Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

is a diagnosis that was first made following the Vietnam war. Veterans who saw combat in Vietnam were found to have a number of symptoms not clearly documented in any other diagnostic category. But in fact, these symptoms had been observed in combat veterans in many previous wars. It seems that PTSD is constantly being rediscovered.
War has always taken a toll. Accounts throughout history tell of nightmares and other emotional problems associated with the horrors of war. It seems that we repeatedly discover the effects of trauma on humans every time we go to war. Terms like "combat fatigue" and "shell shock" were used in the past to describe some of the effects of combat. These terms are misleading because they imply that the effects of combat are short-term. In the DSM-IV the term "Acute Stress Disorder" is used for a similar syndrome lasting less than 30 days.
We now know that PTSD can be caused by many other traumas. Child abuse survivors and survivors of plane crashes have many of the same symptoms as combat veterans. Psychotherapy and medications are both helpful for the symptoms of PTSD. The symptoms sometimes last for years, and there is not always a cure. Techniques such as EMDR may be helpful, especially for single-incident trauma. The sooner a person gets help, the better the outcome is likely to be.
The DSM-IV defines PTSD in the following manner:
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
1. The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following were present:

the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others
the person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Note: In children, this may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior

2. The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in one (or more) of the following ways:

recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions. Note: In young children, repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed.
recurrent distressing dreams of the event. Note: In children, there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content.
acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes, including those that occur on awakening or when intoxicated). Note: In young children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur.
intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event
physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event

3. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by three (or more) of the following:efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma

efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma
inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma
markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities
feeling of detachment or estrangement from others
restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings)
sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span)

4. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma), as indicated by two (or more) of the following:

difficulty falling or staying asleep
irritability or outbursts of anger
difficulty concentrating
hypervigilance
exaggerated startle response

5. Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in Criteria B, C, and D) is more than one month.
6. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
_Source:
_{American Psychiatric Association, 1994. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition. Washington, D.C.}

មង្គលសូត្រ៣៨ប្រការ

‎38 things for life blessing was from the Sutta that Buddha answered the question of angels who wondered what virtues or things would bring one prosperity and auspice in life, which are as follows.

1 Not Associating with Fools
2 Associating with the Wise
3 Expressing Respect to those worth of respect
4 Living in an Amenable Location
5 Having done Good Deeds in one’s past
6 Setting Oneself up properly in life
7 Artfulness in Knowledge
8 Artfulness in Application
9 Artfulness in Usage
10 Artfulness in Speech
11 Cherishing our parents
12 Raising our children
13 Cherishing our husband or wife
14 Not Leaving one’s work undone
15 Generosity
16 Dhamma Practice
17 look after relatives
18 do a harmless work
19 Abstaining from Unwholesomeness
20 Restraint from Drinking Intoxicants
21 Non-recklessness in the Dhamma
22 respect
23 Humility
24 Contentment
25 Gratitude
26 Listening Regularly to Dhamma Teachings
27 Patience
28 Openness to Criticism
29 The Sight of a True Monk
30 Regular Discussion of the Dhamma
31 The Practice of Austerities
32 Practising the Brahma-Faring
33 Seeing the Four Noble Truths
34 The Attainment of Nirvana
35 A Mind Invulnerable to Worldly Vicissitudes
36 Sorrowlessness,
37 Freedom from Subtle Defilements
38 The Blissful Mind

The Ever-present Truth Teachings of Phra Ajaan Mun Bhuridatta Mahathera

The following selections are drawn from a collection of sermon fragments appended to the book A Heart Released as part of a commemorative volume distributed at Phra Ajaan Mun's cremation in 1950. The collection was drawn from notes of Ajaan Mun's sermons taken by two of his students during the last two years of his life, covering a wide range of topics, including some standard accounts of the Buddha's life. The selections included here comprise all of the passages dealing directly with the practice of virtue and meditation. Some of Ajaan Mun's direct students have commented that the fragments would have been more subtle and insightful if the students who recorded them had been more advanced in their own meditation practice. As a result, we can only guess as to what the original sermons were like. Still, what has been recorded is worth reading and putting into practice, and so it has been translated and offered here as a gift of Dhamma for all who are interested.

§ 1. The root meditation themes

Has anyone ever been ordained in the Buddha's religion without having studied meditation? We can say categorically no -- there hasn't. There isn't a single preceptor who doesn't teach meditation to the ordinand before presenting him with his robes. If a preceptor doesn't teach meditation beforehand, he can no longer continue being a preceptor. So every person who has been ordained can be said to have studied meditation. There is no reason to doubt this.
The preceptor teaches the five meditation themes: kesa, hair of the head; loma, hair of the body; nakha, nails; danta, teeth; and taco, skin. These five meditation themes end with the skin. Why are we taught only as far as the skin? Because the skin is an especially important part of the body. Each and every one of us has to have skin as our wrapping. If we didn't have skin, our head-hairs, body-hairs, nails, and teeth wouldn't hold together. They'd have to scatter. Our flesh, bones, tendons, and all the other parts of the body wouldn't be able to stay together at all. They'd have to separate, to fall apart.
When we get infatuated with the human body, the skin is what we are infatuated with. When we conceive of the body as being beautiful and attractive, and develop love, desire, and longing for it, it's because of what we conceive of the skin. When we see a body, we suppose it to have a complexion -- fair, ruddy, dark, etc. -- because of what we conceive the color of the skin to be. If the body didn't have skin, who would conceive it to be beautiful or attractive? Who would love it, like it, or desire it? We'd regard it with nothing but hatred, loathing, and disgust. If it weren't wrapped in skin, the flesh, tendons, and other parts of the body wouldn't hold together and couldn't be used to accomplish anything at all -- which is why we say the skin is especially important. The fact that we can keep on living is because of the skin. The fact that we get deluded into seeing the body as beautiful and attractive is because it has skin. This is why preceptors teach only as far as the skin.
If we set our minds on considering the skin until we see it as disgusting and gain a vision of its unloveliness appearing unmistakably to the heart, we are bound to see the inherent truths of inconstancy, stress, and not-selfness. This will cure our delusions of beauty and attractiveness that are fixated on the skin. We will no longer focus any conceivings on it or find it appealing or desirable, for we have seen it for what it is. Only when we heed our preceptors' instructions and not take them lightly will we see these inherent truths. If we don't heed our preceptors' instructions, we won't be able to cure our delusions, and instead will fall into the snares of enticing preoccupations -- into the wheels of the cycle of rebirth.
So we've already been well-taught by our preceptors since the day of our ordination. There is no reason to look for anything further. If we're still unsure, if we're still looking for something more, that shows that we are still confused and lost. If we weren't confused, what would we be looking for? An unconfused person doesn't have to look for anything. Only a confused person has to go looking. The more he goes looking, the further he gets lost. If a person doesn't go looking, but simply considers what is already present, he will see clearly the reality that is inherently primal and unmoving, free from the yokes and fermentations of defilement.
This subject is not something thought up by the preceptors to be taught to the ordinand in line with anyone's opinion. It comes from the word of the Lord Buddha, who decreed that the preceptor should teach the ordinand these essential meditation themes for his constant consideration. Otherwise, our ordination wouldn't be in keeping with the fact that we have relinquished the life of home and family and have come out to practice renunciation for the sake of freedom. Our ordination would be nothing more than a sham. But since the Buddha has decreed this matter, every preceptor has continued this tradition down to the present. What our preceptors have taught us isn't wrong. It's absolutely true. But we simply haven't taken their teachings to heart. We've stayed complacent and deluded of our own accord -- for people of discretion have affirmed that these teachings are the genuine path to purity.

§ 2. Virtue.

silam sila viya:
Virtue is like rock. Virtue -- normalcy -- is like rock, which is solid and forms the basis of the ground. No matter how much the wind may buffet and blow, rock doesn't waver or flinch.
If we simply hold to the word "virtue," though, we can still go astray. We need to know where virtue lies, what it is, and who maintains it. If we know the factor maintaining it, we will see how that factor forms the essence of virtue. If we don't understand virtue, we'll end up going astray and holding just to the externals of virtue, believing that we have to look for virtue here or ask for the precepts there before we can have virtue. If we have to look for it and ask for it, doesn't that show that we're confused about it? Isn't that a sign of attachment to the externals of precepts and practices?
People who aren't confused about virtue don't have to go looking or asking for it, because they know that virtue exists within themselves. They themselves are the ones who maintain their virtue by avoiding faults of various kinds.
Intention is what forms the essence of virtue. What is intention (cetana)? We have to play with this word cetana in order to understand it. Change the "e" to an "i," and add another "t." That gives us citta, the mind. A person without a mind can't be called a person. If we had only a body, what could we accomplish? The body and mind have to rely on each other. If the mind isn't virtuous, the body will misbehave in all sorts of ways. This is why we say that there is only one virtue: that of the mind. The precepts deal simply with the flaws we should avoid. Whether you avoid the five flaws, the eight, the ten, or the 227, you succeed in maintaining the one and the same virtue. If you can maintain this one virtue, your words and deeds will be flawless. The mind will be at normalcy -- simple, solid, and unwavering.
This sort of virtue isn't something you go looking or asking for. When people go looking and asking, it's a sign they're poor and destitute. They don't have anything, so they have to go begging. They keep requesting the precepts, over and over again. The more they request them, the more they lack them. The poorer they become.
We are already endowed with body and mind. Our body we have received from our parents; our mind is already with us, so we have everything we need in full measure. If we want to make the body and mind virtuous, we should go right ahead and do it. We don't have to think that virtue lies here or there, at this or that time. Virtue already lies right here with us. Akaliko: If we maintain it at all times, we will reap its rewards at all times.
This point can be confirmed with reference to the time of the Buddha. When the five brethren; Ven. Yasa, his parents, and his former wife; the Kassapa brothers and their disciples; King Bimbisara and his following, etc., listened to the Buddha's teachings, they didn't ask for the precepts beforehand. The Buddha started right in teaching them. So why were they able to attain the noble paths and fruitions? Where did their virtue, concentration, and discernment come from? The Buddha never told them to ask him for virtue, concentration, and discernment. Once they had savored the taste of his teachings, then virtue, concentration, and discernment developed within them of their own accord, without any asking or giving taking place. No one had to take the various factors of the path and put them together into a whole, for in each case, virtue, concentration, and discernment were qualities of one and the same heart.
So only if we aren't deluded into searching outside for virtue can we be ranked as truly discerning.

§ 3. Potential

The traits that people have carried over from the past differ in being good, bad, and neutral. Their potential follows along with their traits -- i.e., higher than what they currently are, lower, or on a par. Some people have developed a high potential to be good, but if they associate with fools, their potential will develop into that of a fool. Some people are weak in terms of their potential, but if they associate with sages, their potential improves and they become sages, too. Some people associate with friends who are neither good nor bad, who lead them neither up nor down, and so their potential stays on a mediocre level.
For this reason, we should try to associate with sages and wise people so as to raise the level of our potential progressively higher and higher, step by step.

