‘The Paṭṭhāna’, traditionally regarded as the quintessence of the Buddha’s wisdom and as the surest proof of his omniscience; is a system which, in mathematical order, seeks to expand the comprehension of matter, mind, consciousness, and Nibbāna (as delineated in the previous talk); to cover the entirety of existence.

In total there are 24 Paṭṭhāna conditions. And these may perhaps best be thought of as patterns in the phenomenal world (that is, patterns in how material and mental things occur). But, as phenomenal realities are so to say the objects a meditator seeks to gain insight in, the Paṭṭhāna may equally be viewed as the grammar of insight. Thus, the Paṭṭhāna is a system which is seeking to reduce the infinite variety of phenomena, or the infinite amount of life experiences, to a finite amount of universal realities which follow 24 possible modes or ways of relating to each other.

For a proper comprehension of the subject, I recommend reading my book Paramattha (free to download under https://highermindart.info/books). Apart from that, under: https://highermindart.info/dhamma-talks/  can be found a number of talks exploring several of the Paṭṭhāna conditions in greater depth.