12 characterics of material phenomena

[Coyote]

In "Knowing and Seeing" Pa Auk Sayadaw writes about the 12 characteristics of the 4 elements and their use in discerning material phenomena. My understanding is that the 4 elements are present in every experience of materiality, along with derived elements making up octad, nonad and decad kalāpas. So, the 12 characteristics must also be present everywhere throughout the body. This is also what is stated in the book, page 145:

Wherever you begin, you must slowly develop your understanding, so that you discern pushing throughout the body, from head to feet. In some places it will be obvious, in other places less so,but it is present through out the body.

But it also seems that the characteristics present a sliding scale, so that although each experience will consist of the 4 elements, it won't consist of 12 characteristics but only 6:

Earth:
Hardness --- Softness
Roughness --- Smoothness
Heaviness --- Lightness

Water:
Flowing --- Cohesion

Air:
Pushing --- Supporting

Fire:
Hotness --- Coldness

So an kalāpa might have the characteristics of hardness, roughness, heaviness, flowing, pushing, hotness
But it can't have both hardness and softness ect.

Is this correct?

[ryanM]

Are you talking about kalapas as small units of physical matter? I'm not expert on this, like, at all. But I can say something about how the classification goes with hard and soft, dark and light etc. in a quantifiable sense. If you're already aware of this, then please just disregard this comment.

So with respect to something like temperature, whether or not something is hot or cold, is just dependent on the amount of heat/energy something has. The Kelvin scale illustrates this well with '0 Kelvin' being the lowest/least active possible 'temperature/state' of matter. So there isn't any such thing as cold in this sense, but just varying degrees of heat. I think the same can be said about solids and liquids. Solids are classified as such only because they're very slowing moving and tightly associated groups of particles. So it again turns into a matter of how you wish to classify things. It could very easily be said that something is both soft and hard because of the qualities of that particular object.

I hope maybe that helped



fellow human,

Ryan

[paul]

To take the body as example, there would be both support and weight in different areas depending on the pose. So there would be a linear structure of support and an opposing pattern of weight; both can be the subject of scanning, but it is better to start to identify the support structure first by becoming aware of where the bones touch surrounding objects or the body itself, because these sensations are stronger.Bones would be an earth element- hardness. Once one identifies a support point, the support structure can generally be traced in a linear fashion throughout the body. Beginning with this, one can build up a visualisation of the structure path in the body, then proceed to identify the weight areas, which would be water/earth combination. In any pose, there must necessarily be a balance between the opposing dynamics of weight and structure. A word of caution; the ancients rated air highly, because it was observably crucial to life, but they carried this too far in their physiological system, in attributing the movement of the body to propulsion of the limbs by air through the veins.

[SarathW]

I can't give you a direct answer.
The following link may some help.
Please read under the heading "Ruupa"

The twenty-four secondary elements are divided into two groups

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... html#ruupa" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Coyote]

A word of caution; the ancients rated air highly, because it was observably crucial to life, but they carried this too far in their physiological system, in attributing the movement of the body to propulsion of the limbs by air through the veins.

But does this mean they are mistaken when they ascribe the movement of the body (during walking ect.) to the air element?

So with respect to something like temperature, whether or not something is hot or cold, is just dependent on the amount of heat/energy something has. The Kelvin scale illustrates this well with '0 Kelvin' being the lowest/least active possible 'temperature/state' of matter. So there isn't any such thing as cold in this sense, but just varying degrees of heat. I think the same can be said about solids and liquids. Solids are classified as such only because they're very slowing moving and tightly associated groups of particles. So it again turns into a matter of how you wish to classify things. It could very easily be said that something is both soft and hard because of the qualities of that particular object.

This actually seems to reflect how the abhidhamma classifies things, in that it ascribes the liquidity of liquids to containing the water element "in excess" (at least that is how I have heard it described), thus the characteristic of flowing as opposed to cohesion. Hence my comment describing the characteristics as a sliding scale.

[paul]

A word of caution; the ancients rated air highly, because it was observably crucial to life, but they carried this too far in their physiological system, in attributing the movement of the body to propulsion of the limbs by air through the veins.

But does this mean they are mistaken when they ascribe the movement of the body (during walking ect.) to the air element?

Absolutely; a sense of reality must be exercised when interpreting texts from two millennia in the past; people become hypnotized by their exoticism. The ancients did not know about electricity (fire element) which powers the muscles for movement. Incidentally neither did they know the function of the brain, mistakenly attributing the physical basis of thought to the heart.

References:
Air propelling the limbs: Vism. XI, 37
Wrong function attributed to brain: Vism. VIII, 136; XIV, note 26.

[Coyote]

Absolutely; a sense of reality must be exercised when interpreting texts from two millennia in the past; people become hypnotized by their exoticism. The ancients did not know about electricity (fire element) which powers the muscles for movement. Incidentally neither did they know the function of the brain, mistakenly attributing the physical basis of thought to the heart.

Of course, but discerning mentality-materiality doesn't require knowledge of electricity or the function of the brain does it? We can call motion the air element and ascribe movement to the pushing of air through the veins, or not, but from an experiential perspective it is still the same motion (air) element.
How would you understand the process of discerning materiality?

[paul]

People are determined to cling to the texts rather than use their own direct experience (of, for example, materiality); there comes a time when one must 'discard the raft'. My experience of materiality would be along the lines as described in my first post.
Note: References are now supplied in my second post .

[Dhammanando]

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  http://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=373

[Dhammanando]

We can call motion the air element and ascribe movement to the pushing of air through the veins, or not, but from an experiential perspective it is still the same motion (air) element.

I believe a strictly momentarist account of motion —say the lifting of my arm— would actually treat it as an appearance produced by the arising of fresh rūpa-dhammas in a location adjacent to rūpa-dhammas that have just passed away.

[Coyote]

We can call motion the air element and ascribe movement to the pushing of air through the veins, or not, but from an experiential perspective it is still the same motion (air) element.

I believe a strictly momentarist account of motion —say the lifting of my arm— would actually treat it as an appearance produced by the arising of fresh rūpa-dhammas in a location adjacent to rūpa-dhammas that have just passed away.

Would these rūpa-dhammas have predominant air element, being characterised by the "pushing" characteristic?

When the Sayadaw says that the 12 characteristics can be discerned throughout the body, does he mean that some places are hard, some are soft? Or that hardness is even present in areas where we would usually experience softness?

Bhante

[paul]

How would you understand the process of discerning materiality?

The most valuable aspect of this subject in my experience has been contemplation of the difference between conventional and ultimate truths and the application of this understanding to everyday life as explained in 'There is no Being Apart From Mere Mentality-Materiality', Vism. XVIII,24, particularly verse 28. This contemplation can be developed with more or less normal discernment of materiality, as described in XI, 28, 'method in brief'.
"But when he does review it as consisting of elements (hardness, softness, air flow, heat and electricity as bodily sensations), he loses the perception 'living being' and his mind establishes itself upon elements'.