§ 4. Contemplating the body

We have all come here to study of our own accord. Not one of us was invited to come. So, as we have come to study and practice, we should really give ourselves to the practice, in line with the example set by the Buddha and his Arahant disciples.
At the very beginning, you should contemplate all four truths -- birth, aging, illness, and death -- that all the Noble Ones have contemplated before us. Birth: We have already been born. What is your body if not a heap of birth? Illness, aging, and death are all an affair of this heap. When we contemplate these things in all four positions -- by practicing sitting meditation, walking meditation, meditation while standing or lying down -- the mind will gather into concentration. If it gathers briefly, that's called momentary concentration. In other words, the mind gathers and reverts to its underlying level for a short while and then withdraws. If you contemplate without retreating, until an uggaha nimitta (arising image) of a part of the body appears within or without, contemplate that image until the mind lets go of it and reverts to its underlying level and stays there for a fair while before withdrawing again. Concentration on this level is called threshold concentration.
Keep on contemplating that image until the mind reverts to a firm stance on its underlying level, reaching the singleness of the first level of jhana. When the mind withdraws, keep contemplating that image over and over again until you can take it apart as a patibhaga nimitta (counterpart image). In other words, contemplate what the body will be like after it dies. It'll have to disintegrate until only the bones are left. Focus on this truth within you -- as it applies to your own body -- as well as without -- as it applies to the bodies of others. See what the various parts of the body are: "This is hair"... "These are nails"... "These are teeth"... "This is skin." How many tendons are there? How many bones? Get so that you can see these things clearly. Visualize the body coming together again -- sitting, standing, walking, and lying down -- and then dying and reverting to its original state: its original properties of earth, water, fire, and wind.
When you contemplate this way repeatedly both within and without, visualizing the body newly dead and long dead, with dogs and vultures fighting over it, your mind will eventually come to gain intuitive insight in line with your potential.

§ 5. Purifying the mind

sacitta-pariyodapanam
etam buddhana-sasanam: To purify one's own mind
is to follow the Buddhas' teachings. The Buddha, our foremost teacher, taught about body, speech, and mind. He didn't teach anything else. He taught us to practice, to train our minds, to use our minds to investigate the body: This is called the contemplation of the body as a frame of reference. We are taught to train our mindfulness thoroughly in the practice of investigating -- this is called the analysis of phenomena (dhamma-vicaya, one of the factors for Awakening) -- until it reaches a point of sufficiency. When we have investigated enough to make mindfulness itself a factor of Awakening, the mind settles down into concentration of its own accord.
There are three levels of concentration. In momentary concentration, the mind gathers and settles down to a firm stance and rests there for a moment before withdrawing. In threshold concentration, the mind gathers and settles down to its underlying level and stays there a fair while before withdrawing to be aware of a nimitta of one sort or another. In fixed penetration, the mind settles down to a firm stance on its underlying level and stops there in singleness, perfectly still -- aware that it is staying there -- endowed with the five factors of jhana, which then become gradually more and more refined.
When we train the mind in this way, we are said to be heightening the mind, as in the Pali phrase,

adhicitte ca ayogo
etam buddhana-sasanam: To heighten the mind
is to follow the Buddhas' teachings. The contemplation of the body is a practice that sages -- including the Lord Buddha -- have described in many ways. For example, in the Maha-satipatthana Sutta (Great Frames of Reference Discourse), he calls it the contemplation of the body as a frame of reference. In the root themes of meditation, which a preceptor must teach at the beginning of the ordination ceremony, he describes the contemplation of hairs of the head, hairs of the body, nails, teeth, and skin. In the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (Discourse on the Turning of the Wheel of Dhamma), he teaches that birth, aging, and death are stressful.
We have all taken birth now, haven't we? When we practice so as to opanayiko -- take these teachings inward and contemplate them by applying them to ourselves -- we are not going wrong in the practice, because the Dhamma is akaliko, ever-present; and aloko, blatantly clear both by day and by night, with nothing to obscure it.

§ 6. The method of practice for those who have studied a great deal

People who have studied a lot of the Dhamma and Vinaya -- who have learned a large number of approaches together with their many ramifications -- when they then come to train their minds, find that their minds don't settle down easily into concentration. They need to realize that they must first take their learning and put it back on the shelf for the time being. They need to train "what knows" -- this very mind -- developing their mindfulness until it is super-mindfulness, their discernment until it is super-discernment, so that they can see through the super-deceits of conventional truth and common assumptions that set things up, naming them, "This is this," and "That is that" -- days, nights, months, years, earth, sky, sun, moon, constellations, everything -- all the things that thought-formations, the conditions or effects of the mind, set up as being this or that.
Once the mind can see through these effects of the mind, this is called knowing stress and its cause. Once you practice this theme and develop it repeatedly until you are quick at seeing through these things, the mind will be able to gather and settle down. To focus in this way is called developing the path. And when the path reaches a point of sufficiency, there is no need to speak of the cessation of stress: It will appear of its own accord to the person who practices -- because virtue, concentration, and discernment all exist in our very own body, speech, and mind. These things are said to be akaliko: ever-present. Opanayiko: When meditators contemplate what already exists within them, then -- paccattam -- they will know for themselves. In other words, we contemplate the body so as to see it as unattractive and visualize it as disintegrating back into its primary properties in terms of the primal Dhamma that is blatantly clear both by day and by night.
When contemplating, you should keep this analogy in mind: When people grow rice, they have to grow it in the earth. They have to go wading through the mud, exposed to the sun and rain, before they can get the rice grains, the husked rice, the cooked rice, and can finally eat their fill. When they do this, they are getting their rice entirely from things that already exist. In the same way, meditators must develop virtue, concentration, and discernment, which already exist in the body, speech, and mind of every person.

§ 7. The principles of the practice are ever-present

Concerning the principles of our practice, there is no real problem. Opanayiko: Bring the mind inward to investigate body, speech, and mind -- things that are akaliko, ever-present; aloko, blatantly clear both by day and by night; paccattam veditabbo viññuhi, to be known by the wise for themselves -- just as the sages of the past, such as the Buddha and the Noble Disciples, knew clearly for themselves after bringing their minds inward to contemplate what was already there.
It's not the case that these things exist at some times and not at others. They exist at all times, in every era. This is something we as meditators can know for ourselves. In others words, when we make a mistake, we know it. When we do things correctly, we know it within ourselves. How good or bad we are, we are bound to know better than anyone else -- as long as we are persistent in our contemplation and don't let ourselves grow complacent or heedless.
An example from the past is that of the sixteen young students of the Brahman teacher, Bavari. They had practiced jhana to the point where they were stuck on rupa jhana and arupa jhana. The Buddha thus taught them to contemplate what was already inside them so as to see it clearly with discernment -- to see the level of sensuality as lying below, the level of formlessness as lying above, and the level of form as in the middle; to see the past as below, the future as above, and the present as in the middle. Then he taught them to look inside themselves -- from the feet below, to the tips of the hair above, and all around in between.
Once they had contemplated in this way, they came to know clearly for themselves. This ended their doubts about how to practice, and they no longer had to go to the trouble of looking anywhere else.

§ 8. Listening to the Dhamma at all times

As a meditator, you should use the strategy of listening to the Dhamma at all times, even when you are living alone. In other words, contemplate the Dhamma both by day and by night. The eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body are physical phenomena (rupa-dhamma) that are always present. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations are also present for you to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. The mind? It too is present. Your thoughts and feelings about various topics -- good and bad -- are present as well. Development and decay, both within you and without, are also present. These things that occur naturally display the truth -- inconstancy, stress, and not-selfness -- for you to see at all times. When a leaf grows yellow and falls from the tree, for instance, it is showing you the truth of inconstancy.
So when you continually use this approach to contemplate things with your mindfulness and discernment, you are said to be listening to the Dhamma at all times, both by day and by night.

The Ballad of Liberation from the Khandhas by Phra Ajaan Mun Bhuridatta Mahathera

Introduction

Phra Ajaan Mun Bhuridatta Mahathera (1870-1949) was by all accounts the most highly respected Buddhist monk in recent Thai history. Ordained in 1893, he spent the major part of his life wandering through Thailand, Burma, and Laos, dwelling for the most part in the forest, engaged in the practice of meditation. He attracted a large following of students and -- together with his teacher, Phra Ajaan Sao Kantasila Mahathera -- was responsible for the establishment of the forest ascetic tradition that has now spread throughout Thailand and to several countries abroad. Despite his fame as a teacher, very few of his teachings were recorded for posterity. Only one slim book of passages drawn from his sermons, Muttodaya (A Heart Released), was published during his lifetime. His students generally believed that he himself never wrote down any of his teachings, but at his death the following poem was found among the few papers he left behind. As he noted on the final page, he composed it during one of his brief stays in Bangkok, at Wat Srapatum (LotusPond Monastery), probably in the early 1930's. He was apparently inspired by an anonymous poem on the theme of meditation composed and printed in Bangkok during that period, for both poems share virtually the same beginning -- the 39 lines in the following translation beginning with, "Once there was a man who loved himself..." Ajaan Mun's poem, however, then develops in an entirely original direction and shows by far a deeper understanding of the training of the mind.
Translating the poem has presented a number of difficulties, not the least of which has been getting a definitive reading of the original manuscript. Ajaan Mun wrote during the days before Thai spelling became standardized, some of the passages were smudged with age, and a few seem to have been "corrected" by a later hand. Another difficulty has been the more general problem of finding the proper English style for translating Thai poetry, which depends heavily on rhyme, rhythm, and a stripped-down syntax, somewhat like that of telegrams and newspaper headlines. This style gives Thai poetry a lightness of style combined with a richness of meaning, but frustrates any attempt to pin down any one precise message for the sake of translation -- an excellent lesson for anyone who feels that the truth is what is conveyed in words.
The following translation is meant to be as literal as possible, although I have fleshed the text out when it seemed necessary to make the English intelligible. Because the original alternates between two poetic forms -- klon and rai -- I tried to create a similar effect in English by alternating blank verse and free verse. The result is probably too literal to be poetry, but I felt that anyone reading it would be more interested in the meaning than in verbal effects. The instances where I have taken the most liberty with the text have been included in square brackets, as has one passage -- ironically, dealing with the error of being addicted to correcting things -- where the reading of the original seems to have been doctored.
The reader will notice that in a few places the poem seems to jump abruptly from one topic to another. In some cases these shifts were dictated by the rhyme scheme, but in others they are not really shifts at all. Keep in mind that the poem operates on several levels. In particular, two parallel themes run throughout: (1) an analysis of the external error of focusing on the faults of other people instead of one's own, and (2) a discussion of the mind's internal error of viewing (and criticizing) the khandhas as somehow separate from its own efforts to know them. Statements made directly about one level apply indirectly to the other as well. Thus the poem covers a wider range of the practice than might appear at first glance. It's a work that rewards repeated readings.
I would like to express my gratitude to Phra Ajaan Suwat Suvaco (Phra Bodhidhammacariya Thera) for the invaluable help he gave me in untangling some of the knottier passages in the poem. Any mistakes that may remain, of course, are mine.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Metta Forest Monastery
Valley Center, CA 92082-1409
U.S.A.

Glossary

Dhamma: In general, this word has several levels of meaning: the way things are in and of themselves, the Buddha's teachings about the way things are, the practice of those teachings in training the mind, and the attainment of Deathlessness as the goal of the practice. In this ballad, 'Dhamma' usually has the final meaning. The nine transcendent Dhammas are the paths and fruitions of each of the four stages of Awakening -- stream-entry, once-returning, non-returning, and arahantship -- plus nibbana (nirvana). Jhana: Concentration; meditative absorption in a physical sensation or a mental notion.
Kamma: Intentional acts that lead to renewed states of becoming and birth.
Khandha: Component parts of sensory perception: rupa (physical phenomena); vedana (feelings of pleasure, pain, or indifference); sañña (concepts, labels, allusions); sankhara (mental fashionings, formations, processes); and viññana (sensory consciousness).

