1 Dhamma Threads By Htoo Naing There are Dhamma seekers. They seek Dhamma. They want Dhamma. They Know that Dhamma has healing power. It heals the sore of suffering. May You all be well and happy here while you visit this group. With Unlimited Metta, Dhamma in its name has many definitions. Dhamma may be the nature. It may be the truth. It may be justice. It may be law. It may be the teachings of The Buddha. But if it is the Dhamma or The Dhamma, then it is one of three gems or triplegem called The Buddha, The Dhamma, The Sangha. The Dhamma is the whole set of teachings of The Buddha. Buddhas are those who in their past lives had perfected 10 paramis or perfections, 10 upaparamis or 10 higher perfections and 10 paramattha paramis or the greatest perfections and when in their final life be reborn as a human being and finds all Dhamma ( all truths ) by themselves and preach to sattas or beings who are ready to attain some nanas and some kusala. After The Buddha and The Dhamma have been explained to some extent, The Sangha needs to be understood. The Sangha are those who are ordained in the order of sangha and abide all the vinaya or rules and regulations passed as vinaya by The Buddha. They maintain what The Buddha taught and they practise what The Buddha taught. They preach Dhamma to people whenever the conditions favour. These three gems or triplegem are refered to as gems. Gems are rare to be found while dirts are easily found. Gems are precious and keep as admirable things. Even these conventional gems may be ubiquitous while triplegems is the most precious to all as Buddhas appear as a rare event. The Buddha preached many dhammas. He preached whenever there was a condition for preaching the Dhamma. He lived 80 years as a human being. But He was not an ordinary human being. All the perfections that His past lives made, made Him the greatest person in the whole universe. The Buddha Siddhattha Gotama entered Buddhahood on His 35th birthday. In His remaining 45 years, He preached Dhamma a lot for sattas. He sometimes preached to a single person while there were countless 2 witnessing devas and brahmas. Sometimes The Buddha preached to a group of people. At the time of The Buddha Mahaparinibbana, there arose opposing words from puthujana bhikkhus and some bhikkhu followed him and joined him because they disliked vinaya because tight vinaya limited their itchiness or puthujana's endless desire. Since then, there have been many many divisions. These divisions were mainly happened among puthujana bhikkhus. Puthujhana is a Pali word. It is made up of 'puthu' and 'jananam'. Puthu means many and jananam means causing to arise. Puthujana means causing many many defilements to arise. These defilements made those bhikkhus to deviated from The Buddha teachings which included vinaya or rules and regulations for bhikkhus to abide by. As they could see the forseeable danger to The Buddha Sasana, arahats sangha all agreed and decided to compile all teaching. 4 months after Mahaparinibbana of The Buddha, The First Buddhists' Council was held with the aid of the king Ajatasattu. Venerable Mahakassappa acted as the main questioner and Venerable Ananda acted as the sole answerer. The Dhamma were brought forward by The Sangha at first through oral citations. At hard time of famine, The Sangha continued to cite not to forget the taught Dhamma so that some had to vomit blood. The same fashion of Buddhists' Councils were taken successfully another two times. At 4th Buddhist Council, there appeared written language and Dhamma were recorded on leaves and they were stored in a safe place so that enemies could not destroyed. Candamukhi was an ogress and lived on a hill called Mandalar. When The Buddha and Ananda were there, Candamukhi cut her breasts and offered The Buddha. The Buddha smiled. Smiling of The Buddha was rare. 'Ananda! This ogress would be reborn as a human around this place. He would become a king and he would maintain My Sasana. That ogress became the sponsor of the 5th Buddhists' Council which was taken in the mid 19th centuary and he had Dhamma sculptured on 729 marble stone slabs which can still be seen today. Citta is thought to be consciousness, mind, spirit etc etc. But it does not equate with them. Consciousness is a translated word for 3 citta. So there may be different meanings in the term consciousness but citta does not. Citta has its own character. Consciousness the simple term means a state of awareness to self and the surrounding. This state is to big for citta. Because citta only lasts just a moment, possibly less than a billionth second. This again is because to be aware of the surrounding, there have to happen billions and