Life is influenced by all kinds of natural and scientific laws – physical, mathematical, chemical, physiological, psychological, economic, political, legal, ethical, and aesthetic. All of these standards and principles constantly intermingle and interact with one another and with karma in the complex mixture of objective and subjective phenomena that constitutes life. Under these circumstances, totally explaining dependent origination as it operates in life would involve the impossible task of mastering all fields of modern science, scholarship, and art. From the religious viewpoint, however, it is enough to try to understand how things are and to strive to determine how they should be. These are the purposes of a true understanding of dependent origination.
Basic Buddhist Concepts