The Ballad of Liberation
from the Khandhas

Namatthu sugatassa
Pañca dhamma-khandhani

I pay homage to the one Well-gone,
the Foremost Teacher, the Sakyan Sage,
the Rightly Self-Awakened One;
& to the nine transcendent Dhammas;
& to the Noble Sangha. I will now give a brief exposition
of the Dhamma khandhas,
as far as I understand them.
Once there was a man who loved himself
and feared distress. He wanted happiness
beyond the reach of danger, so he wandered
endlessly. Wherever people said
that happiness was found, he longed to go,
but wandering took a long, long time.
He was the sort of man who loved himself
and really dreaded death. He truly wanted
release from aging & mortality.
Then one day he came to know the truth,
abandoning the cause of suffering &
compounded things. He found a cave of wonders,
of endless happiness, i.e., the body.
As he gazed throughout the cave of wonders,
his suffering was destroyed, his fears appeased.
He gazed and gazed around the mountain side,
Experiencing unbounded peace.
He feared if he were to go and tell his friends,
they'd say he'd gone insane. He'd better stay
alone, engaged in peace, abandoning
his thoughts of contact, than to roam around,
a sycophant, both criticized & flattered,
exasperated & annoyed.
But then there was another man afraid
of death, his heart all withered & discouraged.
He came to me and spoke frankly
in a pitiful way. He said,
"You've made an effort at your meditation
for a long time now.
Have you seen it yet,
the true Dhamma of your dreams?"
(Eh! How is it that he knows my mind?)
He asked to stay with me, so I agreed.
"I'll take you to a massive mountain
with a cave of wonders
free from suffering & stress:
    mindfulness immersed in the body.
You can view it at your leisure to cool your heart
and end your troubles.
This is the path of the Noble lineage.
It's up to you to go or not.
I'm not deceiving or compelling you,
just telling you the truth for what it is."
And then I challenged him with riddles. First:

"What runs?"
"What runs quickly is viññana,
movements walking in a row,
one after another. Not doubting that saññas are right,
the heart gets caught up in the running back & forth.
Saññas grab hold of things outside
and pull them in to fool the mind,
Making it think in confusion & go out searching,
wandering astray.
They fool it with various dhammas,
like a mirage."
"What gains total release from the five khandhas?"
"The heart, of course, & the heart alone.
It doesn't grasp or get entangled.
No more poison of possessiveness,
    no more delusion,
    it stands alone.
No saññas can fool it into following along
behind them."
"When they say there's death, what dies?"
"Sankharas die, destroying their effects."
"What connects the mind into the cycle?"
"The tricks of sañña make it spin.
The mind goes wrong because it trusts its saññas,
attached to its likes,
leaving this plane of being,
going to that, wandering till it's dizzy,
forgetting itself,
completely obscure to itself.
No matter how hard it tries to find the Dhamma,
it can't catch a glimpse."
"What ferrets out the Dhamma?"
"The heart ferrets it out,
trying to find out how saññas say 'good'
and grasp at 'bad'
and force it to fasten on loving & hating."
"To eat once & never look for more?"
"The end of wanting to look, to know,
to hope for knowing more,
The end of entanglements.
The mind sits still on its dais,
discarding its attachments."
"A four-sided pool, brimming full?"
"The end of desire, abandoning doubt,
clean, without a mote, & danger-free.
Saññas settle out, sankharas don't disturb it.
The heart is thus brimming, with nothing lacking.
Quiet & still, the mind
has no lamenting thoughts:
something worth admiring day after day.
Even if one were to gain
heavenly treasures by the millions,
they'd be no match for the true knowing
that abandons all sankharas.
    The crucial thing: the ending of desire.
Labels stay in their own sphere and don't intrude.
The mind, unenthralled with anything,
stops its struggling.
Like taking a mirror to look at your reflection:
Don't get attached to the saññas,
which are like the image.
Don't get intoxicated with the issues of sankharas. "When the heart moves, you can catch sight
of the unadulterated heart.
You know for sure that the movement is in yourself
because it changes.
Inconstancy is a feature of the heart itself,
no need to criticize anyone else.
You know the different sorts of khandhas
in the moving of the mind.
"Before, I used to think that saññas were the heart,
labeling 'outer' & 'inner,'
which was why I was fooled.
Now the heart's in charge, with no concerns,
no hopes of relying on any one sañña at all.
Whatever arises or passes away
there's no need to be possessive of saññas
or to try to prevent them."

"Like climbing to the top of a truly tall mountain
and looking at the lowlands below,
seeing every living being."
"Way up high, looking back
you see all your affairs
from the very beginning,
forming a path, like stairs."
"Does the rise & fall of the river
accord with the Truth?"
"You can't remedy the changing of sankharas.
Fashioned by kamma,
they're out to spite no one.
If you grasp hold of them
to push them this way & that,
the mind has to become defiled & wrong.
Don't think of resisting
the natural way of all things.
Let good & evil follow their own affairs.
    We simply free
    ourselves.
Unentangled in sankharas:
That's what's peaceful & cool.
When you know the truth,
you have to let go of sankharas
as soon as you see their changing.
When you weary of them,
you let them go easily,
with no need to be forced.
    The Dhamma is cooling.
    The mind will stop
    being subjected to things."
"The five duties complete?"
"Khandhas divide the issues of fashioning
into five realms,
each filled with its duties & affairs,
with no room for any other,
because their hands are full --
no room even for fortune, status, praise, pleasure,
loss of fortune, loss of status, criticism, pain.
They let each of these follow its own nature,
in line with its truth.
The mind's not entangled
with any of these eight,
because physical khandhas keep creating
aging & illness without pause.
The mental khandhas never rest.
They work like motors
because they must take on the kamma
of what they have done:
Good things make them enthralled & happy,
bad things agitate and darken the heart,
making it think without stop,
as if it were aflame.
The mind is defiled & dull.
Its loves & hates
are things it has thought up on its own,
so who else can it blame? "Do you want to escape aging & death?
It's beyond the range of possibility,
as when we want the mind to stop
wandering around and thinking,
when we want it to stay at one
and hope to depend on its stillness.
The mind is something that changes,
    totally uncertain.
Saññas stay in place only from time to time.
Once we grow wise to the nature
of all five khandhas,
the mind will be clear & clean,
free from stain, with no more issues.
If you can know in this way,
    it's superlative,
because you see the truth,
    withdraw,
    and gain release.
That's the end of the path.
You don't resist the natural way
of the truth of things.
Poverty & wealth, good & bad,
in line with events both within & without,
all have to pass and vanish.
You can't grasp hold of anything
at which the mind takes aim.
"Now, when the mind's inconstant on its own
-- aquiver, quick -- and you catch sight of it,
that's when you find the ultimate in ease.
Small things obscure our knowledge of the large.
The khandhas totally obscure the Dhamma,
and that's where we go wrong. We waste our time
in watching khandhas so that we don't see
the Dhamma that, though greater than the khandhas,
seems like dust."

"There is, there isn't. There isn't, yet there is."
"Here I'm totally stymied
and can't figure it out.
Please explain what it means." "There is birth of various causes & effects,
but they are not beings,
they all pass away.
    This is clear,
the meaning of the first point:
There is, there isn't.
The second point, there isn't, yet there is:
This refers to the deep Dhamma,
the end of all three levels of existence,
where there are no sankharas,
and yet there is the stable Dhamma.
This is the Singular Dhamma, truly solitary.
The Dhamma is One & unchanging.
excelling all being, extremely still.
The object of the unmoving heart,
    still & at respite,
    quiet & clear.
No longer intoxicated,
no longer feverish,
its desires all uprooted,
its uncertainties shed,
its entanglement with the khandhas
all ended & appeased,
the gears of the three levels of the cosmos all broken,
overweening desire thrown away,
its loves brought to an end,
with no more possessiveness,
all troubles cured
as the heart had aspired."

"Please explain the mind's path
in yet another way,
& the cause of suffering in the mind
that obscures the Dhamma."
"The cause is enormous,
but to put it briefly,
    it's the love
    that puts a squeeze on the heart,
making it concerned for the khandhas.
If the Dhamma is with the heart
throughout time,
that's the end of attachment,
with no more cause for suffering:
    Remember this, it's the path of the mind. You won't have to wonder,
spinning around till you're dizzy.
The mind, when the Dhamma's not always with it,
gets attached to its likes,
concerned for the khandhas,
sunk in the cause of suffering.
"So in brief, there's suffering
& there's the Dhamma
always with the mind.
Contemplate this until you see the truth,
and the mind will be completely cool.
However great the pleasure or pain,
    they'll cause you no fear.
No longer drunk with the cause of suffering,
the mind's well-gone.
Knowing just this much is enough
    to soothe your fevers,
and to rest from your search for a path to release.
The mind knowing the Dhamma forgets
the mind attached to dust.
The heart knowing the Dhamma of ultimate ease
sees for sure that the khandhas are always stressful.
The Dhamma stays as the Dhamma,
the khandhas stay as khandhas, that's all.
"And as for the phrase,
'Cool, at ease, & freed from fever,'
this refers to the mind that's rescued itself
from the addictive error
[of correcting other things].
The sankhara aggregate offers no pleasure
and truly is painful,
for it has to age, grow ill, and die every day.
When the mind knows the unexcelled Dhamma,
it extracts itself from its defiling error
that aggravates disease.
This error is a fierce fault of the mind.
But when it clearly sees the Dhamma,
    it removes its error,
and there's no more poison in the heart.
When the mind sees the Dhamma,
    abundantly good
    & released from error,
meeting the Dhamma, it sheds all things
that would make it restless.
It's mindful, in & of itself,
    & unentangled.
Its love for the khandhas comes to an end,
    its likes are cured,
    its worries cease,
    all dust is gone.
Even if the mind thinks in line with its nature,
we don't try to stop it.
And when we don't stop it,
it stops running wild.
This frees us from turmoil.

