The mere hardness our body feels is pathavi. It is not a mental construct according to Abhidhamma. Five senses sense only realities.
Hardness can be sensed only by the body (kayappasada) out of five senses. It can not be seen. The body can sense only 3 mahbhutas i.e. pathavi, tejo and vayo.
Late Abhidhamma master venerable Rerukane Chandavimala has explained these qualities/characteristics as “Actions” and not solid entities. Abhidhamma master venerable Maggavihari prefers the definition “Characteristic natures or Natural characteristics”
I understand that. If though the earth element is only “hardness” then it is merely a quality of experience. How then can a quality of experience cause other qualities to rise? How can a number of different qualities come together to produce objects? If the earth element has no mass, no substance, no form and no shape and is merely the experience of “hardness” then how is it matter? Certainly, we can say that in eating the apple, all we directly experience is “hardness, redness” and “sweetness” and from this raw sensual data we fashion the concept “apple”, but this is an epistemological argument not an ontological one. Essentially, I struggle to see how you go from the direct experience to “the earth element truly exists independent of mind” and I struggle to see how mere qualities of experience, which the dhammas are reduced to in Theravāda, can be objective and how they can act causally on each other through sustaining each other, destroying each other etc. I should say I think its right to reduce physical objects to mere qualities, to remove substance from our experience, but it seems without substance we can’t really talk about a truly existing anything.
When a bomb blasts in a city, 10000 people feel the heat of bomb at the exact same time. All the 10000 hear the sound at the exact same time. All the 10000 see the light at the exact same time. The possibility/probability of “all the 10000 people’s minds create/illude the heat/sound/light of the bomb at the exact same time without an objective explosion” is extremely low. The phenomenologists have hard times in explaining such incidents. [venerable Maggavihari]
Yes, there is a consensus on x happening. That said, in Theravāda when people think a bomb went off and houses were destroyed, they aren’t truly seeing reality. In reality there is only “hardness, heat, sound, colour” etc. The question then remains as to how sensory qualities can cause explosions?
Any kind of rupa we find (even photons, electrons) is considered to have all the rupas of the Octad (4mahabhutas + color + smell + taste + nutriment). The Octad is considered inseparable from any physical entity. All the 8 exist in each and every physical thing. No one can find 1 of them alone or 2 or …7 alone.
The 4 mahabhutas are considered to be completely mixed with each other in an “unthinkable way”. The ingredients of a cup of tea (tea, sugar, milk and water) are completely mixed, yet we can separate the particles in microscopic level. But the 4 mahabhuthas are considered to be fully mixed in a way that is beyond human imagination. The 4 are said to have “swallowed each other”.
See above. Another thing that I wonder about rupa-kalapas is if anything which is made of parts is unreal, how are they real since they are made of parts?
I think it matters if one needs to proceed Classical Vipassana, since the Abhidhamma and Ditthi-visuddhi demand the acceptance of realities beforehand.
In classical theravada, “impermanence” is not applied to concepts (phenomenal things) but only to realities.
Well I think you can accept that when we eat an apple, all we directly experience is “hardness” etc. Do we need to accept such things really exist externally in order to understand the impermanence of conditioned dhammas? I recently read something interesting, again from Ledi Sayadaw. He argues that you do not really need to see the momentariness of mental dhammas, and that it’s actually impossible to do so (apart for Buddhas, of course)
The fleeting nature of phenomena is, therefore, aptly compared in the scriptures to a flash of lightning. However, the rapidity of the occurrence of mental phenomena is far greater than that. Their arising and vanishing may even be reckoned in hundreds of thousands of times within a flash of lightning. The rapidity is beyond human comprehension. Therefore, it is not advisable to make such subtle phenomena the object of one’s contemplation. Try as one might, these phenomena will not be comprehended even after contemplating for a hundred or a thousand years. The meditator who tries this will not gain a single ray of insight, but will be beset by more befuddlement and despair. The scriptures say that mental phenomena take place billions and trillions of times within the blink of an eye, a flash of lightning, or the snap of your fingers. Now, the duration of the blink of an eye itself is so fleeting that attempting to contemplate the occurrence of mental phenomena to the billionth or trillionth part of that duration becomes sheer folly. Therefore, one should be satisfied with comprehending the unreliable and transient characteristic of all phenomena, which, after all, is the main purpose.
As for the exact nature, i.e., the swiftness, of mental phenomena, the understanding of which is the domain of the wisdom of the All-knowing Buddha, one has to accept the authority of the scriptures. Any talk about contemplating the three characteristics of mental phenomena is mere humbug. It is never based on practice, but only on hearsay from the scriptures. If someone were to try it, it would be a far cry from insight.