In the Samdhinirmocana Sutra we hear the Buddha saying “Paramarthasamudgata I initially teach doctrines starting with a lack of own being in terms of production to those beings who have not generated roots of virtue, who have not purified obstructions, who have not ripened their continuums, who do not have much conviction, and who have not completed the accumulations of merit and wisdom.”   Paramarthasamudgata, initially I teach doctrines starting with the lack of own-being in terms of production, teaching doctrines about the other-dependent character of phenomena.  Everything arises in dependence on things other than itself, so it does not have the own-being of production, of producing itself and maintaining itself.  This is what the Buddha initially teaches to beings who have not completed the accumulation of merit and wisdom.  

“When they hear those doctrines they understand dependently originated compounded phenomena as being impermanent.  They know them to be phenomena which are unstable, unworthy of confidence, and changeable, whereupon they develop aversion and antipathy toward all compounded phenomena.”  When they attend to this teaching they will partially be able to understand that all conditioned states which are dependently co-arisen are impermanent, inconstant, not comforting, grievously transient and destructive, then their minds will produce deep dread and distaste for all conditioned states.  Once they have heard this, they are able, according to their capacity, to understand that all conditionally produced actions are impermanent, inconstant, unstable, and subject to change and disintegration.  Then they become wary of conditioned acts and deeply disillusioned.  They develop fear and discouragement regarding all compounded phenomena.  This is an initial emotional response to letting the teachings of dependent co-arising deeply into your body and mind.  Other emotions besides those just mentioned could arise, too.  For example, when you start to feel disillusioned about things, you could get angry or hate them.  Or you could say, okay, I‘ll be a hedonist, and just go for whatever pleasure I can get.  However, by listening to this teaching, you dread those reactions, too.  You don’t trust them.  You’re discouraged that they won’t help either.  So you just gradually stop reacting to the discouragement, and just be discouraged about compounded phenomena.

However, there is a plus side that comes up right away.  Having developed aversion and antipathy, deep dread, deep fear and disillusionment, fear and discouragement with regard to dependently co-arisen phenomena, transient phenomena “they turn away from wrong-doing.  They do not commit any wrong-doing and they adhere to virtue.  Because of adhering to virtue, they generate roots of virtue that were not previously generated.  They also purify obscurations that were not previously purified.  They also ripen their continuums which were not previously ripened.  On that basis, they have great conviction and they complete the accumulations of wisdom and merit.  In this way, they complete everything from the generation of roots of virtue up to the accumulation of wisdom and merit.”  And, as you know, the next part is, “However, because they do not understand, as they really are, the two aspects pertaining to the lack of own being in terms of production—which is the lack of own-being in terms of character and the ultimate lack of own-being—so they are not wholly, completely, totally averse toward compounded phenomena.”  So they have to go on to learn about the next two characters, but you can see they come a long way by letting in the teaching of dependent co-arising.  They go from having these undeveloped areas to having them developed.  They turn away from wrong-doing to virtue, and they go a long way.  They also start to understand the possibility that all these conditioned states, including conditioned states of misery, even misery, are not worthy of confidence, are unstable and changeable.  

This teaching about the other-dependent character, about the production lack of own-being, can awaken a liberating concern, a concern to be liberated from all conditioned things, through intimating to us the tenuousness and all-pervasive contingency of everything subject to causes and conditions, as well as to suggest the malleability of all caused phenomena.  So, first this teaching stimulates the practitioners to reform their behavior through understanding this impact of causation and second, it provides a base and a framework for understanding emptiness by teaching that the other-dependent characters are the basis of the mis-imagination of the imputational character, and thus are the basis for the thoroughly established character, which is the absence of the imputational character.  How the teaching of the dependently co-arisen nature of all phenomena has sunk into us I don’t really know, but perhaps it has, to some extent, sunk into this community.  By hearing about it, in reading the sutra, and in other ways, the demonstration of how all compounded things are not worthy of confidence, may be sinking in.  So there may be a feeling of discouragement.  And there may be some old impulse to adjust compounded things so that you will not be discouraged about them—to fix them up somehow, to repair them so that you can have confidence in them again.  This is how the sutra talks about the teaching of this phase, and this is a basic teaching which continues as we move in to the next phase of the teaching, which is to look at how we are being encouraged to give up strongly adhering to the imagined as being the other-dependent. As we move into giving up conceptual clinging and opening up to emptiness, this practice must continue.  The practice of continually being mindful of this basic nature of phenomena must continue.  This sets the emotional tone for the practice of emptiness.  

And some of the Zen teachings we may look at, and the sutra teachings, don’t necessarily mention this basic context, which is, very simply, living in the world of impermanence, living in a community of changing beings, of beings that are unworthy of confidence.  Just live close to such beings and the teaching is being presented to you.  The more you hear this teaching, the less you become excessively involved with other beings—the less you become excessively involved in dependently co-arisen phenomena.  If you notice that you are getting excessively involved with dependently co-arisen phenomena, it may be an indication that you are not listening to the teaching of the production lack of own-being.  If you listen to the teaching again and be mindful of it, you may notice that the excess concern, the excess involvement, starts to wane. You start to meet things more uprightly, neither grasping nor rejecting.   Again, this sets the base, this sets the context for giving up conceptual thought, for the dropping off of body and mind.