"Know that evil comes
from resisting the truth.
"Evil comes from not knowing.
If we can close the door on stupidity,
there's ultimate ease.
All evil grows silent, perfectly still.
All the khandhas are suffering, with no pleasure at all. "Before I was stupid & in the dark,
    as if I were in a cave.
In my desire to see the Dhamma,
I tried to grab hold of the heart to still it.
I grabbed hold of mental labels,
thinking they were the heart
until it became a habit.
Doing this I was long enthralled
with watching them.
Wrong mental labels obscured the mind
and I was deluded into playing around
with the khandhas --
    Poor me!
"Exalting myself endlessly,
I went around passing judgment on others
but accomplishing nothing.
Looking at the faults of others
    embitters the heart,
as if we were to set ourselves on fire,
becoming sooty & burned.
Whoever's right or wrong, good or bad,
that's their business.
    Ours is to make sure
    the heart looks after itself.
Don't let unskillful attitudes buzz around it & land.
Make it consummate
in merit & skill --
the result will be peace.
Seeing others as bad and oneself as good
is a stain on the heart,
for one latches onto the khandha
that holds to that judgment.
If you latch onto the khandhas
they'll burn you for sure,
for aging, defilement, & death will join in the fray:
full of anger & love, obvious faults,
worries, sorrows, & fears,
while the five forms of sensuality
bring in their multifarious troops.
We gain no release from suffering & danger
because we hold to the five khandhas as ours.
Once you see your error, don't delay.
Keep constant watch on the inconstancy of sankharas.
When the mind gets used to this,
you're sure to see the Singular Dhamma,
    solitary in the mind.
"'Inconstancy' refers to the heart
as it moves from its labels.
When you see this, watch it
again & again,
right at the moving.
When all external objects have faded away,
the Dhamma will appear.
When you see that Dhamma, you recover
from mental unrest.
The mind then won't be attached to dualities.
Just this much truth can end the game.
    Knowing not-knowing:
    That's the method for the heart.
Once we see through inconstancy,
the mind-source stops creating issues.
All that remains is the primal mind,
    true & unchanging.
Knowing the mind-source
brings release from all worry & error.
If you go out to the mind-ends,
you're immediately wrong.
"'Darkness' comes from the mind
possessive of what's good.
This possessiveness is thought up
by the mind-ends.
The mind-source is already good
when the Dhamma appears, erasing doubt.
When you see the superlative Dhamma,
surpassing the world,
all your old confused searchings
are uprooted and let go.
The [only] suffering left
is the need to sleep and eat
in line with events.
The heart stays, tamed, near the mind-source,
Thinking, yet not dwelling on its thoughts.
The nature of the mind is that it has to think,
But when it senses the mind-source
it's released from its sorrows,
secluded from disturbances, & still.
The nature of sankharas
when they appear
is to vanish.
They all decay; none remain.
Beware of the mind
when you focus on making it refined,
for you'll tend to force it
to get stuck on the stillness.
Get the heart to look again & again
at its inconstancy, until it's a habit.
When you reach 'Oh!'
it will come on its own:
    awareness of the heart's song,
    like a mirage.
The Buddha says the corruptions of insight
disguise themselves as true
when actually they're not.
The awareness of mental phenomena
that comes on its own,
    is direct vision,
not like hearing & understanding
on the level of questioning.
The analysis of phenomena,
mental & physical,
is also not vision that comes on its own:
    so look.
The awareness that comes on its own
is not the thought-song.
Knowing the mind-source
& mind-moments,
the source-mind is released from sorrow.
The mind-source's certain
automatic knowledge of sankharas
-- the affairs of change --
is not a matter of parading out
to see or know a thing.
It's also not a knowledge based
on labeling in pairs.
    The mind knows itself
    from the motion of the song.
The mind's knowledge of the motion
is simply adjacent mind-moments.
In fact, they can't be divided:
They're all one & the same.
When the mind is two, that's called
sañña entangling things.
Inconstancy is itself, so why focus on anyone else?
"When the heart sees its own decayings,
it's released from darkness.
It loses its taste for them,
and abandons its doubts.
It stops searching for things within & without.
Its attachments all fall away.
It leaves its loves & hates,
whatever weighs it down.
It can end its desires,
its sorrows all vanish --
    together with the weighty cares
    that made it moan --
as if a shower of rain were to refresh the heart.
The cool heart is realized by the heart itself.
The heart is cool for it has no need
to wander around, looking at people.
Knowing the mind-source in the present,
it's unshakeable & unconcerned
with any good or evil,
for they must pass away,
with all other impediments.
Perfectly still, the mind-source
neither thinks nor interprets.
It stays only with its own affairs:
    no expectations,
    no need to be entangled or troubled,
    no need to keep up its guard.
Sitting or lying down, one thinks
at the source-mind: 'Released.'"

"Your explanation of the path
is penetrating,
so encompassing & clear.
    Just one more thing:
Please explain in detail the mind
unreleased from the cause of suffering."
"The cause of suffering is attachment & love,
extremely enthralled,
creating new states of being
without wearying.
On the lower level, the stains
are the five strands of sensuality;
on the higher level,
attachment to jhana.
In terms of how these things
    act in the mind:
It's all an affair of being enthralled with sankharas,
enthralled with all that have happened
for a long, long time --
    seeing them as good,
    nourishing the heart on error,
    making it branch out
    in restlessness distraction.
Smitten by error, with no sense of shame,
enthralled with admiring
whatever it fancies --
enthralled to the point where it forgets itself
and loses its sense of danger;
enthralled with viewing the faults of others,
upset by their evil,
not seeing its own faults as anything at all.
No matter how great the faults of others,
they can't make us fall into hell.
While our own faults can take us
to the severest hell straightaway,
even if they aren't very defiling at all.
So keep watch on your faults
until it comes naturally.
Avoid those faults
and you're sure to see
    happiness free
    from danger & fear.
When you see your faults clearly
cut them right away.
Don't dawdle or delay
or you'll never be rid of them. "Wanting what's good, without stop:
That's the cause of suffering.
It's a great fault: the strong fear of bad.
'Good' & 'bad' are poisons to the mind,
like foods that enflame a high fever.
The Dhamma isn't clear
because of our basic desire for good.
Desire for good, when it's great,
drags the mind into turbulent thought
until the mind gets inflated with evil,
and all its defilements proliferate.
The greater the error, the more they flourish,
taking one further & further away
from the genuine Dhamma."

"This way of explaining
the cause of suffering
chastens my heart.
[At first] the meaning
was tattered & tangled,
but when you explained the path
my heart didn't move:
at respite, still, & at peace,
reaching an end at last."
"This is called the attainment
of liberation from the khandhas,
a Dhamma that remains in place,
with no coming or going,
a genuine nature -- the only one --
with nothing to make it stray or spin." With that, the tale is ended. Right or wrong,
please ponder with discernment till you know.

-- Composed by Phra Bhuridatto (Mun)
Wat Srapathum [Bangkok]

The Abhidhamma Pitaka

Abhidhamma Pitaka

The Basket of Abhidhamma

See a map of the Tipitaka

The seven books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka, the third division of the Tipitaka, offer an extraordinarily detailed analysis of the basic principles governing the behavior of mental and physical processes. Whereas the Sutta and Vinaya Pitakas are characterized by their practical teachings regarding the Buddhist path to Awakening, the Abhidhamma Pitaka presents an almost scientific analysis of the underpinnings of that very path. In Abhidhamma philosophy the familiar psycho-physical universe (our world of "trees" and "rocks," "I" and "you") is reduced to a complex -- but comprehensible -- web of impersonal phenomena arising and passing at an inconceivably rapid pace from moment to moment, according to clearly-defined natural laws. The Abhidhamma Pitaka has a well-deserved reputation for being dense and difficult reading, yet many find its descriptions of the inner workings of the mind to be a valuable aid to meditation practice. The modern Burmese approach to the teaching and practice of Satipatthana meditation, in particular, draws heavily on an Abhidhammic interpretation of meditative experience.
According to one tradition, the essence of Abhidhamma philosophy was formulated by the Buddha during the fourth week after his Enlightenment, although scholars debate its authenticity as a work by the Buddha himself. Regardless of its authorship, however, the Abhidhamma stands as a monumental feat of intellectual genius.
The Abhidhamma Pitaka is divided into seven books, although it is the first (Dhammasangani) and last (Patthana) that together form the essence of the Abhidhamma teachings. The seven books are:

Dhammasangani ("Enumeration of Phenomena"). This book enumerates all the paramattha dhamma (ultimate realities) to be found in the world. According to one such enumeration these amount to:
- 52 cetasikas (mental factors), which, arising together in various combination, give rise to any one of...
- ...89 different possible cittas (states of consciousness)
- 4 primary physical elements, and 23 physical phenomena derived from them
- Nibbana
Vibhanga ("The Book of Treatises"). This book continues the analysis of the Dhammasangani, here in the form of a catechism.
Dhatukatha ("Discussion with Reference to the Elements"). A reiteration of the foregoing, in the form of questions and answers.
Puggalapaññatti ("Description of Individuals"). Somewhat out of place in the Abhidhamma Pitaka, this book contains descriptions of a number of personality-types.
Kathavatthu ("Points of Controversy"). Another odd inclusion in the Abhidhamma, this book contains questions and answers that were compiled by Moggaliputta Tissa in the 3rd century BCE, in order to help clarify points of controversy that existed between the various "Hinayana" schools of Buddhism at the time.
Yamaka ("The Book of Pairs"). This book is a logical analysis of many concepts presented in the earlier books. In the words of Mrs. Rhys Davids, an eminent 20th century Pali scholar, the ten chapters of the Yamaka amount to little more than "ten valleys of dry bones."
Patthana ("The Book of Relations"). This book, by far the longest single volume in the Tipitaka (over 6,000 pages long in the Siamese edition), describes the 24 paccayas, or laws of conditionality, through which the dhammas interact. These laws, when applied in every possible permutation with the dhammas described in the Dhammasangani, give rise to all knowable experience.

Note: At present there are no texts from the Abhidhamma Pitaka available here at Access to Insight, nor do I currently plan to include them in the future.

A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma

The Abhidhammattha Sangaha
of Acariya Anuruddha
(Excerpt: Introduction only)

Bhikkhu Bodhi, General Editor

Pali Text originally edited and translated by

Mahathera Narada

Translation Revised by

Bhikkhu Bodhi

Introduction and explanatory guide by

U Rewata Dhamma & Bhikkhu Bodhi

ISBN 955-24-0103-8 Copyright © 1993 Buddhist Publication Society
Buddhist Publication Society
P.O. Box 61
54, Sangharaja Mawatha
Kandy, Sri Lanka
For free distribution only.
You may print copies of this work for your personal use.
You may re-format and redistribute this work for use on computers and computer networks,
provided that you charge no fees for its distribution or use.
Otherwise, all rights reserved.
This edition was transcribed from the print edition in 1995 under the auspices of the DharmaNet Dharma Book Transcription Project, with the kind permission of the Buddhist Publication Society.

Introduction

U Rewata Dhamma and Bhikkhu Bodhi

The nucleus of the present book is a medieval compendium of Buddhist philosophy entitled the Abhidhammattha Sangaha. This work is ascribed to Acariya Anuruddha, a Buddhist savant about whom so little is known that even his country of origin and the exact century in which he lived remain in question. Nevertheless, despite the personal obscurity that surrounds the author, his little manual has become one of the most important and influential textbooks of Theravada Buddhism. In nine short chapters occupying about fifty pages in print, the author provides a masterly summary of that abstruse body of Buddhist doctrine called the Abhidhamma. Such is his skill in capturing the essentials of that system, and in arranging them in a format suitable for easy comprehension, that his work has become the standard primer for Abhidhamma studies throughout the Theravada Buddhist countries of South and Southeast Asia. In these countries, particularly in Burma where the study of Abhidhamma is pursued most assiduously, the Abhidhammattha Sangaha is regarded as the indispensable key to unlock this great treasure-store of Buddhist wisdom.

