201: Four Causes of Materiality of the Body (Part 2)

In this episode, we continue exploring the four causes of materiality (rupa) in the human body, focusing on the last two: climate (utu) and food (ahara). Drawing from both Buddhist teachings and modern science, we look at how the environment and nutrition continuously shape our physical form and health.

Climate influences the body across time—from the gradual evolution of skin color and physiology over thousands of years to immediate effects like frostbite, heatstroke, or illness. Food, meanwhile, serves as the most direct cause of material change, creating either balance or disease through what we consume.

Together with kamma and consciousness, these four causes show how body and mind interdependently arise and transform. The talk concludes with a reminder that while past karma sets the conditions of our lives, through mindfulness, wise attention, and wholesome actions, we can reshape our present and future well-being.

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Sayar Myat: 0:02

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa,Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa, Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa. Theravada Buddhism series, Dhamma talk number twenty four. Full causes of materiality of the body part two in the last Dhamma talk we have discussed the first two of the full causes of the materiality of the body the remaining two causes climate and food we'll be discussing today. I try to explain the causes by using modern-day affable information so that we can understand with clarity. This talk comes out of a question from a yogi wanting me to explain how the mind can cause or produce or make material rupa matter. And I thought to explain that it would be better to explain fully all the four causes. Let's look into the big picture of modern human migration. Anthropologists have indicated that modern human migrated from Africa continent to the remaining world starting around fifty thousand years ago up to about twelve thousand years. That's a period, about forty thousand years. Humans are migrating from Central Africa to around the world. People who are living in Central Africa have dark skin and a certain physiological profile. Probably that is the most likely pattern and structure of our ancestors who were living around fifty thousand years ago, dark skin and a certain African features. However, the skin color, tone, and physiological profile of the people who had migrated to temperate and cold climates had changed over tens of thousands of years span. The people migrated to cold climates, temperate climates, lived there for tens of thousands of years in those places. And that climate change how they look, how they do, how their structure is. This is due to long exposure to new climates and adapting and coping to the new environments. Human of fifty thousand years ago of Africa now look quite different in terms of color of the skin and the structure, profile of the body based on where they live. And the structure, some shorter, some taller, bone structure. All changes during that fifty thousand years span based on where they lived. That is big picture example of climate producing materiality in our bodies. The climate change, the material product in our body, to cope, to adapt, to adjust with new temperature, new pressure, new humidity, which are constant, almost constant for a certain region. Modern-day immigrants from tropical countries to temperate and cold countries. Let's say immigrant who emigrated about a decade ago, let's say a decade ago, shows changes in lighter color skin tone and changes in metabolism. That is only within about ten years. It changes. Similar effects can be seen in people who had moved from temperate regions to hot and tropical regions. Their skin becomes a little darker, a little smoother. These are the let's say midterm and temporary production of materiality due to climate. I use the word temporary because if they move back to where they were born, it changes back to. And we have heard quite often whenever a certain region has a higher than usual or normal temperature, quite a bit. We heard about heat stroke and some people die. That heat stroke is due to climate and the material produced in the body to give heat stroke and even to death is a climate-born materiality. Some people catch pneumonia under very cold weather, not properly dressed, your lungs, your chest under very cold temperature. You catch pneumonia and you could die. That's also climate-born materiality in the body. So these are some of the climate-born materiality in a relatively short period of time. So there we put three time span. One is a long 30, 40, 50,000 years, one is a short term, relatively short term or midterm, about a decade or two. And the last one is almost instant within hours or within days. Previously we have discussed karma-born materiality and consciousness-born materiality. So I like to weave it here a little bit to show how things are connected. So when we are migrating from one area to the other, especially like tens of thousands years span, immigrants learn and think in a new way. And do new activities to adapt and overcome the physical and social environmental challenges. They faced. Whenever you go in the earlier times or even in nowadays, we move to a new country, we have to learn new things, adapt to new culture, new tradition, wear a different kind of clothing to cope with the new climate. So these are the challenges we face, immigrants face. And during those periods where one is learning how to cope with the new environments and the difficulties of the new region, one is developing a new mindset. When you are coping, you are thinking, thinking, thinking, adapting. That is a