The law of nature has been explained by Buddhist commentators as consisting of five distinct aspects. Underlying each of these aspects is the principle of causal dependence and its expression in various modes of relationship. All thins exist and operate, or cease to exist, in accordance with these five aspects of the law of nature. They are the principles by which the world and all its phenomena are regulated and controlled. According to this law [ niyama ] of certainly, specific conditions inevitably determine certain corresponding results or effects, and each determinant may simultaneously interact with the others be likewise determined by them.
According to the Buddhist law of nature, there is no founder, no creator. All things are conditioned. Everything is a product of combination from pre - existing causes, including all beings and non beings. All these conditioned things are subject to the Law of Three Existence, the Law of Dependence, and the Law of Nature.
The Law of Nature consists of the physical inorganic order [ utuniyama ]; the physical organic order [ bijaniyama ]; the psychic law [ cittaniyama ]; the law of act and result [ kammaniyama ], and the general law of the norm [ dhammaniyama ].
The Law of Cause and Effect is the main Buddhist principle that contrast with the non - Buddhist belief as aforemention.
The physical inorganic order is the general law of material objects, corresponding to the modern scientific law i.e. theory and hypothesis. This concerns phenomena that naturally occur, such as seasonal cycles, heat and could, rain and snow, flowers blooming in spring and dying in times of drought, wax melting with the heat and hardening with the cold.
The physical organic order refers to the natural law pertaining to heredity, the transmission of hereditary characteristics and the genetic process. This law can be observed in such phenomena as a certain kind of trees growing from a certain kind of seed, how fruits taste according to their species, how children bear physical resemblance to their parents.
The psychic law is a natural law, which concerns the function of the mind, such as the mental perception of sense objects and the experience of sensation. These various mental processes take place from moment to moment, the arising and cessation of consciousness, the attributes of mind and mental factors, hypnotic experiences, and mental states in varying levels of development.
The order of act and result or the Law of Kamma is a main doctrine of Buddhist teachings, which we have to discuss and interpret in more detail. It specifically refers to the process of volitional activities and explains how certain actions lead to corresponding consequences, why people are born with peculiarities of character, and explains human behavior in the context of mental construction and proliferation. The law of kamma is based on the proportionate principle that all actions inevitably lead to results proportionate in nature and degree to the deed.
The last aspect of natural law is the order of the norm, the all encompassing law of causality and conditionality that regulates and controls all phenomena and governs the interrelatedness and interdependence of all things. This order of the norm is manifested in how things change and decay, how life is characterized by birth, senility, disease and death, how all existential realities are marked by the three characteristics of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non - substantiality.
By THE BUDDHA'S Core Teachings
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