The Abhidhamma

At the heart of the Abhidhamma philosophy is the Abhidhamma Pitaka, one of the divisions of the Pali Canon recognized by Theravada Buddhism as the authoritative recension of the Buddha's teachings. This canon was compiled at the three great Buddhist councils held in India in the early centuries following the Buddha's demise: the first, at Rajagaha, convened three months after the Buddha's Parinibbana by five hundred senior monks under the leadership of the Elder Mahakassapa; the second, at Vesali, a hundred years later; and the third, at Pataliputta, two hundred years later. The canon that emerged from these councils, preserved in the Middle Indian language now called Pali, is known as the Tipitaka, the three "baskets" or collections of the teachings. The first collection, the Vinaya Pitaka, is the book of discipline, containing the rules of conduct for the bhikkhus and bhikkhunis -- the monks and nuns -- and the regulations governing the Sangha, the monastic order. The Sutta Pitaka, the second collection, brings together the Buddha's discourses spoken by him on various occasions during his active ministry of forty-five years. And the third collection is the Abhidhamma Pitaka, the "basket" of the Buddha's "higher" or "special" doctrine.
This third great division of the Pali Canon bears a distinctly different character from the other two divisions. Whereas the Suttas and Vinaya serve an obvious practical purpose, namely, to proclaim a clear-cut message of deliverance and to lay down a method of personal training, the Abhidhamma Pitaka presents the appearance of an abstract and highly technical systemization of the doctrine. The collection consists of seven books: the Dhammasangani, the Vibhanga, the Dhatukatha, the Puggalapaññatti, the Kathavatthu, the Yamaka, and the Patthana. Unlike the Suttas, these are not records of discourses and discussions occurring in real-life settings; they are, rather, full-blown treatises in which the principles of the doctrine have been methodically organized, minutely defined, and meticulously tabulated and classified. Though they were no doubt originally composed and transmitted orally and only written down later, with the rest of the canon in the first century B.C., they exhibit the qualities of structured thought and rigorous consistency more typical of written documents.
In the Theravada tradition the Abhidhamma Pitaka is held in the highest esteem, revered as the crown jewel of the Buddhist scriptures. As examples of this high regard, in Sri Lanka King Kassapa V (tenth century A.C.) had the whole Abhidhamma Pitaka inscribed on gold plates and the first book set in gems, while another king, Vijayabahu (eleventh century) used to study the Dhammasangani each morning before taking up his royal duties and composed a translation of it into Sinhala. On a cursory reading, however, this veneration given to the Abhidhamma seems difficult to understand. The texts appear to be merely a scholastic exercise in manipulating sets of doctrinal terms, ponderous and tediously repetitive.
The reason the Abhidhamma Pitaka is so deeply revered only becomes clear as a result of thorough study and profound reflection, undertaken in the conviction that these ancient books have something significant to communicate. When one approaches the Abhidhamma treatises in such a spirit and gains some insight into their wide implications and organic unity, one will find that they are attempting nothing less than to articulate a comprehensive vision of the totality of experienced reality, a vision marked by extensiveness of range, systematic completeness, and analytical precision. From the standpoint of Theravada orthodoxy the system that they expound is not a figment of speculative thought, not a mosaic put together out of metaphysical hypotheses, but a disclosure of the true nature of existence as apprehended by a mind that has penetrated the totality of things both in depth and in the finest detail. Because it bears this character, the Theravada tradition regards the Abhidhamma as the most perfect expression possible of the Buddha's unimpeded omniscient knowledge (sabbaññuta-ñana). It is his statement of the way things appear to the mind of a Fully Enlightened One, ordered in accordance with the two poles of his teaching: suffering and the cessation of suffering.
The system that the Abhidhamma Pitaka articulates is simultaneously a philosophy, a psychology, and an ethics, all integrated into the framework of a program for liberation. The Abhidhamma may be described as a philosophy because it proposes an ontology, a perspective on the nature of the real. This perspective has been designated the "dhamma theory" (dhammavada). Briefly, the dhamma theory maintains that ultimate reality consists of a multiplicity of elementary constituents called dhammas. The dhammas are not noumena hidden behind phenomena, not "things in themselves" as opposed to "mere appearances," but the fundamental components of actuality. The dhammas fall into two broad classes: the unconditioned dhamma, which is solely Nibbana, and the conditioned dhammas, which are the momentary mental and material phenomena that constitute the process of experience. The familiar world of substantial objects and enduring persons is, according to the dhamma theory, a conceptual construct fashioned by the mind out of the raw data provided by the dhammas. The entities of our everyday frame of reference possess merely a consensual reality derivative upon the foundational stratum of the dhammas. It is the dhammas alone that possess ultimate reality: determinate existence "from their own side" (sarupato) independent of the mind's conceptual processing of the data.
Such a conception of the nature of the real seems to be already implicit in the Sutta Pitaka, particularly in the Buddha's disquisitions on the aggregates, sense bases, elements, dependent arising, etc., but it remains there tacitly in the background as the underpinning to the more pragmatically formulated teachings of the Suttas. Even in the Abhidhamma Pitaka itself the dhamma theory is not yet expressed as an explicit philosophical tenet; this comes only later, in the Commentaries. Nevertheless, though as yet implicit, the theory still comes into focus in its role as the regulating principle behind the Abhidhamma's more evident task, the project of systemization.
This project starts from the premise that to attain the wisdom that knows things "as they really are," a sharp wedge must be driven between those types of entities that possess ontological ultimacy, that is, the dhammas, and those types of entities that exist only as conceptual constructs but are mistakenly grasped as ultimately real. Proceeding from this distinction, the Abhidhamma posits a fixed number of dhammas as the building blocks of actuality, most of which are drawn from the Suttas. It then sets out to define all the doctrinal terms used in the Suttas in ways that reveal their identity with the ontological ultimates recognized by the system. On the basis of these definitions, it exhaustively classifies the dhammas into a net of pre-determined categories and modes of relatedness which highlight their place within the system's structure. And since the system is held to be a true reflection of actuality, this means that the classification pinpoints the place of each dhamma within the overall structure of actuality.
The Abhidhamma's attempt to comprehend the nature of reality, contrary to that of classical science in the West, does not proceed from the standpoint of a neutral observer looking outwards towards the external world. The primary concern of the Abhidhamma is to understand the nature of experience, and thus the reality on which it focuses is conscious reality, the world as given in experience, comprising both knowledge and the known in the widest sense. For this reason the philosophical enterprise of the Abhidhamma shades off into a phenomenological psychology. To facilitate the understanding of experienced reality, the Abhidhamma embarks upon an elaborate analysis of the mind as it presents itself to introspective meditation. It classifies consciousness into a variety of types, specifies the factors and functions of each type, correlates them with their objects and physiological bases, and shows how the different types of consciousness link up with each other and with material phenomena to constitute the ongoing process of experience.
This analysis of mind is not motivated by theoretical curiosity but by the overriding practical aim of the Buddha's teaching, the attainment of deliverance from suffering. Since the Buddha traces suffering to our tainted attitudes -- a mental orientation rooted in greed, hatred, and delusion -- the Abhidhamma's phenomenological psychology also takes on the character of a psychological ethics, understanding the term "ethics" not in the narrow sense of a code of morality but as a complete guide to noble living and mental purification. Accordingly we find that the Abhidhamma distinguishes states of mind principally on the basis of ethical criteria: the wholesome and the unwholesome, the beautiful factors and the defilements. Its schematization of consciousness follows a hierarchical plan that corresponds to the successive stages of purity to which the Buddhist disciple attains by practice of the Buddha's path. This plan traces the refinement of the mind through the progression of meditative absorptions, the fine-material-sphere and immaterial-sphere jhanas, then through the stages of insight and the wisdom of the supramundane paths and fruits. Finally, it shows the whole scale of ethical development to culminate in the perfection of purity attained with the mind's irreversible emancipation from all defilements.
All three dimensions of the Abhidhamma -- the philosophical, the psychological, and the ethical -- derive their final justification from the cornerstone of the Buddha's teaching, the program of liberation announced by the Four Noble Truths. The ontological survey of dhammas stems from the Buddha's injunction that the noble truth of suffering, identified with the world of conditioned phenomena as a whole, must be fully understood (pariññeyya). The prominence of mental defilements and requisites of enlightenment in its schemes of categories, indicative of its psychological and ethical concerns, connects the Abhidhamma to the second and fourth noble truths, the origin of suffering and the way leading to its end. And the entire taxonomy of dhammas elaborated by the system reaches its consummation in the "unconditioned element" (asankhata dhatu), which is Nibbana, the third noble truth, that of the cessation of suffering.

The Twofold Method

The great Buddhist commentator, Acariya Buddhaghosa, explains the word "Abhidhamma" as meaning "that which exceeds and is distinguished from the Dhamma" (dhammatireka-dhammavisesa), the prefix abhi having the sense of preponderance and distinction, and dhamma here signifying the teaching of the Sutta Pitaka.[1] When the Abhidhamma is said to surpass the teaching of the Suttas, this is not intended to suggest that the Suttanta teaching is defective in any degree or that the Abhidhamma proclaims some new revelation of esoteric doctrine unknown to the Suttas. Both the Suttas and the Abhidhamma are grounded upon the Buddha's unique doctrine of the Four Noble Truths, and all the principles essential to the attainment of enlightenment are already expounded in the Sutta Pitaka. The difference between the two in no way concerns fundamentals but is, rather, partly a matter of scope and partly a matter of method.
As to scope, the Abhidhamma offers a thoroughness and completeness of treatment that cannot be found in the Sutta Pitaka. Acariya Buddhaghosa explains that in the Suttas such doctrinal categories as the five aggregates, the twelve sense bases, the eighteen elements, and so forth, are classified only partly, while in the Abhidhamma Pitaka they are classified fully according to different schemes of classification, some common to the Suttas, others unique to the Abhidhamma.[2] Thus the Abhidhamma has a scope and an intricacy of detail that set it apart from the Sutta Pitaka.
The other major area of difference concerns method. The discourses contained in the Sutta Pitaka were expounded by the Buddha under diverse circumstances to listeners with very different capacities for comprehension. They are primarily pedagogical in intent, set forth in the way that will be most effective in guiding the listener in the practice of the teaching and in arriving at a penetration of its truth. To achieve this end the Buddha freely employs the didactic means required to make the doctrine intelligible to his listeners. He uses simile and metaphor; he exhorts, advises, and inspires; he sizes up the inclinations and aptitudes of his audience and adjusts the presentation of the teaching so that it will awaken a positive response. For this reason the Suttanta method of teaching is described as pariyaya-dhammadesana, the figurative or embellished discourse on the Dhamma.
In contrast to the Suttas, the Abhidhamma Pitaka is intended to divulge as starkly and directly as possible the totalistic system that underlies the Suttanta expositions and upon which the individual discourses draw. The Abhidhamma takes no account of the personal inclinations and cognitive capacities of the listeners; it makes no concessions to particular pragmatic requirements. It reveals the architectonics of actuality in an abstract, formalistic manner utterly devoid of literary embellishments and pedagogical expedients. Thus the Abhidhamma method is described as the nippariyaya-dhammadesana, the literal or unembellished discourse on the Dhamma.
This difference in technique between the two methods also influences their respective terminologies. In the Suttas the Buddha regularly makes use of conventional language (voharavacana) and accepts conventional truth (sammutisacca), truth expressed in terms of entities that do not possess ontological ultimacy but can still be legitimately referred to them. Thus in the Suttas the Buddha speaks of "I" and "you," of "man" and "woman," of living beings, persons, and even self as though they were concrete realities. The Abhidhamma method of exposition, however, rigorously restricts itself to terms that are valid from the standpoint of ultimate truth (paramatthasacca): dhammas, their characteristics, their functions, and their relations. Thus in the Abhidhamma all such conceptual entities provisionally accepted in the Suttas for purposes of meaningful communication are resolved into their ontological ultimates, into bare mental and material phenomena that are impermanent, conditioned, and dependently arisen, empty of any abiding self or substance.
But a qualification is necessary. When a distinction is drawn between the two methods, this should be understood to be based on what is most characteristic of each Pitaka and should not be interpreted as an absolute dichotomy. To some degree the two methods overlap and interpenetrate. Thus in the Sutta Pitaka we find discourses that employ the strictly philosophical terminology of aggregates, sense bases, elements, etc., and thus come within the bounds of the Abhidhamma method. Again, within the Abhidhamma Pitaka we find sections, even a whole book (the Puggalapaññatti), that depart from the rigorous manner of expression and employ conventional terminology, thus coming within the range of the Suttanta method.

