see msg 1 and 5 in particular.
Dhamma (with a capital D), the Buddha’s teaching that leads to viraga…nirvana, is the compass. Without it, dhamma (lower case ‘d’), as “thing”, “phenomena”, or “mental object of mano”, is directionless and without clear purpose.
For the oral tradition to work, as SN 46.3 clearly shows, sati is “remembering”, sati-sambojjhanga is remembering one of the important Dhamma-teachings to investigate with Dhamma-vicaya-sambojjhanga.
In SN 46.2, kusala or akusala, savajja or anavajja, hina panita, etc, are not just talking about any old “thing” or “phenomena”. Take a couple of examples:
- fire: you couldn’t logically say fire is kusala or akusala, hina panita on it’s own as a “phenomena”. It’s the Dhamma of how “fire” is used that one could make that discrimination.
- internet: like fire, internet could be good or bad. as a phenomena, one can’t not say it’s kusala or akusala. But one can say HOW the internet is used, the “Dhamma of internet”, is akusala or kusala.
7sb (awakening factors) starts with the sati (remembering) of a particular Dhamma which leads to viraga…nirvana, one investigates that Dhamma, if one pacifies (passaddhi) body and mind into a 4jhana quality of samadhi, then upekkha (as a factor of 3rd and 4th jhana, also as upekkha-sambojjhanga), upekkha = upa + ikkhati. It’s not passive attitude of equanimity. One is doing dhamma-vicaya-sambojjhanga with a 4jhana quality of samadhi and upekkha.
If you say Dhamma (of 4sp and 7sb) is just phenomena, then the 7sb, right concentration become a formula that a bank robber develops a samadhi to rob a bank skillfully for example.
This is why Dhamma has to be first and foremost the Buddha Dhamma which lead to viraga…nirvana…end of dukkha (for 4sp and 7sb). It may also include “phenomena” as a secondary feature, but only phenomena restricted to the range of viraga-Dhamma, not any phenomena in the universe. The viraga-dhamma is the handful of leaves, not bare awareness of phenomena of any universal law of reality that doesn’t have a direct bearing to the end of dukkha.
edit: (addition) part of the reason it’s hard to change people’s opinion on this is because B. Bodhi and Thanissaro got it wrong in their widely read translations. It comes down to which sutta passages one gives weight and priority to, because unfortunately “dhamma” is one of those overloaded words that depends on context. But if you comprehensively read enough of sutta passages to see how “dhamma” is used, quantitatively and qualitatively the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of Dhamma as viraga-Dhamma teaching which leads to the end of Dukkha and nirvana. A very small minority of people will do that though (carefully check enough passages), so it’s an uphill battle. But at least you want to keep an open mind on this and be on the lookout so you can confirm yourself as you reread the suttas. I’d be extremely surprised if you didn’t change your mind on this within a couple of years.