The Tree of Enlightenment

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
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T he Abhidharma is supposed to deal with four ultimate realities
– consciousness (chitta), mental states (chetasika), matter
(rupa), and nirvana. Matter shares with consciousness and mental
states the character of being a conditioned reality, whereas
nirvana is an unconditioned reality. In considering the three
conditioned realities, we can simultaneously treat the five aggregates
of psycho-physical existence.
is harks back to what we said in Chapter 33 about the
relationship between subject and object, mind and matter. Both
these schemes can be reduced to two elements: the subjective or
mental element, and the objective or material element. On the
one hand we have mind and the mental states – consciousness,
volition, perception, and feeling – and on the other hand we have
the object – form, or matter.
In the context of the Abhidharma, it is important to remember
that matter is not something separate from consciousness.
In fact, mind and matter can be simply called the subjective
and objective forms of experience. We will see more precisely
why this is true when we consider the four essentials of matter
(earth, water, fire, and air) as qualities of matter rather than as
the substance of matter. Because Buddhism has a phenomenological
approach to existence, matter is only important insofar as
it is an object of experience that affects our psychological being.
Whereas certain other systems assert a radical and absolute dualism,
a dichotomy between mind and body, in Buddhism we sim-
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