January 14th, 2026 | 07:01
Not from itself;
nor from another;
nor without cause;
does anything, anywhere, exist.
—Arya Nagarjuna, Mulamadhyamakakarika
‘Buddhism’ is a word foreign to what we refer to as Buddhism. The first step to understanding any worldview is understanding what they call themselves. Catholics indeed call their worldview Catholic, meaning universal, demonstrating to us their expansive view of Yahweh’s laws. Muslims call their worldview Islam, meaning surrender, demonstrating their profound view of surrendering oneself into something greater. Hinduism, as we speak of it today, is a British label recklessly applied to a revivalist movement which calls itself ‘Sanatana Dharma,’ meaning eternal truth, which has gained traction since the 19th century, as well as a wide variety of much older traditional sects. And let’s not act like religion is a real category anyway; worldviews are worldviews afterall, regardless of age, and their various mythologies are another matter entirely. Among leftists, you’ll find all manner of identities, some who won’t consider those other identities ‘leftist’ at all; and likewise with rightists, and wherever liberals pretend to be when it suits them. Simple people like myself refer to anyone in any kind of research or experimental field—perhaps wearing white labcoats—as ‘scientists,’ but they have very different labels for themselves which offer much deeper insight into what they specialize in.
Buddhists refer to their worldview as the Dharmachakra, meaning Wheel of Truth, or Buddhadharma, meaning Truth of Awakening. Wheel refers to the cyclical nature of existence, as well as the forward-facing, means-to-an-end intent of Buddhism as an empirical tool, described as a raft to leave behind once one arrives safely on the ‘other shore’ of certainty. So what is this truth that this Dharmachakra so confidently intends to help us reach—with such confidence that we can leave it behind when we arrive—and why do we need to ‘awaken’ to it?
All the teachings of this Dharmachakra are contained in the 4 noble truths (that there is suffering; that suffering is causal, causes have cessations, and there is a methodology to their cessations). But the ‘creed,’ so to speak, of this Dharmachakra goes back to when Shariputra—who would later become one of the Buddha’s greatest disciples—asked Ashvajit—one of the Buddha’s first disciples—to summarize for him what this unfamiliar teacher taught: “As things arise through causes, and the Thus-come One teaches how their causes can be known, and that which is the end of them; thus has the Great Ascetic taught.”
Suffice to say; causality is central within Buddhism. It could be said to play the same kind of ‘essential’ role as ‘God’ in Abrahamic religions or the ‘Dao’ within the Chinese schools. It is the undeniable natural law; for if things were not causal, everything would be random, and no one would do anything any way for any reason. Whether one believes in one of the various ‘divine plan’ determinist or abstract nihilist worldviews, their lived experience is that of causality—neither fatal nor random.
While randomness can be easily dismissed as shown above, how can we be sure the causality we experience is not deterministic? After all; if every choice we make is only possible through the current causes and conditions of our bodily conditions, knowledge, and mental faculties, how can we not say our future causes and conditions are not pre-determined by our current ones?
Put more simply; if our current actions are based on our various current conditions, and our various current conditions are based on our previous actions, it follows that our future various conditions will be based on our current actions—so doesn’t that mean that our future actions will be based on those various future conditions? For the most part; yes! But the nature of causality is not only that all things are causal, but that their causes are compound—or, must have many parts, many causes and conditions themselves, ad infinitum.
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