The Abhidharma in some more detail (and compared with work in Western Philosophy)

It was considered necessary to systematise Siddhartha’s teachings so that the educated might better judge the validity of Buddhism and this was the aim of the abhidharmas in the various canons though as I’ve written in an earlier post they were little more than lists. They do contain metaphysical ideas, psychological ideas and attempts at formulating a somewhat systematic cosmology. Theravadans have traditionally considered that prajña required this aid. Coincidentally both of the earliest canons had seven books of abhidharma.

The abhidharmas have cosmology (including discussion of world systems), psychology (in its study of mind and mind-states) and simple ontology (metaphysics – analysis of the building blocks of existence).

In the western study of ontology there are three basic positions: materialism holds that all is matter, idealism that all is consciousness and dualism that all is either matter, consciousness or some combination. The abhidharmas have a different idea that the western philosophers hadn’t considered (and that I’ll get to soon). The problem for dualists has always been where (if at all) do the supernatural mind and natural body (matter) connect? Descartes thought that for human purposes it was in the human pineal gland. Materialists say simply that mind is merely matter arranged in a particular way and idealists of course assert that matter is merely a by-product of mind.

The abhidharma ontology claims instead that everything is made up of dharmas. It also claims that anything up to 37 of them can arise and die in the click of a finger. Dharmas are a combination of thing and event (c.f. particle v wave?) They naturally arise and die in groups as they are considered interdependent things (unless they are unconditioned ones such as the dharmas of air in some conceptions or of nirvana). Are they anything like the atoms posited within materialism? Perhaps some are but likely not all. The theory is quite esoteric. In the abhidharma of the Theravadan Canon there are 82 dharmas and in the Sarvastivadan one there are 75 dharma groups (divided, of course, between the 5 skandas).

Here are some quotes from Western philosophers that also reflect this:

For my part, when I enter into myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat, cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I can never catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any ‘thing’ but the perception . . . I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in perpetual flux and movement (David Hume, “A Treatise on Human Nature”, 1739).

The notion of things that have a constitution in themselves is a dogmatic idea with which one must break absolutely (Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Will to Power” (Kaufmann trans., 1968 )).

Again, this idea is superimposed in the abhidharma on ancient Indian analogies and ‘rope-snake’ stories and the idea of ultimate truth is further elucidated. Here’s something of the argument: In our minds, if we saw a rope and thought it was a snake, we might put up some kind of a fence to protect others from the ‘snake’. The problem for us was the shadow which created an illusion and we might expect some praise but someone who knew it was a rope might disappoint us. For them it is an ‘idea (vijnapti)’ of a snake that is of course illusory and a superimposition on ultimate reality. The problem (if there is one) is thus the idea that led to our unnecessary work (fence-building) and not the ‘snake’ and this is what must be realised. Ego and self is that ‘snake’. It’s really those dharmas. The one problem with the analogy that the abhidharma recognises is that an ‘ego’ can perform the function of an ego (as a ‘table’, too, can that of a table) but a ‘rope/snake’ could never fully perform that of a snake; hence we can use conventional reality in real life. Nevertheless our ‘problems’ are not the problems we see and therefore we need also to see the ultimate reality so the ‘snake’ can be a ‘tool’ (and we also don’t need to kill it).

In real life we can see the effect of these kinds of real delusions in illnesses such as anorexia nervosa. A person living with the condition may see fat ‘snaking’ around her/his body. All illusions eventually lead to disillusion but the disillusion is better for us ultimately that the illusion.

Our normal conventional life and deemed ‘reality’ is a superimposition over all of this actual reality. Does a book have any universal quality of “bookness” to work with? If so then it is what we call a book. The Central Conception of Buddhism is a useful text that explores these questions. So abhidharma’s aim is to categorise ultimate truths. All the canons may be potentially added to if further intellectual or enlightening work is done or further material considered relevant is discovered.

The Kashmiri abhidharma now lost to us in its original Sanskrit was apparently especially notable for its theory of ontology. It also divides things between what actually exists (dravyatah) and what exists as a name. I discussed this as the idea of two truths in an earlier post with ‘person’, especially, being of the second type. The constituents of reality are examined (dharmas) for the better understanding of what it is. The five skandas are therefore further divided. Form, for example has at least five parts including fire (heat), earth (solidity), water (connectedness) and air (motion). Samskaras are also examined, classified and subdivided.

