Dear Nina and friends,

thanks for the interesting discussion, Nina. After reading Olendski's
article, this is my understanding.

According to the Buddha's teaching, the mind and mental objects arise
together, just as the eye and visual forms, the ear and sounds, etc.
Therefore, the first phrase is not suggesting the mind preceding mental
objects. It is not suggesting mental objects preceding the mind either.

Further down, Olendski suggests that pubba`ngamo may be used as a
determining factor, i.e. because the mind exists, it is possible that
un/wholesome states of the mind exist. However, he is treating dhammo
simply as mental state, rather than phenomenon in general.

On the other hand, I am thinking that pubba`ngamo can still be
referring to time sequence, the way that thoughts precedes verbal and
physical actions.

Anyway, I would not be amending the online solutions.


metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Nina van Gorkom wrote:

thank you for the link to the article and this helps us with the
translation. He suggests that the pubba does not always mean: first in
time.

> 1. First conceived by the mind are (all) phenomena,
> with the mind in the essence are (our) thoughts;