BUDDHADHAMMA: Natural Laws and Values for Life Translated by Grant A. Olson

Buddhadhamma is a huge text – often the only book cited in a Thai thesis or dissertation by Thai students. One of the major contributions of this book is a detailed description of the Buddhist principles of causality.  This book reveals the rational basis of the Buddhist worldview and contains an especially lucid discussion of the distinctive Buddhist notion of no-self and Buddhist "faith" or confidence based on inquiry.

“Because of ignorance (avijja) – defined as non-knowledge of the Four Noble Truths – a person engages in volitional actions or kamma, which may be bodily, verbal, or mental – either wholesome or unwholesome.”

“Ignorance is non-knowledge of the Four Noble Truths, pre-natal past, post-mortem future, the past and future together, and dependent arising.”

“No single cause can produce an effect, nor does only one effect arise from a given cause – there is no Creator”

“a person engages in volitional actions or kamma, which may be bodily, verbal, or mental – either wholesome or unwholesome.  These kammic actions are the formations (sankara), and they ripen in states of consciousness (vinnana) – first as the rebirth consciousness at the moment of conception and thereafter as the passive states of consciousness resulting from kamma that matures in the course of one’s lifetime”

“Kammic formations are the twenty-nine volitions associated with mundane wholesome and unwholesome cittas – and these are the conditions for the arising of thirty-two kinds of resultant consciousness of thirty-two kinds of resultant consciousness, which stimulate the five aggregates of mind and matter, feeling, perception, and mental formations and consciousness.”

“Along with consciousness there arises mentality-materiality (nama-rupa), the psycho-physical organism, which is equipped with the six-fold base (salayatana).”

“Here, often associations are made to previous lives: name denoting cetasikas associated with resultant consciousness; matter denoting material phenomena produced by kamma – both are found in realms where the five aggregates collect together”

“Contact is the reception from the six-senses.  Contact is determined to the coming together of consciousness and mental factors with an object at one or another of the six-senses. Via the sense faculties, contact (phassa) takes place between consciousness and its object, and contact conditions feelings (vedana).”

“Feelings arise from the contact with the stimulus.  These feelings may be: pleasurable, painful, or neutral. The links from consciousness through feeling are the products of past kamma, of the causal phase represented by ignorance and formations.  With the next link, the kammically active phase of the present life begins, productive of a new existence in the future.  Conditioned by feeling, craving (tanha) arises, this being the second Noble Truth.”

“Cravings arise from feelings.  If the feeling is pleasurable, one wishes to hold onto that experience; but if the feeling is painful, one wishes to be freed from the pain.  Neutral feelings can be peaceful and become an object of craving as well. Conditioned by feeling, craving (tanha) arises.”

“Clinging is four-fold: clinging to sense-pleasures is an intensive form of greed; attachment to wrong views; clinging to rites and ceremonies; and clinging to a doctrine of self.  The arising of existence is dependent on clinging. When craving intensifies, it gives rise to clinging (upadana), through which one again engages in volitional actions ‘pregnant’ with a renewal of existence (bhava). The arising of existence is dependent on clinging.  There are two types of existence: kammically active process of existence (kammabhava) and the passive or resultant process of existence (upapattibhava).  There are, in an active existence, twenty-nine types of wholesome or unwholesome types of kamma leading to a new existence.  The new existence thirty-two kinds of consciousness and mental factors as well as other material phenomenon from kamma.  Clinging is a condition for active existence, because under the influence of clinging, one engages in action that is accumulated as kamma.  Clinging is a condition for resultant existence because the same clinging leads one back into the round of rebirth, in a state determined by one’s kamma. Kamma through which one again engages in volitional actions ‘pregnant’ with a renewal of existence (bhava).  The new existence begins with birth (jati), which inevitably leads to ageing and death (jaramarana). through which one again engages in volitional actions ‘pregnant’ with a renewal of existence (bhava).  The new existence begins with birth (jati), which inevitably leads to ageing and death (jaramarana).”

“Birth arises from existence, from consciousness, mental factors and kamma.  Once there is birth, there is the resultant effect of aging, decay, or death. The new existence begins with birth (jati), which inevitably leads to ageing and death (jaramarana).”

“This teaching of dependent origination also shows how the round of existence can be broken: with the arising of true knowledge, full penetration of the Four Noble Truths, ignorance is eradicated.  Consequently, the mind no longer indulges in craving and clinging; action loses its potential to generate rebirth, and deprived of its fuel, the round comes to an end.  This is the third Noble Truth – the cessation of suffering.”

“Suffering arises between birth and death.  All suffering is rooted in birth.  The whole mass of suffering arises from the interdependent conditioning and conditioned states.”

The book is a translation of the first edition of the magnum opus written by Thailand's most highly respected monastic intellectual. Thoroughly grounded in Pali text and commentary, it represents a contemporary transformation of classical Theravada thought and practice.