Sit Down and Shut Up by Brad Warner

Author:Brad Warner
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: New World Library
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The Twelvefold Chain

The sequence of cause and effect surrounding the Zero Defects reunion show still wasn’t complete. Back when the gig had first been proposed, I thought it was a bit of a waste for me to come all the way to Akron just for one show. So I lobbied for us to do a few more. The other guys in the band cast around for some places to play. But there just aren’t that many gigs available for aging hardcore bands in northeast Ohio. And it wasn’t like we were ready to commit to a tour without even knowing if the show in Cleveland was gonna go alright or not. But we did end up with one more gig, at a record store called Square Records in Akron’s hip Highland Square district. Of course, you have to accept that what qualifies as the “hip” part of town in Akron doesn’t really amount to much by big-city standards. But even if a town’s only got enough trendies to fill up an average-sized sweat-box rock club, those trendies still need a place to hang out, and in Akron, Highland Square is the place.

Now, I gotta tell you, by the time that gig rolled around, I was starting to regret having pushed so hard for it. I’d also managed to leave the AC adapter for my camcorder behind at the Beachland Ballroom the night before. There was no way to get it back. So, right after seeing Tim, I had to embark on a frantic hunt for a replacement. No small feat, since there are, like, a grand total of two places in the whole city that might stock a thing like that. Luckily, one of them had a universal battery charger that worked on the battery that came with my camera. So even if I couldn’t plug in, at least I could run for an hour or so on that before recharging. I could finish up a few interviews.

It seemed like cause and effect was jumping out at me from all directions the whole weekend. But actually your whole existence is the working through of cause and effect. Buddha himself came up with a very famous formula for how this all works called the Twelvefold Chain of Codependent Co-origination.* It’s said that Buddha attained enlightenment on contemplating this twelvefold chain. Whether or not Buddha himself said this remains a point of contention among scholars. But it seems almost certain that he was the guy who came up with the list, unlike other such formulae that were invented by later teachers and then attributed to Buddha.

I can never remember all twelve gol-danged folds off the top of my head. But since this is a book, I can stop and look them up as I write. Dogen talks about them in a chapter called “Bukkyo” (), which means “Buddhist Teaching.” I’ll give you the English first followed by the Japanese and then the Sanskrit (Sk.) so you can impress your friends. The

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