Distinctive Features of the Abhidhamma

Apart from its strict adherence to the philosophical method of exposition, the Abhidhamma makes a number of other noteworthy contributions integral to its task of systemization. One is the employment, in the main books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka, of a matika -- a matrix or schedule of categories -- as the blueprint for the entire edifice. This matrix, which comes at the very beginning of the Dhammasangani as a preface to the Abhidhamma Pitaka proper, consists of 122 modes of classification special to the Abhidhamma method. Of these, twenty-two are triads (tika), sets of three terms into which the fundamental dhammas are to be distributed; the remaining hundred are dyads (duka), sets of two terms used as a basis for classification.[3] The matrix serves as a kind of grid for sorting out the complex manifold of experience in accordance with principles determined by the purposes of the Dhamma. For example, the triads include such sets as states that are wholesome, unwholesome, indeterminate; states associated with pleasant feeling, painful feeling, neutral feeling; states that are kamma results, productive of kamma results, neither; and so forth. The dyads include such sets as states that are roots, not roots; states concomitant with roots, not so concomitant; states that are conditioned, unconditioned; states that are mundane, supramundane; and so forth. By means of its selection of categories, the matrix embraces the totality of phenomena, illuminating it from a variety of angles philosophical, psychological, and ethical in nature.
A second distinguishing feature of the Abhidhamma is the dissection of the apparently continuous stream of consciousness into a succession of discrete evanescent cognitive events called cittas, each a complex unity involving consciousness itself, as the basic awareness of an object, and a constellation of mental factors (cetasika) exercising more specialized tasks in the act of cognition. Such a view of consciousness, at least in outline, can readily be derived from the Sutta Pitaka's analysis of experience into the five aggregates, among which the four mental aggregates are always inseparably conjoined, but the conception remains there merely suggestive. In the Abhidhamma Pitaka the suggestion is not simply picked up, but is expanded into an extraordinarily detailed and coherent picture of the functioning of consciousness both in its microscopic immediacy and in its extended continuity from life to life.
A third contribution arises from the urge to establish order among the welter of technical terms making up the currency of Buddhist discourse. In defining each of the dhammas, the Abhidhamma texts collate long lists of synonyms drawn mostly from the Suttas. This method of definition shows how a single dhamma may enter under different names into different sets of categories. For example, among the defilements, the mental factor of greed (lobha) may be found as the taint of sensual desire, the taint of (attachment to) existence, the bodily knot of covetousness, clinging to sensual pleasures, the hindrance of sensual desire, etc.; among the requisites of enlightenment, the mental factor of wisdom (pañña) may be found as the faculty and power of wisdom, the enlightenment factor of investigation of states, the path factor of right view, etc. In establishing these correspondences, the Abhidhamma helps to exhibit the interconnections between doctrinal terms that might not be apparent from the Suttas themselves. In the process it also provides a precision-made tool for interpreting the Buddha's discourses.
The Abhidhamma conception of consciousness further results in a new primary scheme for classifying the ultimate constituents of existence, a scheme which eventually, in the later Abhidhamma literature, takes precedence over the schemes inherited from the Suttas such as the aggregates, sense bases, and elements. In the Abhidhamma Pitaka the latter categories still loom large, but the view of mind as consisting of momentary concurrences of consciousness and its concomitants leads to a fourfold method of classification more congenial to the system. This is the division of actuality into the four ultimate realities (paramattha): consciousness, mental factors, material phenomena, and Nibbana (citta, cetasika, rupa, nibbana), the first three comprising conditioned reality and the last the unconditioned element.
The last novel feature of the Abhidhamma method to be noted here -- contributed by the final book of the Pitaka, the Patthana -- is a set of twenty-four conditional relations laid down for the purpose of showing how the ultimate realities are welded into orderly processes. This scheme of conditions supplies the necessary complement to the analytical approach that dominates the earlier books of the Abhidhamma. The method of analysis proceeds by dissecting apparent wholes into their component parts, thereby exposing their voidness of any indivisible core that might qualify as self or substance. The synthetic method plots the conditional relations of the bare phenomena obtained by analysis to show that they are not isolated self-contained units but nodes in a vast multi-layered web of inter-related, inter-dependent events. Taken in conjunction, the analytical method of the earlier treatises of the Abhidhamma Pitaka and the synthetic method of the Patthana establish the essential unity of the twin philosophical principles of Buddhism, non-self or egolessness (anatta) and dependent arising or conditionality (paticca samuppada). Thus the foundation of the Abhidhamma methodology remains in perfect harmony with the insights that lie at the heart of the entire Dhamma.

The Origins of the Abhidhamma

Although modern critical scholarship attempts to explain the formation of the Abhidhamma by a gradual evolutionary process,[4] Theravada orthodoxy assigns its genesis to the Buddha himself. According to the Great Commentary (maha-atthakatha) quoted by Acariya Buddhaghosa, "What is known as Abhidhamma is not the province nor the sphere of a disciple; it is the province, the sphere of the Buddhas."[5] The commentarial tradition holds, moreover, that it was not merely the spirit of the Abhidhamma, but the letter as well, that was already realized and expounded by the Buddha during his lifetime.
The Atthasalini relates that in the fourth week after the Enlightenment, while the Blessed One was still dwelling in the vicinity of the Bodhi Tree, he sat in a jewel house (ratanaghara) in the northwest direction. This jewel house was not literally a house made of precious stones, but was the place where he contemplated the seven books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka. He contemplated their contents in turn, beginning with the Dhammasangani, but while investigating the first six books his body did not emit rays. However, upon coming to the Patthana, when "he began to contemplate the twenty-four universal conditional relations of root, object, and so on, his omniscience certainly found its opportunity therein. For as the great fish Timiratipingala finds room only in the great ocean 84,000 yojanas in depth, so his omniscience truly finds room only in the Great Book. Rays of six colors -- indigo, golden, red, white, tawny, and dazzling -- issued from the Teacher's body, as he was contemplating the subtle and abstruse Dhamma by his omniscience which had found such opportunity."[6]
Theravada orthodoxy thus maintains that the Abhidhamma Pitaka is authentic Word of the Buddha, in this respect differing from an early rival school, the Sarvastivadins. This school also had an Abhidhamma Pitaka consisting of seven books, considerably different in detail from the Theravada treatises. According to the Sarvastivadins, the books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka were composed by Buddhist disciples, several being attributed to authors who appeared generations after the Buddha. The Theravada school, however, holds that the Blessed One himself expounded the books of the Abhidhamma, except for the detailed refutation of deviant views in the Kathavatthu, which was the work of the Elder Moggaliputta Tissa during the reign of Emperor Asoka.
The Pali Commentaries, apparently drawing upon an old oral tradition, maintain that the Buddha expounded the Abhidhamma, not in the human world to his human disciples, but to the assembly of devas or gods in the Tavatimsa heaven. According to this tradition, just prior to his seventh annual rains retreat the Blessed One ascended to the Tavatimsa heaven and there, seated on the Pandukambala stone at the foot of the Paricchattaka tree, for the three months of the rains he taught the Abhidhamma to the devas who had assembled from the ten thousand world-systems. He made the chief recipient of the teaching his mother, Mahamaya-devi, who had been reborn as a deva. The reason the Buddha taught the Abhidhamma in the deva world rather than in the human realm, it is said, is because in order to give a complete picture of the Abhidhamma it has to be expounded from the beginning to the end to the same audience in a single session. Since the full exposition of the Abhidhamma requires three months, only devas and Brahmas could receive it in unbroken continuity, for they alone are capable of remaining in one posture for such a length of time.
However, each day, to sustain his body, the Buddha would descend to the human world to go on almsround in the northern region of Uttarakuru. After collecting almsfood he went to the shore of Anotatta Lake to partake of his meal. The Elder Sariputta, the General of the Dhamma, would meet the Buddha there and receive a synopsis of the teaching given that day in the deva world: "Then to him the Teacher gave the method, saying, 'Sariputta, so much doctrine has been shown.' Thus the giving of the method was to the chief disciple, who was endowed with analytical knowledge, as though the Buddha stood on the edge of the shore and pointed out the ocean with his open hand. To the Elder also the doctrine taught by the Blessed One in hundreds and thousands of methods became very clear."[7]
Having learned the Dhamma taught him by the Blessed One, Sariputta in turn taught it to his own circle of 500 pupils, and thus the textual recension of the Abhidhamma Pitaka was established. To the Venerable Sariputta is ascribed the textual order of the Abhidhamma treatises as well as the numerical series in the Patthana. Perhaps we should see in these admissions of the Atthasalini an implicit acknowledgement that while the philosophical vision of the Abhidhamma and its basic architecture originate from the Buddha, the actual working out of the details, and perhaps even the prototypes of the texts themselves, are to be ascribed to the illustrious Chief Disciple and his entourage of students. In other early Buddhist schools, too, the Abhidhamma is closely connected with the Venerable Sariputta, who in some traditions is regarded as the literal author of Abhidhamma treatises.[8]

The Seven Books

A brief outline of the contents of the seven canonical Abhidhamma books will provide some insight into the plethora of textual material to be condensed and summarized by the Abhidhammattha Sangaha. The first book, the Dhammasangani, is the fountainhead of the entire system. The title may be translated "Enumeration of Phenomena," and the work does in fact undertake to compile an exhaustive catalog of the ultimate constituents of existence.
Opening with the matika, the schedule of categories which serves as the framework for the whole Abhidhamma, the text proper is divided into four chapters. The first, "States of Consciousness," takes up about half of the book and unfolds as an analysis of the first triad in the matika, that of the wholesome, the unwholesome, and the indeterminate. To supply that analysis, the text enumerates 121 types of consciousness classified by way of their ethical quality.[9] Each type of consciousness is in turn dissected into its concomitant mental factors, which are individually defined in full. The second chapter, "On Matter," continues the inquiry into the ethically indeterminate by enumerating and classifying the different types of material phenomena. The third chapter, called "The Summary," offers concise explanations of all the terms in the Abhidhamma matrix and the Suttanta matrix as well. Finally, a concluding "Synopsis" provides a more condensed explanation of the Abhidhamma matrix but omits the Suttanta matrix.
The Vibhanga, the "Book of Analysis," consists of eighteen chapters, each a self-contained dissertation, dealing in turn with the following: aggregates, sense bases, elements, truths, faculties, dependent arising, foundations of mindfulness, supreme efforts, means to accomplishment, factors of enlightenment, the eightfold path, jhanas, illimitables, training rules, analytical knowledges, kinds of knowledge, minor points (a numerical inventory of defilements), and "the heart of the doctrine" (dhammahadaya), a psycho-cosmic topography of the Buddhist universe. Most of the chapters in the Vibhanga, though not all, involve three sub-sections: an analysis according to the methodology of the Suttas; an analysis according to the methodology of the Abhidhamma proper; and an interrogation section, which applies the categories of the matrix to the subject under investigation.
The Dhatukatha, the "Discourse on Elements," is written entirely in catechism form. It discusses all phenomena with reference to the three schemata of aggregates, sense bases, and elements, seeking to determine whether, and to what extent, they are included or not included in them, and whether they are associated with them or dissociated from them.
The Puggalapaññatti, "Concepts of Individuals," is the one book of the Abhidhamma Pitaka that is more akin to the method of the Suttas than to the Abhidhamma proper. The work begins with a general enumeration of types of concepts, and this suggests that it was originally intended as a supplement to the other books in order to take account of the conceptual realities excluded by the strict application of the Abhidhamma method. The bulk of the work provides formal definitions of different types of individuals. It has ten chapters: the first deals with single types of individuals; the second with pairs; the third with groups of three, etc.
The Kathavatthu, "Points of Controversy," is a polemical treatise ascribed to the Elder Moggaliputta Tissa. He is said to have compiled it during the time of Emperor Asoka, 218 years after the Buddha's Parinibbana, in order to refute the heterodox opinions of the Buddhist schools outside the Theravadin fold. The Commentaries defend its inclusion in the Canon by holding that the Buddha himself, foreseeing the errors that would arise, laid down the outline of rebuttal, which Moggaliputta Tissa merely filled in according to the Master's intention.
The Yamaka, the "Book of Pairs," has the purpose of resolving ambiguities and defining the precise usage of technical terms. It is so called owing to its method of treatment, which throughout employs the dual grouping of a question and its converse formulation. For instance, the first pair of questions in the first chapter runs thus: "Are all wholesome phenomena wholesome roots? And are all wholesome roots wholesome phenomena?" The book contains ten chapters: roots, aggregates, sense bases, elements, truths, formations, latent dispositions, consciousness, phenomena, and faculties.
The Patthana, the "Book of Conditional Relations," is probably the most important work of the Abhidhamma Pitaka and thus is traditionally designated the "Great Treatise" (mahapakarana). Gigantic in extent as well as in substance, the book comprises five volumes totalling 2500 pages in the Burmese-script Sixth Council edition. The purpose of the Patthana is to apply its scheme of twenty-four conditional relations to all the phenomena incorporated in the Abhidhamma matrix. The main body of the work has four great divisions: origination according to the positive method, according to the negative method, according to the positive-negative method, and according to the negative-positive method. Each of these in turn has six sub-divisions: origination of triads, of dyads, of dyads and triads combined, of triads and dyads combined, of triads and triads combined, and of dyads and dyads combined. Within this pattern of twenty-four sections, the twenty-four modes of conditionality are applied in due order to all the phenomena of existence in all their conceivable permutations. Despite its dry and tabular format, even from a "profane" humanistic viewpoint the Patthana can easily qualify as one of the truly monumental products of the human mind, astounding in its breadth of vision, its rigorous consistency, and its painstaking attention to detail. To Theravada orthodoxy, it is the most eloquent testimony to the Buddha's unimpeded knowledge of omniscience.

