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| Unravelling...Mind & Body Through Abhidhamma |
It's not Abby DOOM UH, as the lovely AI video narrator misspeaks, but rather Abby DAH MAH.
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| A guide through the dense analysis of reality |
The Theravāda Abhidhamma tradition, also known as the Abhidhamma Method, refers to a scholastic systematization of Theravāda Buddhism's understanding of the Buddha's "Higher" (abhi-) "Teachings" (Dhamma).
They are the same Teachings, of course, but presented in ultimate rather than conventional terms.
For example, in the sutras (discourses), rebirth might be mentioned and sound like reincarnation -- a person passing away from here and reappearing according to karma (past deeds) on another plane of existence, such as heaven or the animal world. However, the Abhidhamma explains in exacting detail how this happens, how there is no "self" (soul, atta), how an impersonal process of Dependent Origination rolls on in samsara bringing about results (phala, vipaka) in accordance with will actions (intentional deeds), and how all of this is impermanent, unsatisfactory/incapable of fulfilling, and utterly impersonal in spite of it seeming otherwise to the senses.
The Abhidhamma in Practice
These teachings are traditionally believed to have been taught by the Buddha, though modern scholars date the texts of this collection, the Abhidhamma Piṭaka, to the 3rd century BCE [2, 3].
The Theravāda school traditionally sees itself as the vibhajja-vāda ("the teaching of analysis"), which reflects the analytical (vibhajjati) dissection method used by the Buddha and Early Buddhists to investigate the nature of the person and other phenomena [4].
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| Who studies this? - The Burmese |
According to Bhikkhu Bodhi, a modern American Theravāda scholar-monk and prodigious translator, the Abhidhamma is "simultaneously a philosophy, a psychology and an ethics, all integrated into the framework of a program for liberation" [5].
There are different textual layers of Abhidhamma literature. The earliest Abhidhamma works are found in the Pali canon. Then there are exegetical commentarial works that were composed in Sri Lanka in the 5th century. There are also later sub-commentarial works composed in later historical periods. More
The Abhidhamma explained | Buddhism's map of every thought
Let's explore how Theravāda Buddhism breaks experience down into citta, cetasika, bhavaṅga, javana, and the famous 17-moment cognitive process...while also asking a difficult historical question: Did the Buddha actually teach the Abhidhamma in the form we know today? Some say he never taught it at all.
🔍 DISCOVER:
- How the Abhidhamma breaks a single sensory event into a sequence of distinct mental moments
- Why one Buddhist tradition holds that this teaching was given to his biological mother in one of the many heavens, to an assembly of celestial devas from various worlds and planes, with no human present to hear it
- What the Buddha meant when he defined kamma (karma) as "intention" (cetana) and why that definition changes everything downstream of it
- Why javana, the seven “running” moments, plays such an important role in karma and moral action
- Why the Sautrāntikas rejected the [Mahayana] Abhidharma treatises, and what the existence of a second, rival collection tells us about where this material came from
- How a thousand-year-old analysis of repetition and disposition arrived at something we would now call habit
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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:
- 00:00 What Happens Before You Know It?
- 00:55 The Abhidhamma
- 02:23 You Are Always Late
- 04:56 Why Count The Mind?
- 09:57 How A Perception Is Built
- 13:26 Seven Times, Underneath
- 17:49 What Actually Continues
- 22:56 Did The Buddha Teach It?
- 26:49 The Map Has a Direction
- 30:29 Too Small to Remember
📖 SOURCES AND FURTHER READING:
- (Affiliate Links) Primary texts Abhidhamma Piṭaka, the third collection of the Pāli canon https://amzn.to/4zDLzH2
- Paṭṭhāna, the seventh and largest canonical Abhidhamma book, on the 24 conditional relations https://amzn.to/4c8xuHn
- Kathāvatthu, the canonical record of doctrinal disputes, traditionally associated with Moggaliputta Tissa https://amzn.to/3Ub7mWh
- Nibbedhika Sutta (AN 6.63), where intention is defined as kamma
- Anupada Sutta (MN 111), where Sāriputta takes his meditative states apart factor by factor https://amzn.to/4zRCpXF
- Commentarial and later works Atthasālinī, Buddhaghosa's commentary, which preserves the Tāvatiṃsa (Heaven of the Thirty-Three) account Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha, the compact manual that became the standard first textbook across the Theravāda world
- Bhikkhu Bodhi, ed. — A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma https://amzn.to/46mykwI
- Y. Karunadasa — The Theravāda Abhidhamma: Its Inquiry into the Nature of Conditioned Reality https://amzn.to/4y0NpQE
- Y. Karunadasa — The Dhamma Theory: Philosophical Cornerstone of the Abhidhamma
- Nyanatiloka Mahāthera — Guide Through the Abhidhamma Piṭaka https://amzn.to/3SabxB7
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Abhidharma, for the historical development of Theravāda, Sarvāstivāda, and other early Buddhist Abhidharma traditions
- Comparative Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma, the seven-book collection developed on the other side of the Indian subcontinent, and the sarvāsti position the Theravādins reject https://amzn.to/4qyodyo
- Buddha's Wisdom, Aug. 24, 2026; Amber Larson (ed.); Dhr. Seven (Saylay Susila's editor on Unravelling book), Wisdom Quarterly
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