Perfil del Personal

The super cosmic realm is a non-mind attended form (ธาตุธรรมตาย thattham tai). It accommodates the mind attended forms (ธาตุธรรมเป็น thattham pen) or the beings that live inside. The D4 says each contains countless mind-attended forms and non mind-attended

forms. Viewed from the outside perspective, the structure of each super cosmic realm resembles like a flower of the Kadam tree [22].⁸⁷

Illustration 04: Flower of Kadam tree [23]

Metaphorically, there are eight Kadam flowers in different colours located in eight different directions. Each is arranged with a countless number of sub-realms. The biggest sub-realm is located at the centre of each super cosmic realm like the core of Kadam flower. There is only one biggest sub-realm as the centre of each super cosmic realm.

Therefore, there are eight different colour central sub-realms. The smaller realms or the sub-realms surrounding the main centre realm like the capsules of Kadam flower.

87 Ibid., p. 119.

Illustration 05: The structure of the super comic realm

As mentioned in the literature review, there is no detailed report of the structure of the other seven thatthams, but the texts emphasise that of the white one. In the white super cosmic realm, each sub-realm consists of the three great realms inside i.e. 1) nipphan [24]

(Pali: nibbāna), 2) phopsam [25] (Pali: tibhava) and 3) lokan nalok [26] (Pali: lokanta niraya).⁸⁸ The sub-realms surrounding the main central realm are arranged in the straight lines starting from the first sub-realm, which is closest to the main central sub-realm, to the final sub-realm. The number of lines is countless. They also are arranged in countless rounds. The first round is the closest to the main central realm. The final sub-realms are in the final round. The perfections of the beings in the deeper rounds are more profound and their age is older. The sizes of the inner sub-realms are larger due to the size of ñāṇa⁸⁹ of the first Buddha. The primordial Buddha [27] or the primordial dhammakāya, that is, the first one acquiring enlightenment in the super cosmic realm, resides in nibbāna of the main central realm. He governs all the realms from the biggest to the smallest. Each realm has the countless dhammakāyas of arahants in nibbāna. Each

88 Ibid.

89 The size of the realm is the same as the size of the ñāṇa sphere of the first Buddha. Due to the equality of the size of the realm and the ñāṇa sphere, the first Buddha is able to govern the whole area of the realm. He therefore knows every incident occurred in his realm.

realm has the first dhammakāya of the first Buddha as the highest governor. As the D4 says:

The deeper layers are bigger and progressively more refined. The size of each realm is the same size as ñāṇa [sphere] of the first Buddha of that realm because he only governs the area which has the same size as his ñāṇa. In later times, when the second, third and fourth Buddhas arise, the first Buddha will teach them vijjā [knowledge] in order to help him with the governance of the realm…The distance between the realms is equal to ñāṇa of the first Buddha of each realm.⁹⁰

The text also mentions that dhammakāyas of Buddhas of the inner realms govern dhammakāyas of Buddhas in the outer realms. The first dhammakāya of the Buddha in nibbāna will teach dhammakāyas of the later Buddhas in order to help him in governing his realm.

From the first round to the final round, the sub-realms are categorised into two layers; 1) inner layer and 2) outer layer. The inner layer is the layer of Buddha‘s dhammakāyas that enter āyatananibbāna without removing the inner bodies [28]. The outer layer is the layer of Buddha‘s dhammakāyas which attain āyatananibbāna by removing all bodies [29], except the purest arahant dhammakāya. They are the same type of dhammakāya of the historical Buddha in this sub-realm. The D3 explains that originally the human body of the Buddha is very powerful, immortal and indestructible. In other words, māra [30]

cannot destroy it. In the early period, the ancient Buddhas purified their human bodies and all inner bodies as pure as their arahant dhammakāya and then took all bodies into nibbāna.⁹¹ In the later period, māra obstructed the purification of the bodies. Therefore, the Buddhas in the outer layer have to remove the human body and their inner bodies, except the arahant dhammakāya, before attaining nibbāna.⁹²

90 Ibid.

91 D3.p. 32-3.

92 D3.p. 33. [See the method for taking the human body to enter the nibbāna in D3, pp. 32-6 and it will be mentioned in Chapter 5].

The sub-realm that humans are staying in is located in the first round of the outer layer of the white ‗thattham‘. Having determined that this sub-realm is located in the middle round, the number of the inner rounds and those of the outer rounds are equal. The number is the many folds of 100 pakoṭi-asaṃkhaya.⁹³ This sub-realm contains the three main realms inside i.e. 1) nipphan, 2) phopsam and 3) lokan. Nipphan (āyatananibbāna or nibbāna) is the residential realm of dhammakāyas or Phranipphans [31] of the Buddhas, paccekabuddha⁹⁴ and arahant disciples.⁹⁵ The phopsam contains three inner realms; 1) kammaphop [32], 2) rupaphop [33] and 3) arupaphop [34]. The world that human beings inhabit is in the kammaphop inside the phopsam which is the same place where the six heavens [35] and hells [36] are located. The structure of this sub-realm will be discussed next.