The Paṭṭhāna, the seventh book of the Abhidhamma

The Seventh Book of the Abhidhamma is the “Paṭṭhāna” (translated partly by the Venerable U Nā rada as “Conditional Relations”). The translator also wrote a “Guide to Conditional Relations” with many explanations. The “Paṭṭhāna” describes in detail all possible relations between phenomena. There are twentyfour classes of conditions. Each reality in our life can only occur because of a concurrence of different conditions which operate in a very intricate way. These conditions are not abstractions, they operate now, in our daily life. What we take for our mind and our body are mere elements which arise because of their appropriate conditions and are devoid of self. We should consider the conditions for the bodily phenomena which arise and fall away all the time. At the first moment of our life kamma produced the heart-base and other rūpas together with the rebirth-consciousness, and throughout our life kamma continues to produce the heartbase and the sense-bases. Not only kamma, but also citta, heat and nutrition produce rūpas of the body. The cittas which arise are dependent on many different conditions. We tend to forget that seeing is only a conditioned reality and that visible object is only a conditioned reality, and therefore we are easily carried away by sense impressions. Each citta experiences an object, be it a sense object or a mental object, and the object conditions citta by object-condition, ārammaṇa-paccaya. It is beneficial to remember that seeing, hearing and the other sense-cognitions are vipā kacittas, cittas which are results of kamma. They arise at their appropriate bases, vatthus, which are also produced by kamma. Hearing is conditioned by sound which impinges on the earsense. Both sound and earsense are rūpas which also arise because of their own conditions and fall away. Thus, hearing, the reality which they condition, cannot last either; it also has to fall away. Each conditioned reality can exist just for an extremely short moment. When we understand this it will be easier to see that there is no self who can exert control over realities. How could we control what falls away immediately? When we move our hands, when we walk, when we laugh or cry, when we are attached or worried, there are conditions for such moments. Cittas succeed one another without any interval. The citta that has just fallen away conditions the succeeding citta and this is by way of proximity-condition, anantara-paccaya. Seeing arises time and again and after seeing has fallen away akusala cittas usually arise. In each process of cittas there are, after the sense-cognitions have fallen away, several moments of kusala cittas or akusala cittas, called javana-cittas. These experience the object in a wholesome way or unwholesome way. There are usually seven javana-cittas and each preceding javana-citta conditions the following one by way of repetition-condition, ā sevana-paccaya. We cling to visible object, or we have wrong view about it, taking it for a being or a person that really exists. Defilements arise because they have been accumulated and they are carried on, from moment to moment, from life to life. They are a natural decisive support-condition, pakatūpanissaya-paccaya, for akusala citta arising at this moment. The study of conditions helps us to have more understanding of the “Dependent Origination”, the conditional arising of phenomena which keep beings in the cycle of birth and death. Each link of the Dependent Origination conditions the following one by way of several types of conditions. It is necessary to know which conditioning factors are conascent with the dhamma they condition and which are not. The “Paṭṭhāna” helps us to understand the deep underlying motives for our behaviour and the conditions for our defilements. It explains, for example, that kusala, wholesomeness, can be the object of akusala citta, unwholesome citta. On account of generosity which is wholesome, attachment, wrong view or conceit, which are unwholesome realities, can arise. The “Paṭṭhāna” also explains that akusala can be the object of kusala, for example, when akusala is considered with insight. This is an essential point which is often overlooked. If one thinks that akusala cannot be object of awareness and right understanding, the eightfold Path cannot be developed.