Abhidharma

This monograph employs conceptual metaphor theory to investigate philosophy of mind and and the materiality of meditation systems in three c.4th-5th-century CE Sanskrit meditation treatises: the Patanjalayogasastra, the Abhidharmakosabhasya and the Yogacarabhumisastra. The book also challenges the historical framing of these and other texts as 'classical' and applies decolonial thought to how emic labels from South Asian culture might prove more appropriate and useful in categorisation.

Designed a poster for the twelve links (nidāna): Dependent Origination (paṭiccasamuppāda). This was a desideratum as I am running a Monday Q&A session on every nidāna. Vibhaṅga Sutta (SN 12.2) and Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta, (MN 09) are my references.

Original Post: https://patisota.blogspot.com/2021/06/twelve-links-dependent-origination.html

Tarkastelen tässä artikkelissa tietoista liikettä ja analysoin siitä esiin sen keskeiset elementit. Tarkastelen myös liikettä kehon ja mielen yhteyden ja erillisyyden kannalta. Pyrin artikkelissa näyttämään, miten liikkeen kautta voidaan lähestyä kehon ja mielen yhteyttä, kehomieltä. Artikkeli liittyy tämän kautta myös kysymykseen, miten liikkeellä voi olla eheyttävä vaikutus, miten liikemeditaatiota voidaan kuvata jne. Otan artikkelissa esimerkiksi tietoisesta liikkeestä Asahi Health - menetelmän, mutta kuvaus sopii mihin tahansa tietoisen liikkeen menetelmään.

Winner of the 2018 Edward Cameron Dimock Jr. Prize in the Indian Humanities

"A profoundly innovative and engaging study of cosmological thinking in texts, rituals, imagery, and architecture across the Buddhist world of the Himalayas."
-Catherine Becker, author of Shifting Stones, Shaping the Past: Sculpture from the Buddhist Stupas of Andhra Pradesh

"Offers a new perspective on the depictions of cosmological imagery. A timely topic that makes major contributions to the field of art history."
-Christian Luczanits, David L. Snellgrove Senior Lecturer in Tibetan and Buddhist Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Buddhist representations of the cosmos across nearly two thousand years of history in Tibet, Nepal, and India show that cosmology is a rich language for the expression of diverse religious ideas, with cosmological thinking at the center of Buddhist thought, art, and practice.

In Creating the Universe, Eric Huntington presents examples of visual art and architecture, primary texts, ritual ideologies, and material practices—accompanied by extensive explanatory diagrams—to reveal the immense complexity of cosmological thinking in Himalayan Buddhism. Employing comparisons across function, medium, culture, and history, he exposes cosmology as a fundamental mode of engagement with numerous aspects of religion, from preliminary lessons to the highest rituals for enlightenment. This wide-ranging work will interest scholars and students of many fields, including Buddhist studies, religious studies, art history, and area studies.

http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/HUNCRE.html

This paper presents the doctrinal argumentation on the continuity of the life of an individual sentient being found in the Abhidharma Buddhist texts translated by Xuanzang and his Tang Dynasty (618–907) collaborators. Vasubandhu, in the Treasury of the Abhidharma, and Saṅghabhadra, in his two commentaries on this text, the Abhidharma Treatise Conforming to the Correct Logic, and the Treatise Clarifying Abhidharma Tenets, enlist the doctrines of the continuum (Skt. saṃtāna; Ch. xiangxu 相續) and the aggregates (Skt. skandha; Ch. yun 蘊) to support the idea that the life of an individual sentient being does not end with the death of the body. The conceptualization of survivability, articulated by Vasubandhu and Saṅghabhadra in these three Abhidharma masterworks, is that an individual sentient being continues in life, and survives death, the afterlife, and reincarnation, in the form of aggregates bundled together in the continuum. This paper enlists a source criticism methodology to compare the translations of the Abhidharma texts by Xuanzang and his coterie, with earlier recensions of the texts in Chinese, and received versions in Tibetan and Sanskrit, to describe the definitions, examples, and logic employed by Vasubandhu and Saṅghabhadra in their argumentation in defense of the doctrine that the life of an individual sentient being persists throughout the four stages of the Buddhist life cycle: life, death, the afterlife, and reincarnation. Ultimately, for Vasubandhu and Saṅghabhadra, as well as for Xuanzang, the individual life constituted by the continuum of a sentient being persists in the face of constant change and radical impermanence.

