The Tree of Enlightenment
An Introduction to the Major Traditions of Buddhism
by Peter Della Santina
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Part Four
The Abidharma
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Chapter Thirty-Eight
Analysis of Matter
The Abhidharma is supposed to deal with four ultimate
realities--consciousness
(chitta), mental states (chetasika), matter
(rupa), and nirvana. Matter
shares with
consciousness and mental
states the character of being a conditioned
reality, whereas
nirvana
is an unconditioned reality. In considering the three
conditioned
realities, we can
simultaneously treat the five aggregates of
psycho-physical existence.
This harks back to what we said in
Chapter 33 about the relationship
between subject and
object,
mind and matter. Both these schemes can be reduced to two
elements: the
subjective or mental element, and the objective or
material element. On
the one hand we
have mind and the mental
states--consciousness, volition, perception,
and feeling--and
on the
other hand we have the object--form, or matter.
In the context of the Abhidharma, it is important to remember
that
matter is not
something separate from consciousness. In fact,
mind and matter can be
simply called the
subjective and objective
forms of experience. We will see more
precisely why this is true
when we consider the four essentials of matter (earth, water, fire,
and
air) as qualities of
matter rather than as the substance of
matter. Because Buddhism has a
phenomenological
approach to
existence, matter is only important insofar as it is an
object of
experience that
affects our psychological being. Whereas certain
other systems assert a
radical and
absolute dualism, a dichotomy
between mind and body, in Buddhism we
simply have
subjective
and objective forms of experience.
In the classification and enumeration of matter in the
Abhidharma,
matter is divided into
twenty-eight elements. The four
primary elements, or four essentials of
matter, are simply
called
earth, water, fire, and air. However, earth might better be
called
'the principle of
extension or resistance'; water, 'the principle of
cohesion'; fire,
'the principle of heat';
and air, 'the principle of
motion or oscillation.' These are the four
primary building-
blocks
of matter. From them are derived the five physical sense organs
and their objects.
In this context, as well as in the context of the
five aggregates,
matter refers not only to
our bodies but also to the
physical objects of experience that belong
to the external world.
Beyond organs and their objects, matter is also present in
masculinity
and femininity, in
the heart, or the principle of vitality,
and in nourishment. There are
also six further
elements of matter,
which are: the principle of limitation or space,
the two principles of
communication (bodily communication and verbal communication),
lightness, softness
and adaptability. Finally, there are four elements
that are termed
'characteristics':
production, duration, destruction,
and impermanence.
There are thus twenty-eight components of matter or, to be
more
precise, of material
experience, in all: the four essentials, the
five sense organs and
their corresponding
objects, the two
dimensions of sexuality, vitality, nourishment, space,
the two forms
of
communication, lightness, softness and adaptability and the four
characteristics.
Let us look more closely at the four essentials in
terms of their
reality as sensory
qualities. It is important to
remember that when we speak of the four
primary elements of
matter, we are concerned not with earth, water, fire, and air in
themselves but with the
sensory qualities of these elements--the
qualities that we can feel and
that give rise to the
experience of
matter. Thus we are concerned with sensory qualities like
hardness
and
softness, which belong to the principle of extension, and
warmth and
cold, which belong
to the principle of heat. We are not
dealing with essences. Rather, we
are dealing with
qualities that are
experienced.
This means, in turn, that we are dealing with a purely
phenomenological
treatment of
matter, in which sensory qualities
function as the definitive
characteristics of matter. It is
the sensory
qualities that constitute ultimate realities. In other
words, it is neither
the table
nor my body, but the sensory qualities of hardness and
softness that
belong to both the
table and my body, that give rise to
the experience of matter. In this
context, the objects
of my
experience (such as the table and my body) are conventional
realities, whereas the
sensory qualities of hardness, softness, and
so forth that give rise to
the experience of
matter are ultimate
realities.
