Dear Bryan,
Thanks for your interest.
Op 21-mrt-2010, om 12:20 heeft Bryan Levman het volgende geschreven:

> I don't understand how citta, cetasiak and ruupa are paramattha
> dhammas. Does paramattha mean "ultimate truth"? How can something
> which is conditioned be an ultimate truth? I thought only
> unconditioned things (like nibbaana) can be an ultimate truth?

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N: Paramattha dhamma is real in the highest sense. It is different
from conventional truth, which is not real in the ultimate or
absolute sense.
We should not be misled by the word ultimate. Seeing is a citta and
it is real in the ultimate sense, it is not a concept, it is not
conventional truth. It has a characteristic that can be directly
experienced. Its characteristic is unalterable, it cannot be changed
into something else. Seeing is always seeing, even if we name it
differently in another language. It arises because of conditions and
then it falls away very rapidly.
Person, animal, world peace, are conventional truth we may think of
but which are not real in the ultimate sense.
Citta, cetasika and ruupa are the three conditioned paramattha
dhammas. They have the three general characteristics of impermanence,
dukkhaa and anattaa. Conventional truth does not have these three
general characteristics. The object of insight are paramattha
dhammas, not conventional truth, not concepts.
Citta, cetasika and ruupa arise and fall away very rapidly, but it
seems as if they do not arise and fall away, they seem to last. We
cling to a concept of a mass or a 'whole'. We think that a person
really exists. In reality a person is citta, cetasika and ruupa that
arise and fall away very rapidly.

Nibbaana is the unconditioned paramattha dhamma. It is real in the
ultimate sense, but it does not arise because of conditions, like
seeing that arises only when there are conditions for it, such as
visible object and eyesense. Nibbaana does not arise and fall away,
it is not impermanent and not dukkha, but it is anattaa.

Thus, there are four paramattha dhammas:
citta
cetasika
ruupa
nibbaana, the unconditioned element.

Let me know if there is anything that is not clear,

Nina.

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