- Ārammaṇa-paccaya: The Relation of Object
- Ārammaṇa-paccaya: The Relation of Object
What is the ārammaṇa-relation?
All classes of consciousness, all states of mental concomitants, all kinds of material qualities, all phases of Nibbāna, all terms expressive of concepts, are ārammaṇa-relations.
There is, in fact, not a single thing (dhamma) which does not become an object of mind and of the mental elements.
Stated concisely, objects are of six different kinds: visible object, audible object, odorous object, taste object, tangible object and cognizable object.
Which are those things that are related by the ārammaṇa-relations?
All classes of mind and their concomitants are the things that are related by the ārammaṇa-relations.
There is indeed not a single class of consciousness that can exist without its having an existing (bhūtena) or nonexisting (abhūtena) object (bhūtena and abhūtena may also be rendered here as ’real’ and ’unreal,’ or as ’present’ and ’non-present,’ respectively).
Here the present visible object is the ārammaṇa paccaya, and is causally related to the two classes, good and bad, of consciousness of sight.
Similarly, the present audible object is causally related to the two classes of consciousness of sound;
the present odorous object to the two classes of consciousness of smell;
the present taste object to the two classes of consciousness of taste;
the present three classes of tangible object to the two classes of consciousness of touch;
and the present five objects of sense to the three classes of consciousness known as the triple element of apprehension.
Footnote: The triple element of apprehension is the threefold mind-element (mano-dhātu); the consciousness which adverts to the five sense objects (pañca-dvārāvajjana), and the two which receive them (sampaṭicchana) by way of wholesome-result or unwholesome-result.
All these five objects of sense—present, past or future—and all objects of thought present, past, future or outside time are ārammaṇa-paccaya and are causally related, severally, to the seventy-six classes of consciousness known as mind-cognitions (or elements of comprehension).
Footnote: Mano-viññāṇa-dhātu: this includes all classes of consciousness dealt with in the Abhidhamma except the ten kinds of sense-consciousness and the threefold mind-element.
In what sense is ārammaṇa or ’object’ to be understood, and in what sense paccaya?
Ārammaṇa is to be understood in the sense of ālambitabba, which means that which is held or hung upon, so to speak, by mind and mental elements. Paccaya is to be understood in the sense of upakāraka, which means that which assists or renders help (in the arising of paccayuppanna-dhamma).
Concerning the word ālambitabba, the function of the ālambana of minds and their mental factors is to take hold of or to attach to the object.
For instance, there is in this physical world a kind of metal which receives its name of ayokantaka (literally, ’iron-desire’), lodestone, on account of its apparent desire for iron.
When it gets near a lump of iron, it shakes itself as though desiring it.
Moreover, it moves itself forward and attaches itself firmly to the iron.
In other cases, it attracts the iron, and so the iron shakes itself, approaches the lodestone, and attaches itself firmly to it.
Here we see the power of the lodestone,
which may be taken as a striking representation of the ālambana of mind and the mental factors.
The mind and its concomitants not only attach themselves to objects,
but at the stage of their coming into existence within a personal entity,
rise and cease every moment while the objects remain present at the avenues of the six doors.
Footnote: The six doors of the senses—mind, in Buddhist philosophy, being the sixth sense.
Thus the rising and ceasing is just like that of the sound of a gong, which is produced only at each moment we strike its surface, followed by immediate silence.
It is also like that of the sound of a violin, which is produced only while we move the bow over its strings and then immediately ceases.
To a sleeping man, while the life continua are flowing (in the stream of thought), kamma, the sign of kamma and the sign of the destiny awaiting him in the succeeding life—which had distinctly entered the avenues of the six doors at the time of approaching death in the preceding existence—are ārammaṇa-relations, and are causally related to (the nineteen classes of),
consciousness known as the life-continuum (bhavaṅga).
End of the Ārammaṇa-relation.