Abhidhamma Studies: Buddhist Explorations of Consciousness and Time (Paperback)

by Nyanaponika Thera (Author)
Key Phrases: wholesome consciousness, average human consciousness, kammic result, Sutta Pitaka, Abhidhamma Pitaka, Anupada Sutta (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The Abhidhamma expounds a revolutionary system of philosophical psychology rooted in the twin Buddhist insights of selflessness and dependent origination. In keeping with the liberative thrust of early Buddhism, this system organizes the entire spectrum of human consciousness around the two poles of Buddhist doctrine—bondage and liberation—the starting point and the final goal. It thereby maps out, with remarkable rigor and precision, the inner landscape of the mind to be crossed through the practical work of Buddhist meditation. In this book of groundbreaking essays, Venerable Nyanaponika Thera, one of our age's foremost exponents of Theravada Buddhism, penetrates the Abhidhamma to make its principles intelligible to the thoughtful reader of today. Innovative and rich in insights, this book does not merely open up new avenues in the academic study of early Buddhism. By treating the Abhidhamma as a fountainhead of inspiration for philosophical and psychological inquiry, it demonstrates the continuing relevance of Buddhist thought to our most astute contemporary efforts to understand the elusive yet so intimate nature of the mind.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Wisdom Publications; 4 edition (March 25, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0861711351
• ISBN-13: 978-0861711352
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #167,944 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

99 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, surprisingly enjoyable and practical., February 14, 1999

By	[e-mail] (Memphis, Tennesse, USA) - See all my reviews

Although my own practice centers around the Mahayana teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, recently I have found it very helpful to spend some time studying and practicing the older, more original approaches from the early days of the Buddhist tradition. In that regard, this small gem of a book has been quite a find! It deals, as the subtitle says, with "Buddhist explorations of consciousness and time" through a historical and philosophical account of the third set of the Buddha's teachings, the "basket" of wisdom. Although the subject matter is rigorously discussed from a philosophical standpoint, the book is anything but dry philosophy. Here, in enjoyable and fairly straightforward language, the author brings alive the fundamental Buddhist analytical and synthetical approaches for understanding of the nature of reality, and yet makes this potentially academic study reverberate wonderfully into such practical areas as the need for pure moral discipline, as well as pointing the way to more effective training in meditative tranquility and insight. I think this is one to keep on the bookshelf and re-read and study again from time to time as one's practice deepens, and it will also serve undoubtedly for me as a starting off point for a wealth of further studies, contemplations and meditations.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best book on Early Buddhist notions of self and mind., September 28, 2001

By	James Ryan (London, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

Nyanaponika introduces Early Buddhist philosophical psychology in detail. He shows that the common and superficial understanding of the Buddhist theory of self - according to which the theory is a mere list of the parts of a self - is wrong and overlooks the Abhidhamma (probably because it is an abstruse section of the Buddhist canon). The theory includes an often overlooked but sophisticated and plausible description of functional relations amongst the parts of a self, and Nyanaponika shows this with astonishing vivacity. This shows that the Early Buddhist theory was an early scientific psychology of a functionalist sort: a monumental acheivement in human intellectual history. All the while, he skilfully shows how the theory is logically connected with the Buddhist notion of psychological self-refinement and nirvana. Still, Nyanaponika and the Abhidhamma ideas he explains seem at times to rely on a dubious empirical method: the introspections of ancient Buddhist masters (which may have included the Buddha himself) who wrote the Abhidhamma texts. As a consequence, some of the descriptions of the parts of the self and their functions seem vague or implausible. Also, although Nyanaponika is good at explaining the philosophical as well as the psychological, one might have liked a bit more discussion of the structure of what appears to be an underlying Buddhist argument that there is no self. The book is of interest to philosophers and psychologists.

5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Being delighted by being astonished, August 27, 2003

By	Bartolomucci Fabrizio "Project developer with... (Lido di Castel Fusano, Rome Italy) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The book flies very high on the contents of the third basket of the Canon by only focusing on the description and categorization of the main mental dhammas but still presents many obstacles to anyone just familiar with the plain discourses of the Buddha. Still there is something very fascinating on finding oneself dull while reading of one's own mind!
Someone might also find interesting the heavy effort put by the author to ground the contents of the Abidhamma to the other parts of the Canon to prove its authenticity but, probably, non-scholars would have liked the effort to be been spent better otherwise.