Yes, seeing/hearing this specific recording would be really helpful. Thank you.
@anon24251132 @Gabriel_L , my memory is vague but I think I came across it somewhere in the courses section of discourse. Sorry I can’t be of more help. I get the impression Sujato is busy now, maybe I can amplify the evocation of the venerable @Brahmali though.
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Indeed we did. It’s probably in the first workshop. Sorry I can’t be any more help.
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something similar to these niyamas can be found in the theravada abhidhamma developments ( possibly in the later commentaries, i guess that it is not found in the early works of abhidhamma such as the “vibhanga”) in the section of "rupa paramatta " where it is said that matter originates due to four factors, namely ; matter that originates due to kamma, citta, temperature (utuja )and nutriment (aharaja). The first three corresponds to kamma, citta and utu Niyamas while the last is not parallel to the niyamas. Since much of abhidhamma were later developments it was intensively affected with the late commentaries and this development of the niyama framework might have affecred to abhidhamma as well.knowledge on abhidhamma is weak and please correct me if I am mistaken.
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Yes, I believe the five niyamas appear in the commentaries. However I have not studied the history of the idea.
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This could be the link you are looking for.
With Metta
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Not sure I follow - what was ‘myth busted’ exactly? Could you please clarify?
Thank you.
Hi Nimal,
Thank you so much for digging out this link - lots of material to delve into here as part of my research.
Metta,
Hello Nimal,
Workshop 2 answered my question in that events/things have multiple causes not just the conditioning force of Karma.
Thank you for your help.
Metta,
As a matter of fact, it is very easy to search anything in this site. Just type “karma” “niyama” or whatever you want to search in the mirror icon and press enter. That is all. It will prop up all matches. There you go.
With Metta
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Fabulous!
I have literally just started using sutta central & all its resources so still finding my way.
Thank you for your help.
Metta.
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Agree.
I am sure there is a Suttha saying that every thing is not caused by Karma. If every thing caused by karma we will not be able to exercise our free will (citta Niyama). Hence we will not be able to end Sumsara.
Directly or indirectly Niyamas are supported in Sutthas.
Hi. Sorry if I have not much directly to contribute in matters of text, but I wrote some articles about the Niyāma. You can find them here if you are interested. They are my own working out of them though, and are not purely traditional.
Hello. The page says:
The last law described, Dhamma Niyāma is the law of purification and perfection. It is the law that comes into play when a person becomes skillful in using the law of kamma. That is, a person, based on acquired learning about the imperfect nature of material or worldly life and the possibility of perfecting his being, is setting before himself to transcend this material or worldly life and works to become such perfected being.
The suttas seems to call this type of kamma: “the kamma that ends kamma”.
And what is kamma that is neither dark nor bright with neither dark nor bright result, leading to the ending of kamma? Right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. This is called kamma that is neither dark nor bright with neither dark nor bright result, leading to the ending of kamma.
AN 4.237
The above seems based in the Dhamma Niyama mentioned in SN 12.20 about ending ignorance & craving.
Whether Realized Ones arise or not, this law of nature persists, this regularity of natural principles, this invariance of natural principles, specific conditionality.
Uppādā vā tathāgatānaṁ anuppādā vā tathāgatānaṁ, ṭhitāva sā dhātu dhammaṭṭhitatā dhammaniyāmatā idappaccayatā.
SN 12.20
Correct:
“The last law described, Dhamma Niyāma is the law of purification and perfection. It is the law that comes into play when a person becomes skillful in using the law of kamma. That is, a person, based on acquired learning about the imperfect nature of material or worldly life and the possibility of perfecting his being, is setting before himself to transcend this material or worldly life and works to become such perfected being.”
—Dhammananda
Well, in that summary I have only stated that that Law is the law “that comes into play” when you begin to make steps on the path. All the other laws are still operating on you (and you still have to concern yourself with them) until Parinibbana. It is more about the magic that happens when you begin to walk the path…
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It’s incorrect to refer to it as ‘magic;’ it’s the development of skillful qualities requiring painful work and art.
And, in the most general terms, the fact that skillfulness leads ultimately to a dimension where skillfulness is transcended, accounts for a paradoxical dynamic common to all seven sets that form the Wings: the meditator must intentionally make use of qualities from which he/she wants to escape, gaining familiarity with them in the course of mastering them to the point where they are naturally stilled. There the transcendent paths and their fruitions take over. This is the sense in which even the path of right practice must eventually be abandoned, but only after it has been brought to the culmination of its development."—Thanissaro
The Anapanasati sutta (Majhima Nikaya 118) repeatedly emphasizes this development of skills:
" And how are the four establishings of mindfulness developed & pursued so as to bring the seven factors of awakening to their culmination?"
The developing of skills and so on, refers still to “the kamma that ends kamma”. The entering into the domain of the “Law of Dhamma” is more about what you experience as a result of that. This is by many experienced as entering so to say a sphere of magic, wherein “what you get” appears to be utterly out of proportion in magnitude to what you do. As if you were guided and supported by invisible hands. Some don’t like the word magic though (to my mind certainly because they have something different in mind than I have when I use it).
That would be under the governing principle of the cosmos. But most readers would still be in the stage of being governed by the self (Anguttara Nikaya 3.40).
Yes, but in the context of the Fivefold Niyāma, that would still relate primarily to the “Kamma Niyāma” and not the “Dhamma Niyāma”.