The pleasantness or unpleasantness of something, goodness or badness, happiness or suffering are all completely dependent on the situation. The desirability of something does not exist inherently in that object but rather exists as a dependent arising, and depending on the entire circumstance. This is something quite powerful to think about again and again in our lives, especially when we get attached to something. It seems like the thing is desirable from its own side, but we should remember that it is not because the thing ceases to be desirable if the situation gets tweaked a little bit. Similarly, hearing certain words in one situation might be undesirable, but not in another.

I saw this a lot when I was living in India. There might be certain people you do not usually get along with very well, but when you are travelling together you get along very well. You need one another to watch the luggage and do all sorts of things, so the whole relationship completely changes from what it was before. Relationships and objects are not concrete and solid; they exist embedded within a whole environment and appear desirable or undesirable in dependence upon the whole dependent arising.

How we view the dependent arising is so dependent on our mind. One morning while our new monastic residence was being built, I thought, “How nice! I’m so glad to hear the hum of machines.” But if we were not building a monastic residence, and it was in the middle of retreat time, I probably would not go, “Oh, thank goodness,” if I heard construction machinery. If I were in a bad mood, I would also probably think, “Oh god, why do these machines have to make so much noise? Can’t they build the monastic residence in silence?” All this just goes to show how things are empty of true existence — nothing is there on its own.

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