Published online at https://tinyurl.com/jgdkxyz In this presentation, I shall demonstrate how Patañjali, a brāhmaṇa Yoga philosopher, formulated a theory of transformation of matter by drawing upon four Sarvāstivāda Buddhist theories of temporality. In developing his theory, Patañjali reused the wording in which these theories were originally formulated as well as the original exemplifications for the respective theories. By changing the wording of the original formulation slightly, he created a completely new theory that has not much in common with its Buddhist exemplar.

This book covers the eighteen treatises of the original scripture. A total of 273 tables, 30 diagrams, and lucidly-defined outlines of points and summaries are used extensively throughout this book to present the contents of the original text as lively as possible to readers. The treatises are divided into three distinct groups. The first group containing the Five Aggregates, Twelve Sense-Bases, Eighteen Elements, Four Noble Truths, Twenty-Two Controlling Faculties, and Dependent Origination, are the fundamental  requisites for developing our right views and wisdom. The second group contains the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, Four Right Striving, Four Means to Accomplishment, Seven Factors of Enlightenment, Noble Eightfold Path, and Jhāna, provide the basis for practicing wisdom using the different approaches, all of which are interdependent modular functions connecting one to another. The third group contains the Illimitables, Precepts, Analytical Insight, kinds of Knowledge, numerical list of defilement, and kernel of the Buddha’s teaching — provide supplementary information illuminated in extensive details not apropos to being dealt with in the preceding twelve Chapters.

This article provides an introduction to Abhidharma philosophy. The Abhidharma is a collection of texts intended to deal with what the Buddha taught. It is one of the three collections that make up the Buddhist canonical scriptures (the other two are the sūtras, the Buddha's discourses, and the vinaya, the rules of monastic discipline). All three are usually referred to as the "three baskets", indicating the way in which the original palm-leaf manuscripts were stored. The discussion found in the Abhidharma texts comprises two main elements: categorizing lists and explicatory discussions of points of doctrine. This article focuses on three topics that are of particular philosophical interest and relate to questions of ontology, the philosophy of time, and metaphysics.

El núcleo del presente libro es un compendio medieval de filosofía budista titulado Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha. Esta obra se atribuye a Ācariya Anuruddha, un sabio budista del que se conoce muy poco, incluidos su lugar de origen y siglo exacto en que vivió. No obstante la obscuridad personal que circunda al autor, su pequeño compendio es uno de los más importantes e influyentes libros de texto del Budismo Theravada. En nueve breves capítulos, que ocupan aproximadamente cincuenta páginas impresas, el autor provee un resumen magistral de aquel cuerpo abstruso de doctrina budista denominada el Abhidhamma.

Most Buddhists would admit that every Buddhist practice and theoretical construct can be traced to or at least subsumed under one or more among the four nobles' truths. It is hardly surprising, then, that listening to these truths and pondering upon them were considered the cornerstones of the Buddhist soteric endeavour. Learning them from a competent teacher and subjecting them to rational analysis are generally regarded as taking place at the very beginning of the religious career or, to put it otherwise, still as an ordinary person along the preparatory path. At this stage, the discursive nature of the four nobles' truths fits well the didactic and intellectual requirements of early religious practice. But how about the subsequent, more distinctively intuitive/non-conceptual stages of a mystic's career? How to interpret, for instance, our sources' strong emphasis on the four nobles' truths as forming the content of the first pivotal event on the path, the so-called path of vision? And how to understand a philosopher's claim that the yogic path exhausts itself in one's learning, rationally analyzing and mentally cultivating the four nobles' truths? In order to understand this, one has to turn to Abhidharmic interpretations of the four truths as embodying the ultimately true aspects of reality itself. Here, the truths are not regarded as a didactic device encapsulating the entire Buddhist law, but as the basic sixteenfold structure of the real. It is, of course, these ultimately true aspects that the path of cultivation is supposed to make directly perceptible to the yogin, thus enabling him to get rid of ignorance.

General opinion holds that the Abhidhamma treats the Buddha's teachings in terms of ultimate realities, i.e. dhammas, and that conventional constructs such as persons (puggala) fall outside the primary concern of the Abhidhamma. The present paper reexamines this ultimate-conventional dichotomy drawn between dhammas and persons and argues that this dichotomy does not hold true for the canonical Abhidhamma in Pali. This study explores how various types of persons are interpreted and approached by the Abhidhamma material, including Abhidhamma texts such as the Puggalapaññatti and a number of suttas in the Aṅguttara Nikāya that are identified in this paper as proto-Abhidhamma. Keywords Abhidhamma · Person · Puggala · Pudgala · Paññatti · An ˙guttara

Conventionally, the label 'classical yoga' has been aligned with—and sometimes conflated with—the text of Patañjali's Yogasūtra. Yet if we broaden the scope of inspection to a wider textual corpus, we can identify a richer and more complex discourse of classical yoga in soteriological contexts. This discourse is also employed in Buddhist Sarvāstivāda traditions and is semantically and metaphorically entangled across religious boundaries. By comparing passages from the Pātañjalayogaśāstra and the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya, this article highlights the botanical image of the seed and its seedbed (the substratum) as a key metaphorical structure in the soteriology of the two texts.

The Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (Treasury of Metaphysics with Self-Commentary) is a pivotal treatise on early Buddhist thought composed around the fourth or fifth century by the Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu. This work elucidates the Buddha's teachings as synthesized and interpreted by the early Buddhist Sarvāstivāda school ("the theory that all [factors] exist"), while recording the major doctrinal polemics that developed around them, primarily those points of contention with the Sautrāntika system of thought ("followers of the scriptures"). Employing the methodology and terminology of the Buddhist Abhidharma system, the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya offers a detailed analysis of fundamental doctrines, such as early Buddhist theories of mind, cosmology, the workings of karman, meditative states and practices, and the metaphysics of the self. One of its unique features is the way it presents the opinions of a variety of Buddhist and Brahminical schools that were active in classical India in Vasubandhu's time. The work contains nine chapters (the last of which is considered to have been appended to the first eight), which proceed from a description of the unawakened world via the path and practices that are conducive to awakening and ultimately to the final spiritual attainments which constitute the state of awakening. In its analysis of the unawakened situation, it thus covers the elements which make up the material and mental world of sentient beings, the wholesome and unwholesome mental states that arise in their minds, the structure of the cosmos, the metaphysics of action (karman) and the way it comes into being, and the nature of dispositional attitudes and dormant mental afflictions. In its treatment of the path and practices that lead to awakening, the treatise outlines the Sarvāstivāda understanding of the methods of removing defilements through the realization of the four noble truths and the stages of spiritual cultivation. With respect to the awakened state, the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya gives a detailed description of the different types of knowledge and meditational states attained by practitioners who reach the highest stages of the path.

P. De Silva, Buddhist and Freudian Psychology, Colombo, Lake House, 1972, 52-3. De Silva does not explicitly equate bhavaṅga and the unconscious as implied by Collins op. cit., 304, n. 22, he merely discusses the term in this connection and in fact acknowledges that the term is problematic since what scholars have said about it seems contradictory and to involve a certain interpretive element. 3 See Collins, op. cit., 238-47; P.J. Griffiths, On Being Mindless: Buddhist Meditation and the Mind-Body Problem, La Salle, Open Court Publishing Co. , 1986, 38-9; Griffiths, quite mistakenly, even goes so far as to state that "bhavaṅga is a type of consciousness that operates with no object" (36). 4 S. Collins, op. cit., 2, 45.

About string theory which is supposed to be a theory of everything:

-  It says everything can be traced to vibrating strings

-  It started with bosonic string which has 22 extra dimensions.

-  Among many perceived deficiencies, tachyon which cannot be eliminated is the fatal issue as its existence will decay a system quickly to nothing.

-  It later evolved into superstrings with 6 extra dimensions with supersymmetry.

- The problem is there are now 5 versions of superstrings since 1980's till today.

-  Until today, after almost 40 years, nobody knows why there are 5 versions of everything even though Edward Witten consolidated the 5 versions into M-theory with one more extra dimension in1995.

-  Note that bosonic string doesn't go away, it is hidden in 2 versions of heterotic superstrings: E8xE8 and SO(32)

-  There is another version that is not popularized is F-theory which is dual to M-theory and a version of superstring (Type II B), it requires another extra dimension. Within this extra dimension in F-theory, there are two dimensions always have to be curled up.

-  One other development was AdS/CFT Correspondence which shows there is a universal hologram.

-  AdS/CFT shows there is a duality between strings (without particle theory) in another space with gravity and particle theory without gravity in our 3D space

-  Note that not considering the 22 extra dimensions of bosonic string, there are total 8 extra dimensions: M-theory + F-theory + 6 in superstrings


Yogacara Buddhism is also a theory of everything (which is far beyond what string theorists can imagine today):

-  Its entire theory is based on Seeds (strings).

-  There are total 8 Consciousness arisen from Seeds (strings).

-  All our conscious experiences, which are called Phenomena (particle theory), are arisen from Seeds (strings).

