Dependent Origination

"All facets of the natural order – the physical world and the human world, the world of conditions (dhamma) and the world of actions (kamma), the material world and the mental world – are connected and interrelated, they cannot be separated. Disorder and aberration in one sector will affect other sectors. If we want to live in peace, we must learn how to live in harmony with all spheres of the natural environment, both the internal and the external ... This is why, of all the systems of causal relationship ... the teachings of Buddhism begin with, and stress throughout, the factors involved in the creation of suffering in individual awareness – "because there is ignorance, there are volitional formations." Once this system of causal relationship is understood ... we are then in a position to see the connections between these inner factors and the causal relationships in society and the natural environment." – From the *Introduction*