This is what is called in philosophy a 'modal view,' a view that
concentrates on the
qualities of experience rather than on the
essence of experience. To
seek the essence of
matter is to enter
the world of speculation, to go beyond our empirical
experience; to
deal
with the qualities of matter is to confine ourselves to
phenomena, to
experience. It is
interesting to note that this modal
view of matter is shared by some
modern philosophers,
Bertrand
Russell perhaps being the best known among them. It is this
modal
view of
reality which also informs much contemporary thought
about matter.
Scientists have
come to recognize matter as a
phenomenon, to recognize that it is
impossible to arrive at
the
essence of matter, and this has been substantiated by the discovery
of the infinite
divisibility of the atom.
This modal view of reality has another important implication:
Insofar
as we take a purely
phenomenological and experiential
view of reality, of existence, the
question of the
external world--in
the sense of a reality existing somewhere 'out
there,' beyond the
limit
of our experience--does not arise. Insofar as the external
world gives
rise to the
experience of matter, it is just the objective
or material dimension of
our experience, not
an independent reality
that exists in itself.
On a personal level, we find that our psycho-physical
existence is made
up of two
components: the mental component, or
the mind, and the physical
component, or the
body. The mind and
the body differ somewhat in their nature--primarily
in that the mind
is more pliant and changeable than the body. The Buddha once
said that
we might be
more justified in regarding the body as the
self than the mind, because
the body at least
maintains recognizable
features for a longer period of time.
We can verify this through our own experience. Our minds
change much
more quickly
than our bodies. For example, I can
make a mental resolution to refrain
from eating
starchy foods and
fats, but it will take a considerable amount of time
for that mental
change to reflect itself in the shape of my body. The body is more
resistant to change than
the mind, and this is in keeping with the
characteristic of earth, as
represented in the
principle of resistance.
The body is the product of past karma, past
consciousness, and is
at the same time the basis of present consciousness. This lies at the
heart of the
uneasiness many intellectuals have felt about the body.
A famous
philosopher, Plotinus,
once remarked that he felt like a
prisoner in his own body, which he
considered to be like
a tomb.
Sometimes we would like to sit longer in meditation were it
not for the
physical
discomfort we experience as a result of the
body. Sometimes we want to
work longer (or
to stay awake to
watch a particular television program) but cannot do
so because of
the
weariness that accompanies the body. There is a tension
between mind
and body due to
the fact that the body is the
materialized form of past karma, and
because of the body's
characteristic of resistance, it responds much more slowly to
volitional actions than does
the mind. Thus the body is, in a sense,
an impediment that hinders
mental development.
We can see this
clearly in the case of liberated beings. In The
Questions of King
Milinda,
the king asks Nagasena whether Arhats can experience
pain. Nagasena
replies that
although Arhats no longer experience
mental pain, they can still
experience physical pain.Arhats no longer
experience mental pain because the bases for mental
pain
(aversion, ill-
will, and hatred) are no longer present, but they can
experience
physical pain as long as
the basis for physical pain (the
body) remains. Until an Arhat enters
final nirvana--
'nirvana without
residue,' without the psycho-physical personality--the
possibility of
physical pain remains. This is why, in the accounts of the Buddha's
life and the lives of
his prominent disciples, there are occasions
when they experienced
physical pain.
The body has a peculiar, intermediate position, in that it is the
product of past
consciousness and the basis of present
consciousness. This intermediate
position is also
reflected in the
fact that some bodily functions are conscious and can
be controlled
by an
act of will, while others are unconscious and proceed
automatically. I
can decide to eat
another plate of food, but it is an
unconscious bodily function that
digests or fails to
digest the meal; I
cannot will my body to digest it.
Breathing, too, is representative of this intermediate position of the
body, because
breathing can be either an unconscious function
or it can be raised to
a volitional and
conscious function for the
purpose of concentrating and calming the
body and mind. In
coping
with our existence as a composite of mind and body, we need to
remember that
the mind represents the dynamic, fluid, and volitional
principle, while
the body represents
the principle of resistance.
Because of this, it is not possible for
the body to change as
quickly
as the mind in the process of development and liberation.
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Contents
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| 12 | 13
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41
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Update : 11-05-2002