The Commentaries

The books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka have inspired a voluminous mass of exegetical literature composed in order to fill out, by way of explanation and exemplification, the scaffoldings erected by the canonical texts. The most important works of this class are the authorized commentaries of Acariya Buddhaghosa. These are three in number: the Atthasalini, "The Expositor," the commentary to the Dhammasangani; the Sammohavinodani, "The Dispeller of Delusion," the commentary to the Vibhanga; and the Pañcappakarana Atthakatha, the combined commentary to the other five treatises. To this same stratum of literature also belongs the Visuddhimagga, "The Path of Purification," also composed by Buddhaghosa. Although this last work is primarily an encyclopedic guide to meditation, its chapters on "the soil of understanding" (XIV-XVII) lay out the theory to be mastered prior to developing insight and thus constitute in effect a compact dissertation on Abhidhamma. Each of the commentaries in turn has its subcommentary (mulatika), by an elder of Sri Lanka named Acariya Ananda, and these in turn each have a sub-subcommentary (anutika), by Ananda's pupil Dhammapala (who is to be distinguished from the great Acariya Dhammapala, author of the tikas to Buddhaghosa's works).
When the authorship of the Commentaries is ascribed to Acariya Buddhaghosa, it should not be supposed that they are in any way original compositions, or even original attempts to interpret traditional material. They are, rather, carefully edited versions of the vast body of accumulated exegetical material that Buddhaghosa found at the Mahavihara in Anuradhapura. This material must have preceded the great commentator by centuries, representing the collective efforts of generations of erudite Buddhist teachers to elucidate the meaning of the canonical Abhidhamma. While it is tempting to try to discern evidence of historical development in the Commentaries over and beyond the ideas embedded in the Abhidhamma Pitaka, it is risky to push this line too far, for a great deal of the canonical Abhidhamma seems to require the Commentaries to contribute the unifying context in which the individual elements hang together as parts of a systematic whole and without which they lose important dimensions of meaning. It is thus not unreasonable to assume that a substantial portion of the commentarial apparatus originated in close proximity to the canonical Abhidhamma and was transmitted concurrently with the latter, though lacking the stamp of finality it was open to modification and amplification in a way that the canonical texts were not.
Bearing this in mind, we might briefly note a few of the Abhidhammic conceptions that are characteristic of the Commentaries but either unknown or recessive in the Abhidhamma Pitaka itself. One is the detailed account of the cognitive process (cittavithi). While this conception seems to be tacitly recognized in the canonical books, it now comes to be drawn out for use as an explanatory tool in its own right. The functions of the cittas, the different types of consciousness, are specified, and in time the cittas themselves come to be designated by way of their functions. The term khana, "moment," replaces the canonical samaya, "occasion," as the basic unit for delimiting the occurrence of events, and the duration of a material phenomenon is determined to be seventeen moments of mental phenomena. The division of a moment into three sub-moments -- arising, presence, and dissolution -- also seems to be new to the Commentaries.[10] The organization of material phenomena into groups (kalapa), though implied by the distinction between the primary elements of matter and derived matter, is first spelled out in the Commentaries, as is the specification of the heart-base (hadayavatthu) as the material basis for mind element and mind-consciousness element.
The Commentaries introduce many (though not all) of the categories for classifying kamma, and work out the detailed correlations between kamma and its results. They also close off the total number of mental factors (cetasika). The phrase in the Dhammasangani, "or whatever other (unmentioned) conditionally arisen immaterial phenomena there are on that occasion," apparently envisages an open-ended universe of mental factors, which the Commentaries delimit by specifying the "or-whatever states" (yevapanaka dhamma). Again, the Commentaries consummate the dhamma theory by supplying the formal definition of dhammas as "things which bear their own intrinsic nature" (attano sabhavam dharenti ti dhamma). The task of defining specific dhammas is finally rounded off by the extensive employment of the fourfold defining device of characteristic, function, manifestation, and proximate cause, a device derived from a pair of old exegetical texts, the Petakopadesa and the Nettipakarana.

The Abhidhammattha Sangaha

As the Abhidhamma system, already massive in its canonical version, grew in volume and complexity, it must have become increasingly unwieldy for purposes of study and comprehension. Thus at a certain stage in the evolution of Theravada Buddhist thought the need must have become felt for concise summaries of the Abhidhamma as a whole in order to provide the novice student of the subject with a clear picture of its main outlines -- faithfully and thoroughly, yet without an unmanageable mass of detail.
To meet this need there began to appear, perhaps as early as the fifth century and continuing well through the twelfth, short manuals or compendia of the Abhidhamma. In Burma these are called let-than or "little-finger manuals," of which there are nine:

1. Abhidhammattha Sangaha, by Acariya Anuruddha; 2. Namarupa-pariccheda, by the same;
3. Paramattha-vinicchaya, by the same (?);
4. Abhidhammavatara, by Acariya Buddhadatta (a senior contemporary of Buddhaghosa);
5. Ruparupa-vibhaga, by the same;
6. Sacca-sankhepa, by Bhadanta Dhammapala (probably Sri Lankan; different from the great subcommentator);
7. Moha-vicchedani, by Bhadanta Kassapa (South Indian or Sri Lankan);
8. Khema-pakarana, by Bhadanta Khema (Sri Lankan);
9. Namacara-dipaka, by Bhadanta Saddhamma Jotipala (Burman).

Among these, the work that has dominated Abhidhamma studies from about the twelfth century to the present day is the first mentioned, the Abhidhammattha Sangaha, "The Compendium of Things contained in the Abhidhamma." Its popularity may be accounted for by its remarkable balance between concision and comprehensiveness. Within its short scope all the essentials of the Abhidhamma are briefly and carefully summarized. Although the book's manner of treatment is extremely terse even to the point of obscurity when read alone, when studied under a qualified teacher or with the aid of an explanatory guide, it leads the student confidently through the winding maze of the system to a clear perception of its entire structure. For this reason throughout the Theravada Buddhist world the Abhidhammattha Sangaha is always used as the first textbook in Abhidhamma studies. In Buddhist monasteries, especially in Burma, novices and young bhikkhus are required to learn the Sangaha by heart before they are permitted to study the books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka and its Commentaries. Detailed information about the author of the manual, Acariya Anuruddha, is virtually non-existent. He is regarded as the author of two other manuals, cited above, and it is believed in Buddhist countries that he wrote altogether nine compendia, of which only these three have survived. The Paramattha-vinicchaya is written in an elegant style of Pali and attains a high standard of literary excellence. According to the colophon, its author was born in Kaveri in the state of Kañcipura (Conjeevaram) in South India. Acariya Buddhadatta and Acariya Buddhaghosa are also said to have resided in the same area, and the subcommentator Acariya Dhammapala was probably a native of the region. There is evidence that for several centuries Kañcipura had been an important center of Theravada Buddhism from which learned bhikkhus went to Sri Lanka for further study.
It is not known exactly when Acariya Anuruddha lived and wrote his manuals. An old monastic tradition regards him as having been a fellow student of Acariya Buddhadatta under the same teacher, which would place him in the fifth century. According to this tradition, the two elders wrote their respective books, the Abhidhammattha Sangaha and the Abhidhammavatara, as gifts of gratitude to their teacher, who remarked: "Buddhadatta has filled a room with all kinds of treasure and locked the door, while Anuruddha has also filled a room with treasure but left the door open."[11] Modern scholars, however, do not endorse this tradition, maintaining on the basis of the style and content of Anuruddha's work that he could not have lived earlier than the eighth century, more probably between the tenth and early twelfth centuries.[12]
In the colophon to the Abhidhammattha Sangaha Acariya Anuruddha states that he wrote the manual at the Mulasoma Monastery, which all exegetical traditions place in Sri Lanka. There are several ways to reconcile this fact with the concluding stanzas of the Paramattha-vinicchaya, which state that he was born in Kañcipura. One hypothesis is that he was of South Indian descent but came to Sri Lanka, where he wrote the Sangaha. Another, advanced by G.P. Malalasekera, holds that he was a native of Sri Lanka who spent time at Kañcipura (which, however, passes over his statement that he was born in Kañcipura). Still a third hypothesis, proposed by Ven. A.P. Buddhadatta Mahathera, asserts that there were two different monks named Anuruddha, one in Sri Lanka who was the author of the Abhidhammattha Sangaha, another in Kañcipura who wrote the Paramattha-vinicchaya.[13]

Commentaries on the Sangaha

Owing to its extreme concision, the Abhidhammattha Sangaha cannot be easily understood without explanation. Therefore to elucidate its terse and pithy synopsis of the Abhidhamma philosophy, a great number of tikas or commentaries have been written upon it. In fact, this work has probably stimulated more commentaries than any other Pali text, written not only in the Pali language but also in Burmese, Sinhala, Thai, etc. Since the fifteenth century Burma has been the international center of Abhidhamma studies, and therefore we find many commentaries written on it by Burmese scholars both in Pali and in Burmese. Commentaries on the Sangaha in Pali alone number nineteen, of which the following are the most important:

