A First Look at Abhidhamma (2):
The Physical World Versus the Mental World


What Is Rupa And What Is Nama

The first step towards understanding Abhidhamma, and Buddhist psychology, is to distinguish between the physical world and the mental world.  This is the most fundamental ground from which many realizations are built upon.

In the Abhidhamma, the physical world is called rupa, while the mental world is called nama.  Rupa includes all physical objects including trees, rocks, the air, and the bodies of humans and animals.  In Buddhist terminology, all rupas have four dimensions of nature: solidity (Earth), viscosity (Water), heat (Fire) and movement (Wind).  In simple physics terminology, without going into the complexity of quantum theory, all physical things are built from matter and energy.  Thus from such general definition, the physical world is basically everything in the universe!  Well, not exactly, for there is the other world called the mental world.

The mental world consists of all ‘things’ in our mind.  What are in our minds?  Feelings.  Feelings include happiness, sadness, love, anger, hatred and craving.  We have lots of feelings every day and every moment.  When our feelings are strong, we can identify the feelings easily.   When our feelings are weak or neutral, we may not sense our feelings.  Nonetheless, our feelings are always there. 

Besides feelings, concepts (and beliefs) are also objects in our mental world.  When we say that the sunrise is beautiful, we have actually invoked a concept in our mind.  Beauty comes from a comparison with ugliness, and both beauty and ugliness form a duality of concept.  Similarly when we say that this is good and that is bad, we have also invoked a concept in our mind.  In the physical world, there are no feelings and concepts.  Feelings and concepts exist only in our mental world.

When we are well trained in Buddhism, we can gradually be non attached to our feelings and concepts.  At that stage, we would feel calm, peaceful and with equanimity.  Then we shall feel something even subtler than feelings and concepts, and that is experience, in its most native form.  Experience need not be mixed with feelings and concepts, it can exist by itself.  When we do not put judgement on experiences, the experiences can be free of concepts.  When we have a neutral feeling about an experience, the experience would be free of the colors of feelings and emotions.  Experience is as is, not quantifiable and not describable.  Experience occurs every moment.  It arises and falls every moment in our mental world.


Rupa Is Not Nama;  Nama Is Not Rupa

Hence this world can be distinguished into rupa and nama.  With this distinction, comes the first fundamental theorem of Abhidhamma.  I call it the first fundamental theorem because all other realizations rest upon this.  In other words, a good understanding of this fundamental theorem is essential to understanding the rest of Abhidhamma.  What is this first fundamental theorem?  In many books, it is simply mentioned in eight words, and the author would say nothing more than that.  The eight words are

“Rupa is not nama.  Nama is not rupa.”

I would certainly like to elaborate as best as I can on this theorem.

This theorem tells us that what we experience in the mental world, is not exactly and directly objects of the real world.  In other words, what we experience, is actually a re-enactment of the real world inside our mental world.

How do we experience the physical world?  In conventional Abhidhamma theory, we do it through our five senses.  Which five?  The five senses are sight, sound, smell, taste and touch.  Sight is received through our eyes, sound through our ears, smell through our nose, taste through our tongue and touch through our body.  Our mind does not directly experience the real world, but through mental objects passed from our eye, ear, nose, tongue and body (sensation).


A Simile

We can imagine the situation as such.  There is a king who never leaves the palace.  He has many servants to help him.  Among the servants there are five servants dedicated to perceiving what happens outside the palace.  There is an ‘eye’ servant who would tell the king what could be seen outside the palace.  The king does not actually see what happens outside the palace, he only relies on what the ‘eye’ servant tells him.  The king could order the servant where to see and what to look for, but alas the king cannot see for himself.  Similarly the ‘ear’ servant would tell the king what could be heard outside the palace, the ‘nose’ servant would tell what could be smell, the ‘tongue’ servant would tell what could be tasted, and the ‘body (sensation)’ servant would tell what could be felt.  The king could order these five servants what to target, but the king cannot receive these physical senses directly himself.

Thus what we see, is actually a re-enactment in our minds.  Suppose there is a flower in front of us.  Our eyes see the flower, and send mental objects to our mind.  Our mind experiences it.  Our brain re-enacts the picture of a flower, as best as our eyes can perceive, in our minds.  If our eyes are color-blind, the re-enactment will be without certain colors.  If our eyes are short-sighted, the re-enactment will be blur unless we are aided by a pair of glasses.  If something falls on the blind-spot of our eyes, then the re-enactment will be without that something.  If our eyes are blind, then there is no re-enactment at all.  The same goes for the sensation of sound, smell, taste and touch.  They are all re-enacted in our minds.  Thus when we take an injection to numb our body, touch sensations cannot be re-enacted in our minds.

When things are not re-enacted in our minds, it does not mean they did not happen in the physical world.  When we did not see something, such as oxygen, it does not mean oxygen is not present.  When we do not hear, it does not mean there is no sound, etc.  This is the theory of rupa is not nama.  Sometimes the brain can play tricks on us.  When we fantasize too much by imagining things before our eyes, our mind can be fooled into believing that such things are indeed occurring.  This feels especially real when our mind is under the control of drugs or alcohol.  This is the theory of nama is not rupa.  The real world is already confusing enough, hence Buddhism strongly discourages the taking of drugs and alcohol.


Unlinking Our Psychology From Rupa

The separation of rupa and nama lets us understand our psychology better.  It is like riding a bicycle.  First we try to get the ‘hang’ of riding the bicycle and worry less about how our mind works.  One day, we may learn to control the bicycle so well that it is like an extended part of our body.  We may think that the bicycle is indeed part of our body.  Realizing that rupa is not nama, we are awaken back to the fact that the bicycle is not part of our body.

Similarly since we are babies, we learn to rely on our five senses.  As we get older, we could not differentiate between the physical world and the mental world anymore.  We thought we saw a sad world, or an unscrupulous world.  We may also try to brainwash ourselves to believe that this is a happy world or a cheerful world.  This is linking our psychology to rupa.  But mental world and physical world are really distinct.  The physical world is free of emotions and concepts.  It is as is, it is completely objective.  Suffering arises when we cannot accept the physical world as is, when we cannot see the true nature of the world.  Our learned psychology is getting in the way.  Through countless rounds of rebirth, our psychology is clouded with greed, anger and ignorance.  As we link such psychology to the physical world, we could not see the true nature of the physical world.  All forms of attachments arise within us.  If we can break this psychological link, then we can see more clearly the true nature of the physical world, which is impermanent, of the nature of dukkha (suffering), and is void of self.  Realizing the distinction is the first step towards understanding our psychology better.


Mindfulness Meditation

In our mindfulness meditation, we can practice the distinction of rupa and nama.  As we calm down our body, we become keener in our senses.  When we hear something, we can take note of the sensation of hearing.  When we smell, taste or sense something, we also take note of the sensations.  Sensations arise and fall very quickly.  Even the pain in our legs when we meditate, it comes in waves of sensation, it is discontinuous.  Each moment of pain arises as a result of cause and effect.  Each moment is fuelled by a new set of cause and condition, different from the previous one a moment ago.  Our body is rupa, a living dynamical system in the physical world.  As we quiet down completely, we are only left with the sensation of breathing.  Breathing is also a rupa phenomenon, received via the body sense.  As we quiet down further, we begin to notice the mental world in all its richness of emotions, concepts and thoughts.  It forms an interesting orchestral of the rupa and nama.

Now we know rupa as rupa, and nama as nama.  Always remember that rupa is not nama, and nama is not rupa.


With Metta,
Lee Hon Sing.

-- Last modified: Dec 20, 2003.  All ignorance is mine.

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