This all attempts to answer the question: can we list what we need to know about reality? The dharma of air is regarded by some Buddhist scholars as an unconditioned dharma along with the dharma of nirvana but this is disputed. Nirvana certainly is considered fully unconditioned. So ‘person’ came to be seen as an interactive stream of some 75 to 80 dharma forms. Also ‘fire’ is heat; it doesn’t possess it as an attribute as it does not have a selfhood. All of the conditioned dharmas are considered to have only a momentary existence. They don’t therefore have time to move anywhere; they simply arise and cease to exist in a moment. They can be discovered during meditation. The abhidharmic lists are generally thought to probably be expansions of lists taught directly by Siddhartha during his lifetime on earth.

Fleshing out further the Sangha story, how the Canons came about and what they are

The first council of the sangha arranged for the remembrance of the vinaya and the suttas virtually immediately upon Siddhartha’s death. The disciple Ananda was noted as being the best at remembering what was required to be remembered. A second council occurred exactly 100 years later.

The vinaya and suttas were first written down in Pali in Sri Lanka in the first Century BCE as the first two pitaka (baskets) of the Pali Canon (also the only complete surviving canon written in an Indic language). The third basket was the abhidhamma Pitaka. Altogether they are the three baskets -the Tripitaka.

The vinaya consists essentially of stories of how Siddhartha developed the rules for his religious 'orders' in the context of his many years of organising them and some of the actual rules. They are together seen as providing a form of precedent in legal terms for the future development of rules for religious orders.

The oral recitation for so many centuries, though, of the vinaya and vows (together the pratimoksa – way to (towards) liberation) especially appears to be the reason for the development of the different solidified traditions of the different orders. The religious had to be able to recite their orders' particular pratimoksas. I mentioned this division in an earlier post as it posed problems for some women seeking to be nuns of certain orders, today. The orders do not consider the other orders heretical, however. This was also why at least the early Mahayana monks were not excluded from their communities as long as they could recite and aim to live by their correct pratimoksa (independent thought wasn’t a problem as long as the rules of the order were still known, adhered to as much as possible and chanted as required).

The suttas are also called the Nikayas (Nikaya being Pali for group (as the suttas were grouped) – the corresponding Sanskrit word used for the sutras of its canon is “agama”). They are of course the discourses of Siddhartha concerning matters other than the organisation and commitments of the religious orders and often begin with the introduction “thus I have heard”.

The abhidhamma is the work of early scholars at systematising the teachings of Siddhartha. In the canons, it’s not much more than groupings of lists (matrkas) that Siddhartha made with some brief exposition. Theravadans claim their abhidhamma pitaka was all recited at the first council virtually as is and hence may be regarded as the word of Siddhartha Gautama along with the vinaya and suttas, as he had only very recently passed on.

Incidentally, they also claim that a form of Pali was Siddhartha's spoken language. Scholars consider this claim to be unlikely to be meritorious. Philologists believe (based on the two earliest Canons) that he would have spoken a North Indian language now largely lost to us called Magadhi. He did require that his ideas be translated into local languages and this canon is also the first written example of this. There was certainly no powerful Buddhist belief that the truth could only be fully revealed in one language such as Arabic (or Greek or Latin), for example.

The second oldest canon which unfortunately doesn’t survive in its entirety is believed to have been first written in Sanskrit (the most important language of learning in India at the time) in the first century CE. It survives in a sense in its Tibetan and Chinese forms today as the Tibetan and Chinese Canons (also often called Tripitaka as their source had the same basic organisation into three ‘baskets’: vinaya, sutras and abhidharma) but also in fragments in Sanskrit. The school of Buddhist thinkers that were responsible for having it written in Sanskrit were called the Sarvastivada and it was apparently written in the Kashmir region of what is now modern Pakistan.

The later canons were organised somewhat differently and were based on translated collections essentially from the Sanskrit and with commentaries.

We have one Canon written on woodblock in China in 868 CE. Korea and Japan have extant editions dating from around the 14^th Century. The Chinese Canon appears to have had Korean and Japanese input and additional material.

The Tibetan Canon came in at least two waves due to oppression of Buddhists in India. A Classical Tibetan written language was created especially from the Tibetan vernacular for the purpose of creating the Canon finalised in the 14^th Century after the conclusion of the second wave. It first began to be compiled in some form in the first wave of the 8^th Century. Some of its source material may have been originally written in Chinese and some in Sanskrit. Versions of the finalised Canon were also produced on woodblock in the 15^th Century.

Sometimes the whole of Buddhist teaching of a particular view is also called its Tripitaka and Tripitaka is also a title of honour for a learned Buddhist (remember Monkey). The Tripitaka is all also regarded as the word of the historical Buddha although, with regard to the third pitaka, at least, this is still in dispute among both Buddhists and experts. Followers of the two earliest canons would regard the abhidharma part of their canon as words of Siddhartha.