1. Abhidhammatthasangaha-Tika, also known as the Porana-Tika, "the Old Commentary." This is a very small tika written in Sri Lanka in the twelfth century by an elder named Acariya Navavimalabuddhi. 2. Abhidhammatthavibhavini-Tika, or in brief, the Vibhavini, written by Acariya Sumangalasami, pupil of the eminent Sri Lankan elder Sariputta Mahasami, also in the twelfth century. This tika quickly superceded the Old Commentary and is generally considered the most profound and reliable exegetical work on the Sangaha. In Burma this work is known as tika-gyaw, "the Famous Commentary." The author is greatly respected for his erudition and mastery of the Abhidhamma. He relies heavily on older authorities such as the Abhidhamma-Anutika and the Visuddhimagga-Mahatika (also known as the Paramatthamanjusa). Although Ledi Sayadaw (see below) criticized the Vibhavini extensively in his own commentary on the Sangaha, its popularity has not diminished but indeed has even increased, and several Burmese scholars have risen to defend it against Ledi Sayadaw's criticisms.
3. Sankhepa-vannana, written in the sixteenth century by Bhadanta Saddhamma Jotipala, also known as Chapada Mahathera, a Burmese monk who visited Sri Lanka during the reign of Parakramabahu VI of Kotte (fifteenth century).[14]
4. Paramatthadipani-Tika, "The Elucidation of the Ultimate Meaning," by Ledi Sayadaw. Ledi Sayadaw of Burma (1846-1923) was one of the greatest scholar-monks and meditation masters of the Theravada tradition in recent times. He was the author of over seventy manuals on different aspects of Theravada Buddhism, including philosophy, ethics, meditation practice, and Pali grammar. His tika created a sensation in the field of Abhidhamma studies because he pointed out 325 places in the esteemed Vibhavini-tika where he alleged that errors and misinterpretations had occurred, though his criticisms also set off a reaction in defense of the older work.
5. Ankura-Tika, by Vimala Sayadaw. This tika was written fifteen years after the publication of the Paramatthadipani and supports the commonly accepted opinions of the Vibhavini against Ledi Sayadaw's criticisms.
6. Navanita-Tika, by the Indian scholar Dhammananda Kosambi, published originally in devanagari script in 1933. The title of this work means literally "The Butter Commentary," and it is so called probably because it explains the Sangaha in a smooth and simple manner, avoiding philosophical controversy.

Outline of the Sangaha

The Abhidhammattha Sangaha contains nine chapters. It opens by enumerating the four ultimate realities -- consciousness, mental factors, matter, and Nibbana. The detailed analysis of these is the project set for its first six chapters. Chapter I is the Compendium of Consciousness, which defines and classifies the 89 and 121 cittas or types of consciousness. In scope this first chapter covers the same territory as the States of Consciousness chapter of the Dhammasangani, but it differs in approach. The canonical work begins with an analysis of the first triad in the matika, and therefore initially classifies consciousness on the basis of the three ethical qualities of wholesome, unwholesome, and indeterminate; then within those categories it subdivides consciousness on the basis of plane into the categories of sense sphere, fine-material sphere, immaterial sphere, and supramundane. The Sangaha, on the other hand, not being bound to the matika, first divides consciousness on the basis of plane, and then subdivides it on the basis of ethical quality.
The second chapter, the Compendium of Mental Factors, first enumerates the fifty-two cetasikas or concomitants of consciousness, divided into four classes: universals, occasionals, unwholesome factors, and beautiful factors. Thereafter the factors are investigated by two complimentary methods: first, the method of association (sampayoganaya), which takes the mental factors as the unit of inquiry and elicits the types of consciousness with which they are individually associated; and second, the method of inclusion or combination (sangahanaya), which takes the types of consciousness as the unit of inquiry and elicits the mental factors that enter into the constitution of each. This chapter again draws principally upon the first chapter of the Dhammasangani.
The third chapter, entitled Compendium of the Miscellaneous, classifies the types of consciousness along with their factors with respect to six categories: root (hetu), feeling (vedana), function (kicca), door (dvara), object (arammana), and base (vatthu).
The first three chapters are concerned principally with the structure of consciousness, both internally and in relation to external variables. In contrast, the next two chapters deal with the dynamics of consciousness, that is, with its modes of occurrence. According to the Abhidhamma, consciousness occurs in two distinct but intertwining modes -- as active process and as passive flow. Chapter IV explores the nature of the "cognitive process," Chapter V the passive "process-freed" flow, which it prefaces with a survey of the traditional Buddhist cosmology. The exposition here is largely based upon the Abhidhamma Commentaries. Chapter VI, Compendium of Matter, turns from the mental realm to the material world. Based primarily on the second chapter of the Dhammasangani, it enumerates the types of material phenomena, classifies them in various ways, and explains their modes of origination. It also introduces the commentarial notion of material groups, which it treats in detail, and describes the occurrence of material processes in the different realms of existence. This chapter concludes with a short section on the fourth ultimate reality, Nibbana, the only unconditioned element in the system.
With the sixth chapter, Acariya Anuruddha has completed his analytical exposition of the four ultimate realities, but there remain several important subjects which must be explained to give a complete picture of the Abhidhamma. These are taken up in the last three chapters. Chapter VII, the Compendium of Categories, arranges the ultimate realities into a variety of categorical schemes that fall under four broad headings: a compendium of defilements; a compendium of mixed categories, which include items of different ethical qualities; a compendium of the requisites of enlightenment; and a compendium of the whole, an all-inclusive survey of the Abhidhamma ontology. This chapter leans heavily upon the Vibhanga, and to some extent upon the Dhammasangani.
Chapter VIII, the Compendium of Conditionality, is introduced to include the Abhidhamma teaching on the inter-relatedness of physical and mental phenomena, thereby complementing the analytical treatment of the ultimate realities with a synthetical treatment laying bare their functional correlations. The exposition summarily presents two alternative approaches to conditionality found in the Pali Canon. One is the method of dependent arising, prominent in the Suttas and analyzed from both Suttanta and Abhidhamma angles in the Vibhanga (VI). This method examines conditionality in terms of the cause-and-result pattern that maintains bondage to samsara, the cycle of birth and death. The other is the method of the Patthana, with its twenty-four conditional relations. This chapter concludes with a brief account of concepts (paññatti), thereby drawing in the Puggalapaññatti, at least by implication.
The ninth and final chapter of the Sangaha is concerned, not with theory, but with practice. This is the Compendium of Meditation Subjects. This chapter functions as a kind of summary of the Visuddhimagga. It concisely surveys all the methods of meditation exhaustively explained in the latter work, and it sets forth condensed accounts of the stages of progress in both systems of meditation, concentration and insight. Like the masterwork it summarizes, it concludes with an account of the four types of enlightened individuals and the attainments of fruition and cessation. This arrangement of the Abhidhammattha Sangaha perhaps serves to underscore the ultimate soteriological intent of the Abhidhamma. All the theoretical analysis of mind and matter finally converges upon the practice of meditation, and the practice culminates in the attainment of the supreme goal of Buddhism, the liberation of the mind by non-clinging.

Notes

1. Asl. 2; Expos., p. 3. [Go back]
2. Asl. 2-3; Expos., pp. 3-4. [Go back]
3. The Dhammasangani also includes a Suttanta matrix consisting of forty-two dyads taken from the Suttas. However, this is ancillary to the Abhidhamma proper, and serves more as an appendix for providing succinct definitions of key Suttanta terms. Moreover, the definitions themselves are not framed in terms of Abhidhamma categories and the Suttanta matrix is not employed in any subsequent books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka. [Go back]
4. See, for example, the following: A.K. Warder, Indian Buddhism, 2nd rev. ed. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1980), pp. 218-24; Fumimaro Watanabe, Philosophy and its Development in the Nikayas and Abhidhamma (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1983), pp. 18-67; and the article "Abhidharma Literature" by Kogen Mizuno in Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, Fasc. 1 (Govt. of Ceylon, 1961). [Go back]
5. Asl. 410; Expos., p. 519 [Go back]
6. Asl. 13; Expos., pp. 16-17 [Go back]
7. Asl. 16; Expos., p. 20 [Go back]
8. The first book of the Sarvastivadin Abhidharma, the Sangitiparyaya, is ascribed to Sariputta by Chinese sources (but not by Sanskrit and Tibetan sources), while the second book, the Dharmaskandha, is ascribed to him by Sanskrit and Tibetan sources (but not by Chinese sources). The Chinese canon also contains a work entitled the Shariputra Abhidharma-Shastra, the school of which is not known. [Go back]
9. These are reduced to the familiar eighty-nine cittas by grouping together the five cittas into which each path and fruition consciousness is divided by association with each of the five jhanas. [Go back]
10. The Yamaka, in its chapter "Citta-yamaka," uses the term khana to refer to the subdivision of a moment and also introduces the uppada-khana and bhanga-khana, the sub-moments of arising and dissolution. However, the threefold scheme of sub-moments seems to appear first in the Commentaries. [Go back]
11. Ven. A. Devananda Adhikarana Nayaka Thero, in Preface to Paramattha-vinicchaya and Paramattha-vibhavini-vyakhya (Colombo: Vidya Sagara Press, 1926), p. iii. [Go back]
12. G.P. Malalasekera, The Pali Literature of Ceylon (Colombo: M.D. Gunasena, repr. 1958), pp. 168-70. Malalasekera points out that James Gray, in his edition of Buddhaghosuppatti, gives a chronological list of saintly and learned men of Southern India, taken from the Talaing records, and there we find Anuruddha mentioned after authors who are supposed to have lived later than the seventh or eighth century. Since Bhadanta Sariputta Mahasami compiled a Sinhala paraphrase of the Abhidhammattha Sangaha during the reign of Parakrama-Bahu the Great (1164-97), this places Anuruddha earlier than the middle of the twelfth century. [Go back]
13. See the article "Anuruddha (5)" in Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, Fasc. 4 (Govt. of Ceylon, 1965). Ven Buddhadatta's view is also accepted by Warder, Indian Buddhism, pp. 533-34. [Go back]
14. This author is commonly confused with another Burmese monk called Chapada who came to Sri Lanka during the twelfth century and studied under Bhadanta Sariputta. The case for two Chapadas is cogently argued by Ven. A.P. Buddhadatta, Corrections of Geiger's Mahavamsa, Etc. (Ambalangoda: Ananda Book Co., 1957), pp. 198-209. [Go back]

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

មង្គលសូត្រ​៣៨​​ប្រការ

The Ever-present Truth Teachings of Phra Ajaan Mun Bhuridatta Mahathera

§ 1. The root meditation themes

§ 2. Virtue.

§ 3. Potential

§ 4. Contemplating the body

§ 5. Purifying the mind

§ 6. The method of practice for those who have studied a great deal

§ 7. The principles of the practice are ever-present

§ 8. Listening to the Dhamma at all times

The Ballad of Liberation from the Khandhas by Phra Ajaan Mun Bhuridatta Mahathera

Introduction

Glossary

The Ballad of Liberation from the Khandhas

Namatthu sugatassa Pañca dhamma-khandhani

The Abhidhamma Pitaka

Abhidhamma Pitaka

The Basket of Abhidhamma

A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma

The Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Acariya Anuruddha (Excerpt: Introduction only)

Bhikkhu Bodhi, General Editor

Mahathera Narada

Bhikkhu Bodhi

U Rewata Dhamma & Bhikkhu Bodhi

Introduction

U Rewata Dhamma and Bhikkhu Bodhi

The Abhidhamma

The Twofold Method

Distinctive Features of the Abhidhamma

The Origins of the Abhidhamma

The Seven Books

The Commentaries

The Abhidhammattha Sangaha

Commentaries on the Sangaha

Outline of the Sangaha

Notes

Followers

មង្គលសូត្រ៣៨ប្រការ

The Ballad of Liberation
from the Khandhas

Namatthu sugatassa
Pañca dhamma-khandhani

The Abhidhammattha Sangaha
of Acariya Anuruddha
(Excerpt: Introduction only)