The Second Lesson

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THE SECOND LESSON

What two Concepts, when seen to the Root with Penetrating Knowledge, and understood to the broadest limits, such that their repellant nature is seen as it really is and one has released them in their entirety, can bring one to the Uttermost Freedom of Detachment?

NAMA encompasses everything, including RUPA; RUPA encompasses everything, including NAMA.

"[The Buddha is Speaking] 'What is there right here in front of our eyes that gives rise to the Interoperation of the Mental and the Material?

"Getting to the bottom of the matter, Beggars, I could see: 'Where we have Individualized Consciousness, (Secondary Consciousness, Double-Knowing-Knowing), there also we have the Interoperation of the Mental and the Material.' Individualized Consciousness, exists here in front of our eyes and we can see for ourselves that Individualized Consciousness, is necessary for the existance of the Interoperation of the Mental and the Material. Without Individualized Consciousness, we would have no Interoperation of the Mental and the Material."

"Then this thought occurred to me: 'What is there right here in front of our eyes that gives rise to Individualized Consciousness?

"Getting to the bottom of the matter, Beggars, I could see: 'Where we have Interoperation of the Mental and the Material, there also we have Individualized Consciousness.' Interoperation of the Mental and the Material exists here in front of our eyes and we can see for ourselves that Interoperation of the Mental and the Material is necessary for the existance of Individualized Consciousness. Without Interoperation of the Mental and the Material we would have no Individualized Consciousness."

This Individualized Consciousness, this Double-Knowing-Knowing or "knowing as an individual" is delimited by the Interoperation of the Mental and the Material. To have Consciousness as an individual it is necessary to have the Interoperation of the Mental and the Material and it is not necessary to have anything more than the interoperation of the Mental and Material to have Consciousness as an individual. It is only to this point that there is that which is understood to be "a being," "a being born" "aging, sickness and death, grief and lamentation, pain and misery, and despair."

What I saw, Beggars, was that to have consciousness as an individual it is necessary to have the interoperation of the mental and the material;

To have interoperation of the mental and the material it is necesssary to have consciousness as an individual...

In a word: Without the co-existence (inter co- operation) of NAMA/RUPA there would not appear that which is known as an individual.

One, of many yarns accompanying "The 10 Questions", this one from The Minor Readings, translated by Bhikkhu Nanamoli, Pali Text Society, London: 1960, is excerpted here [a good example of one style of Sutta transmission]:

"Now the turn has come for the commentary on the Boy’s Questions that begins with ‘One is what?’ We shall give a commentary after telling the Need Arisen [for their utterance] . . .

"The Need Arisen was this. The Blessed One had a great disciple called Sopaka. That venerable one developed final knowledge [A~N~NAA] at the age of only seven years from his birth. The Blessed One wanted to allow his Full Admission [to the Community] by the method of getting him to answer questions, and, seeing his ability to answer questions in the sense that he, the questioner himself, intended, he put the questions beginning with ‘One is what?’ The Boy answered and satisfied the Blessed One with his answers. And that was the venerable one’s Full Admission. This was the need arisen.

And here is the way the question in full is to be understood as translated by this Beggar: " . . . this is said by the Blessed One: ‘Bhikkhus, when a bhikkhu becomes completely dispassionate towards one [two, etc.] idea, when his lust for it completely fades away, when he is completely liberated from it, when he sees completely the ending of it, then he is one who, after attaining rightness [SAMMATTAM = a High Degree of Madness, meaning seeing things as they really are, considered mad by the world -- mo], makes an end of suffering here and now.