Problems Bared, Essays on Buddhism

41
ness. Matter is the non-mental, not the dead material considered in
itself (if that would be possible), but the material element conceived
in the senses. It is the external in so far as it affects the internal.
It is the passive side of life in which the mind plays the active part.
Such passive aspect of an action is far from being helplessly dead,
for it is in actuality the aim of action, and thus it is an active inducement
to action. And therefore, matter is not the thing as we
feel and see it, but is a form of energy in which there are different
forces at work which cannot exist individually and separate from
each other. In their different proportions they constitute matter
in its different forms. Thus the different material qualities, as we
shall now consider them in some detail, are not mere abstract ideas.
But while the mathematician investigates the behaviour of matter
under the influence of certain conditions which he can calculate—
while the physicist tries to discover the properties of matter—and
while the chemist searches for the results by combining some material
forces—the Buddhist philosopher considers matter (rūpa) as
food for the mind (nāma), as an object for the subject, as personality
seen from its non-mental side, remembering all the time that
the distinction is purely logical and not real.
The material elements have their own intrinsic nature and their
own characteristic mark without the implication of a substantial
entity. An element (dhātu) in the Buddhist sense is, therefore, not
the opposite of a phenomenon, but is a quality in itself, not less real
because of the changing nature of phenomena. The phenomenal
universe is unreal from an absolute viewpoint, because it contains
nothing of an abiding nature, such as a soul, substance or entity.
But this unreality from the absolute viewpoint is not a complete
negation, for what is unreal in the ultimate sense may be real in
the actual or relative sense. In actuality, then, the phenomena of
matter, dependent on conditions and impermanent in their process,
are quite real; just as chemical elements have not be come less real