mindset, you are producing a new mindset because of the new challenges. But it is an everyday, every hour situation, so it becomes a pattern, a new pattern of mindset to cope with both physical and sociological challenges. This new mindset also produced a new set of mind-made materiality. See? One's connected to the other. Nama and Rupa. Matter and mind. Not only with the matter within the body, but matter from the outside world, such as climate. So new mind-born materials are always producing based on the pattern of your mindset. New climate-born material are producing based on the conditions of the new environment that's one emigrated to. And the last one is called ahara. Literally, it means food. Specifically, it means nutrition. Food or nutrition. That is the fourth cause of how material are produced in one's body. Food or nutrition. Nutrition-born materiality is easy to observe and explain. Because we are obsessive about food. So we know quite well about food. The food that we consume is always producing new materiality, such as new cells, new blood, new muscles, new bones in the body growing or fading away. Always producing new materiality, and it is directly related to the qualities of nutrition one is consuming. Let's say we eat a lot of oily, buttery, fatty, and trans fat food. That's the diet. And if we are eating that kind of a diet of food, it will produce high blood cholesterol, which predisposed a person to clog arteries and heart disease. If we eat wily fatty foods, if we take too much sugar and sweets, it will produce high blood sugar. And I think this medical word is called high triglyceride. Simply it produces diabetes and cancer and many other diseases. That's a high sugar. And all these changes are due to the food that you consume. In other words, fruit, food, ahara producing materiality. You can check under Google what kind of disease will produce because of the high salt. And these are harap producing materiality or matter. On the other hand, if you eat nutritious food such as leafy green vegetables, low fat, less sugar, and low salt food, it can contribute to a better health and longer life. Because they are producing good materiality in the body. These good materiality in the body support the immune system, suppress the disease, suppress cholesterol buildup, and so on. That's also a food producing materiality. These are the few examples of nutrition born or nutrition-made, materiality in our body. It's ahara, nutrition, food. These are the full causes of how material in our materiality or material in our body, rupa, are made. The first one, karma made materiality, belong to the past lives. It's all the karmic actions, fruitional activities of the past life. The second, consciousness-born materiality. It belongs to the present moment. The third and the fourth are the conditioning factors of the physical and social environments we live in. Physical environment and social environment we live in is always conditioning what type of materiality will be producing in the body. Each materiality is not exclusive of the others. One can influence the other, one can erase the other, one can support the others. That is why the Buddha said our body materiality. Such as modern words, DNA, cells, the chemicals in our blood and the matter. They are caused by one karma. Two consciousness jita. Three climate and the fourth food or nutrition ahara. So this the Buddhist set how material in the body are made due to four main causes over two thousand five hundred years ago. Karma, some people think karma is your fate. You have to live this life according to your karma. That's what some people think. So it is more like a fate. Ill fate or good fate. Or if you think in a negative way, your life is a doomed scenario. You have no choice based on what you have done in the past. You will be giving it back. You will be suffering. Doomed, ill-fated scenario. Some people think that way when it comes to karma. Yeah, in a way it is right, but not completely right. Not completely true. Basically, this karma gives us the roadmap designed by the volitional activities of past life. Design a roadmap for this life, for us in this life. We can simply heedlessly, heedlessly follow the same roadmap designed by the karma. That's one option. Or we can clear a new path by ourselves. We can clear, construct, dig in a new path, a new road where obstacles and difficulties arise in our life. These obstacles and difficulties are design roadmap of the past. But we don't have to follow that road. We can take a detour or build a little path around that difficulties to overcome it. We can build a new road, a new path, a new detour. Wherever there are obstacles and difficulties. And this new path can be accomplished, can be built by mindfulness with wholesome and wise attention. Yoni Soma Sikara. Wholesome actions, wise attention, mindfulness. With these, we can carve out a little new path around that difficult zone. Wholesome actions, kusala, and wise attention. That can soften the blow of the past karma, negativities, or even compound it and uplift it, the good karma activities can be uplifted by these. You have a choice, you can change, but only at the present moment. If you remember Buddha's last word, to his bhaku, to his monks, which means us as well, all human, basically intended for human reasons. His love was last word is Apamadena Sampadeta. In short, live heatfully. Live heatfully. By living heatfully. You can soften the blows of the past negative karma and you can even compound it and uplift it and make it brighter. The good karma from the past. Live heatfully. May all of you be able to live heatfully and produce new good karma for yourself as well as the human society as soon as possible. Satu Satu Satu. Thank you very much.