‘Self’, Non-Self and Truth

Siddhartha acknowledged the usefulness of the concept of self in normal life while rejecting its actual real existence. His meaning appears to be that there are no truly independent actors in samsara. In samsara a seed of karma is called samskara and the thing it acts upon is called samskrta. Real belief in self leads to thirsts for a sense of control and security that cannot be satisfied and are not real. Thus dukkha happens. One needs to “let go” of "one’s" attachment to one’s “personhood” in order to be relieved of this dukkha of “personal” desire and aversion.

Meditation on the truth that can be found within the nature of the mind rather than speculation about what may never be possible to know of the cosmos was Siddhartha’s modus operandi. Wisdom was thus much more about recognising independencies locally and the possibilities for human change than about cosmos rhythms and changes. The Sramanic purpose after all was to free humans from E=mc2 not for them to be able to understand that E=mc2 cosmically. Cosmic understanding might however ultimately be derived, too, from such deep thought, and speculation continued to occur, as I’ve mentioned. Not only did Siddhartha deliberately refrain from explaining whether the universe had always and would always be, however, he also refrained from explaining whether the state of nirvana would always be (once attained). One can only speculate on his reasons but we know he sought to give humans moral answers but also to transform them so that they could fully understand why the moral answers were correct answers. So he was both a legalist moralist and a liberal “Gnostic” soteriologist.

I mentioned earlier that Siddhartha approved a false truth for the purposes of living a conventional life. Buddhism calls it conventional truth or relative truth (samrti satya). The ultimate truth is dvaya satya. Conventional truth is about the conventions of language labelling “things” according to their function and recognition that this serves a practical purpose in everyday transactions (Vyavahara) but with the potential, of course, to be a trap. Correct practice of Buddhism is designed to make this clear. We must know that a rope is a rope (the person) even if, in the dark, it appears to be a snake, so we need not fear it (but we equally can not claim its ropeness ("personness" is a composite of 5 interdependent skandas)).

Two key illusions are that of possession and that of permanent attachment as there is no possessor and nothing to which we might be attached is permanent. Letting go of attachment means letting go of “good” and “bad” and focusing more on “is”. Why then do “good works” if our selves (such as they are) dissolve upon death (and even every instant)? Who gets to benefit from our good karma if not us? The idea is that Buddhism requires us to behave with the purest altruism in the expectation of receiving it in return not from people (except via cosmic forces). Apparently according to Theravada traditions, karma gets transferred to someone else (whoever that might be) virtually in the instant or our deaths. In at least one other tradition that process may take more like a month.

Nirvana - Deja Vu all over Again

Ultimate wisdom is achieved when entering nirvana, the only unconditioned state. There are three main traditional “doors” to it: the realisation of the all-encompassing unsatisfactoriness of all of samsara, realisation of existence but impermanence of all in samsara and realisation that non-self-being is all there is in samsara. One can realise any of the three first depending upon one’s personality and chance but realising one immediately leads to realisation of the other two. A thus enlightened person is then called an Arya (noble person) as opposed to a Prthagjana (regular ‘Jo/e’). In different contexts, Sangha can mean all Buddhists, all monks and nuns or all of the Arya only.

It’s not possible to be understood with the intellect and must be approached from nearby before it can be ‘seen’. There simply is no remaining craving left to ‘seed’ a rebirth. Buddhas can see ‘their’ past lives which appears strange considering Buddhists believe in rebirth rather than reincarnation. The unconditioned obviously has a relationship with the conditioned but it’s not clear how the unconditioned conditions the conditioned; the conditioned certainly can’t condition the unconditioned. The unconditioned state is achieved by ‘drawing or turning away’ from the conditioned (or perhaps letting go of it). It is ineffable (too subtle for description) but as far from nothingness as one can get, apparently. It is between something and nothing, though. It is more than a mere ending but it certainly is an ending (of something). It is also both never-ending and instantaneous and is not worldly bliss. Its realisation is beyond both positive and negative emotions, it is simply realisation. It is ultimate, sublime, some kind of never-ending bliss. There is no ‘soul’ that obtains it; that could not be Buddhism. Nevertheless, ‘Siddhartha’ lived with it for many years before his parinibbana.

It appears that Arahanthood and nirvana are most likely possible mainly during the earthly life of and in the presence of a Buddha so we’ll probably have to wait until Maitreya arrives in about 8,000 years for our next best chance. There were around 50 Arahants getting around when Siddhartha achieved his parinibbana. Essentially the Arahant is the most senior of the most senior Buddhist ranks of enlightenment short of Buddhahood. The title means "one who has achieved nibbana/nirvana but has not become a Buddha”. Around 24 Buddhas are accepted as having lived before Siddhartha. In the Mahayana view, Siddhartha and other Buddhas are also held to be still working for us in some way as in the light of that view a Mahayana Buddhist would not believe that they are so selfish as to have simply freed themselves only. All must be continually prompted to follow them to nirvana. Buddhas all have to do this. So this also applies to the other 24 earlier Buddhas (it probably even applies to future Buddhas that are now Bodhisattvas).

