;

Again and again, the rain-god sprinkles rain.

Again and again, the farmer farms the field;

Again and again, the food grows in the realm.

Again and again, beggars do their begging;

Again and again, the givers give out gifts.

Again and again, the giver who has given;

Again and again, goes to a better place.

Again and again, he tires and he struggles;

Again and again, the fool goes to the womb.

Again and again, he's born and he dies;

Again and again, they bear him to his grave.

But one who's wisdom is wide as the earth

Is not born again and again,

For he's gained the path

Of not becoming again.

slightly modified from Andrew Olendski's translation

Space

Our minds tend to get caught up with thoughts of attraction or aversion to objects, but the space around those thoughts is not attractive or repulsive. The space around an attractive thought and a repulsive thought is not different, is it?

Concentrating on the space between thoughts, we become less caught up in our preferences concerning the thoughts. So if you find that an obsessive thought of guilt, self-pity, or passion keeps coming up, then work with it in this way—deliberately think it, really bring it up as a conscious state, and notice the space around it.

Ajahn Sumedho

Infinite Regress

Two young boys were playing together. One asked the other, “We stand on the ground and the ground holds us up. What does the ground stand on?” “Oh, my father explained that to me,” the second boy said. “The ground is supported by four giant elephants.” “What do the elephants stand on, then?” “They stand on the shell of a huge turtle.” “What does the turtle stand on?” The second boy thought for a long time and then said, “I think it’s turtles all the way down.”

-Unknown

Situated not in Space but in Time

It is in vain that we return to the places that once we loved. We shall never
see them again because they were situated not in Space but in Time, and
because the man who tries to rediscover them is no longer the child or the
youth who decked them with the fervour of his emotions.

The classic philosopher assumes that "our personality is built about a hard
and changeless core, is a sort of spiritual statue" which stands like a rock
against the assaults of the external world. Such is man as viewed by Plutarch,
by Moliere, and even by Balzac. But Proust shows us that the individual,
plunged in Time, disintegrates. The day comes when nothing at all remains of
the man who once loved, who once made a revolution. "My life, as I saw it, "
wrote Marcel Proust, "presented me with the spectacle of a succession of
periods so occurring that, but for a brief space of time, nothing of that
which had been one's sustaining force continued to exist at all in that which
followed it. I saw human life as a complex from which the support of an
individual, identical, and permanent 'self' was so conspicuously absent, was
something so useless for the future, so far extended into the past, that death
might just as well intervene at this point or that; because it could never
mark a conclusion that was other than arbitrary..."

The successive "selves" are so different from one another that each ought,
really, to have a different name.

The Quest For Proust
Andre Maurois, Ch. 6.