billions of citta. So the second meaning of consciousness becomes needed to define. This second meaning is direct equivalent to citta. This consciousness is not like the first term simple consciousness. So it is needed to be careful whenever 'consciousness' the word appears, this should be assumed as 'citta' in the setting of dhamma talking. Again, citta as a single moment is quite far away from understandability. But to understand citta, simple English is needed to explain what citta means. Citta is a nature which is aware of its specific object. This capability of awareness is the characteristic of citta. For example, there are lobha cittas or lobha mula cittas. Lobha means craving. It is a special desire which itself has been deluded by ignorance and it has a strong force of attraction to do things. Lobha is like thirst. While thirst is craving for water, lobha is craving for sensual things or other subtle things. Mula means root. Lobha cittas arise when a conventional being has a strong desire for something with deluded mind. Example: when a man win the lottery. But in that example, to be aware of that there is lobha, there have to arise billions of lobha cittas. But each citta has their own object to be aware of. This matter will be explained in the course of talking on citta to some detail. There are different kind of citta in our daily life and these will be delineated in the coming posts. There are many classifications of citta. The first one has been discussed in the previous post. From the message, all new words have been explained. With repeatition, these Pali words will become familiar with continuing reading. But I may repeat some explanation so that new readers can grasp the idea well. There are 31 planes of existence. They are also called 31 realms. In 4 Pali it is called bhumi. Bhumi is where sattas or beings with the same characters live and enjoy and dwell. These 31 realms will be explained in coming posts. But currently citta has been classified according to the realms where they most frequently arise. I will repeat them here. There are 89 cittas. They are 54 kamavacara cittas, 15 rupavacara cittas, 12 arupavacara cittas, and 8 lokuttara cittas. If lokuttara cittas arise with jhanas, there will be 40 lokuttara cittas and there will be 121 cittas in total. Here there are 4 new Pali words. If they are repeatedly used, they will be familiar with readers. They are kamavacara, rupavacara, arupavacara and lokuttara. Avacara means 'most frequently arising'. Kama are sensual things like rupa or sight ( colours ), sound, smell, taste, touch and related thoughts. But kama in kamavacara means kama bhumi. So do other 2 words rupavacara and arupavacara. Rupa in rupavacara means rupa brahma bhumi and arupa in arupavacara means arupa brahma bhumi. Lokuttara comprises 'loka' and 'uttara'. Loka here means all of kama loka, rupa loka, and arupa loka that is three lokas. Kama loka is all kama bhumis or sensual sphere, rupa loka is fine material sphere or rupa brahma bhumis, and arupa loka is immaterial sphere or arupa brahma bhmuis. Lokuttara is beyond all these three lokas and lokuttara always excels lokas. Uttara means 'great', 'superior to', 'beyond something'. So lokuttara always excels other cittas. Kamavacara cittas may be simply called kama cittas. By the same token, rupavacara may be called rupa cittas, and arupavacara may be called arupa cittas. But lokuttara citta is always called lokuttara cittas or simply 'lokuttara'. Sometimes they may be refered to as 'lokuttara dhamma'. Citta is one of ultimate realities. Definition of citta has been discussed in the previous post. There are immeasurable and enormous amount of cittas in any given moment. Even though there are many many cittas, in terms of thier character, there is a single nature. That is capability of awareness to its object or knowing of its object. Although citta is just only one reality, depending on its accompanying cetasikas ( cetasika will be discussed in later posts ), citta becomes many in terms of its associated cetasika or mental factors. Due to these mental factors, citta gets different names. There are 89 cittas in total. Again if 8 lokuttara cittas or 8 5 supramundane consciousness are seen as 40 lokuttara cittas, then there will be 121 cittas in total. Cittas may be grouped as kamavacara cittas, rupavacara cittas, arupavacara cittas, and lokuttara cittas in terms of their origin or where they arise or which sphere of realm they arise. Kamavacara is composed of kama + avacara. Kama means sensual things like sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Realms where these things prevail are called sensual sphere or kama bhumi. Again bhumi means realm.