There you have all I know about nirvana.

Meditation and the Getting of Wisdom (Bhavana)

The getting of wisdom by meditation has various terms including Samadhi (concentration), samatha (peacefulness of mind) and jhana (absorption) and meditators seek Ekagrata (one-pointedness). Meditation and the arrival at wisdom thereby are the second and third parts of the marga following on from the sila of my last post and are all about the clarifying of the mind begun by learning to follow the rules or vinaya.

Siddhartha himself, as I’ve noted, began by following the methods of at least two of the great Sramana teachers of his day in his region but then he added his own steps. He realised that the two teachers only taught the clarifying of the mind for its own sake so his additional step was a thought process designed directly to get wisdom from an apparently already clarified mind. This next stage of wisdom development is called prajña, vipasyana (insight) and smrti (awareness).

The realisation that different traditions may validly differ on how to bring wisdom about relies on the teaching of the Buddhist concept of skilful means (upaya). The idea here is that Siddhartha recognised there were several paths to enlightenment suited to different people depending upon their current states and interests. As always, pragmatism and experimentation were orders of the day. Incidentally some Mahayana teachings include that Siddhartha was actually a Buddha from birth who underwent his own trials and errors merely as an example to us to be prepared to engage in a trial and error approach as we seek knowledge. There are sometimes said to be 84,000 (or 84,000,000) doors or more appropriately, perhaps, doorways (a less literal translation from the Indian would be heaps of doorways) to the house of wisdom. Siddhartha did apparently give the punters options as they sought their own truths. A way of understanding the entrances is said to be via the metaphor that when a finger is pointed at the moon, one is meant to see the moon rather than examine the finger. Here then are a few of the approaches that have arisen:

One approach is that while in an enhanced state the meditator should analyse the theory of non-self taught to her or him as s/he recites it in her or his imagination. This is held to lead to real experience of its truth.

One Theravada tradition called vipassana in Pali (vipasyana in Sanskrit) takes leaps of stages directly from basic breath training to promotion of awareness that is held to spark the insight required for the wisdom required to be attained. There are held to be four ways to get there this quickly (to the required state of mindfulness). It’s about first noting the rising and passing of emotions, being fully aware of the emotions, not reacting to the emotion in the habitual way and finally being aware of the result and effect of not reacting in that way. This produces the requisite realisation of the error of the past thoughts and short-circuits the 12 links of dependent arising that I mentioned earlier. All of impermanence, non-self and dukkha can thus be realised by this experience of relative and relatively unobstructed and undistorted clarity of mental ‘vision’. So it’s an intellectual pursuit and it’s about breaking unskilful habits. The Platform Sutta of the Sixth Patriarch discusses this method.

Another method is the well known one of focusing on conundrums (called koens in Zen Buddhism) such as what is the sound of one hand clapping?

Meditating on the five aggregates and the twelve links of dependent arising directly may reveal the truth. The links that I’ve discussed earlier are sometimes divided for this purpose into three aspects of samsara: klesa (defilements – links 1, 8 and 9), karma (actions – links 2 and 10) and dukkha (results – links 3 to 7, and links 11 and 12). The wheels created by especially Tibetan Buddhist artists could be used in the meditation on the 12 links and contained all the information apparently needed for even illiterate monks.

One may choose to use, as a practical form of Bhavana, Metta or Maitra Bhavana (cultivation of loving kindness or friendliness). There is also a Metta Sutra that bears meditation upon. One wishes for the happiness of all beings beginning with one’s friends and eventually getting to strangers and even enemies who hate and want to hurt us. There are a group of related Bhavanas related to this one that are collectively called the divine abodes (brahmavihara) and they include cultivation of things such as compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity (often done first when they are all done together). The name of the next Buddha, Maitreya, evidently points to the belief that s/he is expected to be all about this loving kindness/friendliness lark.

Visualising attributes of Siddhartha and/or of Buddhas generally is another form of Bhavana used (called buddhanusmrti or Buddha remembrance).

In the next posts, I'll discuss the ideas of nirvana, non-self and truth some more before discussing some more history of Buddhist thinking in the lead-up to discussing the major split between what are now called the Mahayana and Theravada traditions of Buddhism.