Glossary
avijja = ignorance
vinnana = thinking substance
nama-rupa = name and form; mind and body
salayatana = six internal bases: the six organs of sense and the six objects. These are: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind; forms, sounds, odors, tastes, tangible things, ideas
phassa = contact
vedana = feeling
tanha = thirst for life, craving
upadana = clinging to existence; attachment
kamma-bhava = rebirth-producing kamma
jati = refers to the arising or becoming of the rebirth-process
jara-marana = under the law of birth, age and death
bhava = becoming, existence, state of being
kamma-bhava = kamma-processes
upapatti-bhava = rebirth-processes (conditioned by kamma-bhava)
If you want to become a good person, you have to do good action. It is the action that makes you good, not the kamma. Kamma is the result of your action. Good kamma results from good action.
At present, our Teacher's health is number one. Our top priority project is to build a new kitchen and dining room for our Teacher John D. Hughes and his wife and carer Anita Hughes. This is good action.
Also, our Teacher is in retreat for one year. Today we will write a strategy what good action we can take to help improve the retreat conditions. We will write down what our good action will be.
Our Members will work together as goodly co-mates. Do not run on past kamma, this would only hold you in samsara endlessly. Drop all that. The present time is the most favorable time to live in. Only then can you practise and change your cause of action. It is futile to live in the past; it cannot be changed.
If you follow the Buddha Dhamma path, you will do good action and wake up. Work within the Triple Gem rules and hold at least Five Precepts or more.
In "The Essence of Buddha Abhidhamma", written by Dr. Mehm Tin Mon (1995, p. 312), Three Periods (kala) are specified:
1. Past = avijja, sankhara
2. Present = vinnana, nama-rupa, salayatana, phassa, vedana, tanha, upadana, kamma-bhava
3. Future = jati, jara-marana
In the past, because a person's mind is veiled by ignorance (avijja), he or she does not understand the misery of the round of rebirth (samsara). So he or she performs both wholesome and unwholesome kammas (sankhara). Thus avijja and sankhara belong to the past.
The past kamma produces rebirth in the present life. Thus starting from the very moment of conception till death, vinnana, nama-rupa, salayatana, phassa, vedana, tanha, upadana and kamma-bhava arise. So these eight belong to the present.
The kamma-bhava performed in this life produces rebirth in the form of upapatti-bhava in the subsequent life. The arising, the existing and the dissolving of upapatti-bhava are called jati, jara and marana, respectively. Thus jati, jara-marana belong to the future.
(Note that bhava has been divided into kamma-bhava and upapatti-bhava; the former belongs to the present and the latter, to the future).
References
Mon, Dr. Mehm Tin (1995), "The Essence of Buddha Abhidhamma", Publisher Mehm Tay Zar Mon, Yangon
The Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary, Pali Text Society, Chipstead, 1921-1925, London, http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/pali/index.html, accessed 30 September 2003
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