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.