“To emphasize, only the four mental components are preserved in the nāma loka. The rupa loka has only “material things”, Thus, rupakkhandha is NOT preserved.”
—–
An analogy from the IT field may be helpful here. Imagine a database system that works like this:
(1) A user creates a piece of data at time T1.
(2) The system records not the data itself but instruction on how to create that data; let’s say that the instruction consists of four pieces of information.
(3) At a later time T2 the user wants to retrieve that piece of data; the system goes to the instruction at timestamp T1, executes it per the four pieces of information, creates the data, and presents it to the user.
(4) There are no limits to the storage of the instructions.
Thus, the data itself (rupakkhandha) is NOT preserved; what is preserved is the 4-piece instruction (the four mental components) to recreate that data.
I said to imagine such a storage system, but actually there is a database system that works somewhat like this.
Best,
Lang
