Chapter 01
Dharma Made Easy
For one to live the way the Dhamma prescribes is not an easy task in the modern day and in the world where priorities are misrepresented out of context. Dhamma seems to be an academic exercise far remote from day to day living. This is an attempt for a wayfarer to ease his or her burden of sifting through the junk (like a junk email) of knowledge whether it is religious or otherwise. This is brief and succinct as possible as the terminologies in Pali permit me with modern and simple English as a vehicle. Term like consciousness is dropped due to lack of clarity in English and due to wrong usage and my substitutions of simple English should not be interpreted as the Dhamma having very simple expression and meaning for the modern man with a laptop or a ipod.
This short introduction is for the modern man with vision or without it, blinded by the junk information overload.
It is not enough for a true inquirer. This is not an attempt to divert whoever who wants to dig deeper into the volumes of Dhamma available in Pali.
Dhamma exercise is not necessarily a scholarly or an academic activity alone.
It should be a way of life.
We have to live the way the Dhamma prescribes as envisaged by the wise of the past, present and future.
My attempt may be practical and is futuristic.
Fundamental Tenets of Dhamma as I see them Valid
There are only two fundamentals in Dhamma.
Any view outside is false or wrong.
First is the movement of beings in Sansara as inheritors of their deeds good and bad. Sansara is of timeless dimension and its continuation is timeless and follows simple logic and logistics.
The driving force is Kammapatha (course of action and response) popularly known as Karma or Kamma in Pali is the second fundamental tenet.
There are many rendering of this word in modern usage and used inappropriately by western scholars and I have no intention of going into that in depth here.
The two very important tenets in Dhamma are the Sansara Cycle of the Sattas (beings) and the driving force the Kamma Principle.
All the others terminologies and language of descriptions in Dhamma are the derivatives and classifications as permitted by the Pali as a Language of Communication.
The first and foremost derivatives that follows are the Kusala (meritorious), Akusala (demerits) and Kriya (neutral) of the Arahats (with no Vipaka = Result).
Many actions we perform without any rendering of Kuala or Akusala should be mentioned as Actions (which may have results or no results in this world).
For an example one buys a lottery ticket and wins it by chance is a chance action. But what he does with his money may have meritorious or otherwise result. If he clings (Tanha) on to this money greedily he begins to acquire more Akusala (most probably) than before his prized win. If he decides to build a hospital for all including animals he or she is on the path of apprentice wayfarer. I do not need go any further as any healthy being with sensible mind would understand the meaning I am trying to get at in Kamma Principles.
The problem with this analogy is that as the laws of statistics should and would prevail, the chance of this happening in our real world is remote. But what I should state boldly is that one does not need money to acquire merits in Sansara Cycle. There are many more ways and avenues available for someone who is inclined to gain Kusala.
This attempt is not to enumerate all the vagaries of Kamma where there are volumes in Buddhist literature but how it operates from Life (Being) to Life (Being) and the difficulty in understanding such a concept which I found baffling to say the least.
What I say should not be taken with face value alone but with an open mind.
Having consulted many writings of the erudite of the past in English and Pali writing a succinct account for persons who do not have time to read volumes of detailed Dhamma was considered opportune.
There is paucity of critical writing to suit the modern man with some scientific background.
It looks as there is lot of confusion in an average mind due to wrong rendering of science, psychology and philosophy into Dhamma.
Also a for a western traveler who visit this country and inquire into Dhamma has no suitable light reading material he could read on a quiet train journey. If a reader can finish this book before he or she reaches Kandy from Colombo my intentions are partially fulfilled.
But there is no guarantee a firm grasp of the principles underlying Dhamma is fully covered.
Some basic understanding of the Mind (medical-wise) and its description in Abhidhamma with forthright diversion from the modern psychological terms is necessary to go any further in Dhamma. As I see as a simple man (not sophisticated by ill understood medical terminologies for the unknown). I had to dig a little bit in my spare time.
As a medical man, I found modern psychology bewildering with many wrong interpretations of simple facts of life. That is where I had to find some solace in Dhamma in particular and some avenues for understanding the ill understood, other than medicine and psychology.
This should not be accrued as Dhamma having all the answers to all the questions. And that is certainly is the wrong interpretation as many misguided are trying to propagate, since many of us the fools (including me) has not understood the Dhamma in correct context yet.
Dhamma certainly has the answers to many unknown facets that can be known by the mind alone without any outside help for one who has developed it prudently and with impunity. It must be said that the Abhidhamma terminologies are very difficult and because of that difficulty one should not shun the attempt at deriving some meaning for enrichment and emancipation. It is rich with language itself and it can be itself an exegesis.
