The doctrine of dependent origination found in Theravada and sectarian Buddhism and in the teachings of later schools of East Asian Buddhism emphasizes the sequential time relationship with regard to karmic effects. According to this view, cause necessarily precedes effect. The second interpretation is found in the teachings of the Perfection of Wisdom sutras; Indian Madhyamika Buddhism and its Chinese incarnation, the San-lun (Three Treatises) school; and the T’ien-t’ai school, whose doctrines are derived from the Lotus Sutra. This interpretation insists that all causes and effects exist simultaneously and likens their influence on one another to spatial relations rather than to time sequence. Although the two interpretations seem separate and exclusive, in fact each includes elements of the other, since dependent origination describes all things in both time and space.
Basic Buddhist Concepts