What is the Heat in any Cluster of Form?
The Blessed
Buddha
once explained:
What is the cluster of Forms (rūpa-khandha)?
It is the 4 primary elements
and all the forms derived from them...
Which are these 4 Primary Elements (mahā-bhūta)?
The 4 Primary Elements are:
1: The Element of
Solidity... (pathavī-dhātu)
2: The Element of
Fluidity... (āpo-dhātu)
3: The Element of
Heat... (tejo-dhātu)
4: The Element of
Motion... (vāyo-dhātu)
What, now, is the Element of
Heat?
The Element of
Heat
may be internal,
one's own, or it may be external. And what is one's own
Element of
Heat?
Whatever in one's own person or body, there is of kammically acquired
heat or hotness, such as that whereby one is heated, warmed up, metabolic
active, consumed, burning, scorched, that which digests, chemically breaks
and absorbs, what has been eaten, drunk, chewed, & tasted: this is called
one's own internal Element of
Heat.
Now, whether it be one's own Element
of
Heat,
or whether it be the external Element of
Heat,
as fires and suns,
they are both only the Element of
Heat.
One should therefore understand,
according to the utter reality & true Wisdom: This does not belong to me!
This I am not! This is not my self!
One may add:
This is not lasting, this is not a permanent property, this is not safe...
This is not pleasure, this is not happiness, this is also only suffering...
In order to induce releasing disillusion with attractive warm objects...
Whether internal or external, whether alive or dead, present or not...
Clinging to any kind of
Heat,
whether internal or external, is Suffering...
Comment: The 4 Primary Elements are not 'real substances out there', but
more
realistically: Experienced qualities or properties appearing 'in here'...
They are manifestations of form, and not lasting 'substantial entities'!
Their 'material' appearances depend on the level of observation:
Macroscopic Heat is a mere manifestation of microscopic vibration!
In all forms of materiality coexists all 4 primary elements in graduation.
In water, the element of fluidity is dominating at ambient temperature.
When frozen into ice, the solidity element becomes the dominant aspect.
In stone, the element of solidity is domination at ambient temperature.
When melted into lava, the fluidity element becomes the main feature...
Here one thus realizes, that it is the presence or absence of
Heat
defined
by temperature, that determines the relative degree of manifestation of
the
two other elements: Solidity and Fluidity. All 4 are interdependent!