Nama and Rupa
Mind and matter are integral part of Abhidhamma and from the outset it should be reiterated that the mind cannot exist without matter, however, subtle or substantial the matter may be.
Mind lives (rendering is the being or Bhava) in the cave of matter.
Not only it exerts its power within but whenever matter is decayed or consumed it looks to cling onto another cave of a being. That in essence is the mode of operation of Sansara and Kamma as the driving principle or force.
Mind is the one that accrues the Kamma in driving the Sansara cycle.
In other words, volition (Cetana) is the starting point of Kamma.
The Sansara Cycle is the storehouse of all Kamma and the energy (vitality) content of this is called the Bhavanga-sota (the life continuum).
Bhavanga-sota is the sine qua non of Sansara existence of beings.
The Kamma has to operate on this stream of mind energy which has indispensable stratum or strata and the dependable base for the volitional activity to operate and function.
There are many as fourteen states of the mind in existence in the matter base of the being. I would only try to elaborate in Pali terminology as far as the Patisandi (re-linking) status of Bhava (from one to the other) and nothing more here.
Patisandhi is the only word necessary to illustrate the working of the Sansara as it is understood by a Buddhist.
Rest of the descriptions in Abhidhamma are enormous in content and are not relevant to the two principle tenets as stated above the Sanasara and the Kammapatha (the course of action).
The Bhavanga-sota is inherently and consistently disturbed and shaken up by the Bhavanga-calana, which breaks the life continuum of its enormity of power by momentary breaks and gears into different intentions of Kamma (a Force to reckon with) through the many doors (5 sense organs and the mind-not brain- itself) that are constantly open to the excitement and stimulation of the vagaries of Kamma in evolution and dissolution with attachments and detachments momentarily or substantially to the base (the being) stream of continuum.
With intermediary investigation and analysis by the sense organ and the mind base itself it drives the impulsive running force called Javana (a Process) which has a momentarily lasting Ups and Downs like an undulating wave (Mind Wave).
This is the virtue and the vice base where the Kusala and Akusala Kamma are originated and propagated in essence.
This briefly is the Kamma formation in every Bhava of existence, which does not speak of the beginning but the enormity and the continuity without cessation.
The true Buddhists aim is to arrest this activity and process by constant vigilance to the behaviour of the (Bhavana) mind of beings.
Buddha only shows the path, one has to actively enter in.
It is not a dialogue or debate of existence, but the cessation of existence which is impermanent, unsatisfactory and without substance (self).
Patisandhi
Coming back to PATISANDHI it is necessary to understand the three root causes and the three results (HETU) that are discussed in detail in Abhidhamma and how they operate in tandem with Kamma. The operative mechanisms can be many and diverse but for the sake of understanding in a conceptual framework they are adequate and have substantial meaning. Entire core of Dhamma is ingrained within a few words of wisdom. The roots are MOHA (the ignorance or the lack of wisdom of the truth of existence), the LOBA (the greed, the Tanha and the clinging or attachment to something not substantial or self) and the DOSA (hate, enmity, destruction of what is not agreeable or desirable a view, a substance or a property or anything not tangible to the self-preservation). They all come under Akusala in various combination ones, twos and never in threes. Ignorance as a root cause gives way to greed and hate which usually operates in twos at Patisandhi. Since clinging or attachment (greed) is a necessary prerequisite for recurrence of Bhava (rebirth) and the ignorance or the hate follows suit automatically and spontaneously.
Because they are Akusala traits even though they operate in twos, because of the hindrance to pathway of AVIHINSA, AMITY, and GENEROSITY are categorized as AHETUKAS.
The antidote or the recipe for the pathway of FREEDOM is ALOBA (Generosity and giving away of all worldly things), ADOSA (Compassion) and AMOHA (shedding the ignorance with WISDOM of ANITTA, DUKKA (unsatisfactoriness) and ANATMA doctrine at the time of CUTI-CITTA culminating in NIBBANA.
They operate in twos or threes and hence they lead to the pathway of realization they are called DVI-HETUKA or TRI-HETUKA in Abhidhamma Terminology.
So the Patisandhi can operate in many ways at the time of death (Cuti-Citta) and the re-linking or severance of the all abiding re-linking in Sansara is determined by the one’s accumulated KAMMAPAHA (process and course of action, again and again), be I may be Kusala or Akuala.
The Karma Policeman is in action over and over again until it is terminated by the Wise, the Arahaths, Paseka Buddhas and Buddhas.
That is how I see the Patisandhi in operation at birth and death
Buddhism and Dhamma 