-  Seeds (strings) and Phenomena (particle theory) are NEITHER THE SAME NOR DIFFERENT. Note particles are not made up by strings but particles and strings are NEITHER THE SAME NOR DIFFERENT.

-  The entire mechanism related to Seeds is extremely complex and among which is the concept of 22 Indriya (22 extra dimensions of bosonic string).

-  22 Indriya, which is a universal form of energy, is a MUST HAVE for Superior Conditions for 3 of the 5 Fruits (Effects): Superior Fruits (E8xE8 Heterotic), Ripen Divergently (SO(32) Heterotic), and Nirvana (Type I) before final stage (note Type I belong also to symmetry group SO(32)).

-  Phenomena (all our conscious experiences) come in 5 Fruits or Effects: Same Order (Type IIB), Man-made (Type IIA), Superior (E8xE8 Heterotic), Ripen Divergently (SO(32) Heterotic), and Nirvana (Type I). The reason why there are 5 is the first, Same Order (Type IIB)). is the base scenario everyone starts with. The other 4 are what one chooses to do or will experience above the base scenario. The first 4 are considered to be in cycles of rebirth or the Matrix where in the last one will slowly exit samsara and finally out of the Matrix.

-  How we each experience these 5 types of experiences, or Phenomena (particle theory), of 5 Fruits or Effects (5 superstrings), is through each of our first 6 Consciousness of Eye, Ear, Nose, Tongue, Body, and Mind. There are many functions of Consciousness but simplistically, every Consciousness has 2 functions: Visual Function (cognition) and Image Function (object of cognition). For example, whatever we see in LHC experiment is the result of our Eye Consciousness' Image Function and all physical theories including what we think of as particles are the result of Mind Consciousness' Image Function.

-  As long as each continues to experience Phenomena, it is called samsara or staying in the Matrix. Buddhism is all about getting out of the Matrx. The key to get out of the Matrix is to get to Nirvana (Type I). This is a gradual process. At some critical point, there are Pure Seeds (tachyons) that will be produced to clear some existing undesirable Seeds (strings). This happens a number of times until the final stage of Nirvana (Type I through orbifold from Type IIB). There are 3 Indriya out of 22 Indriya (22 extra dimensions of bosonic string) responsible for Pure Seeds (tachyons). This is why tachyons cannot be eliminated in bosonic string. Tachyons which are very undesirable for physicists are very desirable for Yogacara practitioners.

-  8th Consciousness (M-theory), is said to manage all the experience among the 5 Effects (5 superstrings), as it is also called the Store House Consciousness storing all Seeds (strings). It is also a "machine" in which while it manages the Seeds (strings), it also processes them in a way when conditions (4 Cause-Conditions) are ready, it then produces an effect (Phenomenon > (strings > particle theory). The result MUST BE EFFECT CONSERED.

-  7th Consciousness (F-theory) and 8th Consciousness are "root" to each other (duality of M-theory).

-  Seeds of 7th Consciousness together with first 6 Consciousness: (first 7 Consciousness) are said to be Seeds of Same Order (F-theory duality to Type IIB).

-  7th Consciousness is said to develop its own Image Function while holding on to 8th Consciousness' Visual Function. 7th Consciousness later creates another Image Functions of "I". So, 7th Consciousness has 2 Image Functions (2 dimensions which are always curled up).

-  12 Ayatana (universal hologram) is a central concept in Buddhism which can be expanded to 18 Dhatus or even 62 Dhatus with information of past, present, and future. Dhatus and Seeds are also synonyms where these combination gives rise to Consciousness and all Phenomena we know in the universe (Ads/CFT Correspondence and the universal hologram).


This package is centered around the above discussion with more.

-  First section: 10 topics each with subpoints, focuses on basic discussion why is string theory a mathematical version of Yogacara Buddhism.

-  Second section: 12 topics, focuses on deeper meaning of what string theory yet to realize.

-  Third section: 12 topics (more in progress) expands the deeper meaning of Yogacara Buddhism.


The following are 2 famous quotes by Max Planck:

-  "I regard consciousness as fundamental. ... We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness."

-  "All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."

We have to recognize Max Planck for his extremely sharp intuition. First, he started quantum mechanics with Planck constants which are still being used today after 122 years by solving the ultraviolet catastrophe - even he wasn't sure what he was doing then. Second, he repeatedly mentioned that consciousness is fundamental and the mind-matrix.


We are now on another catastrophe with the most successful theory quantum field theory which is tested to be accurate up to 12 decimal points. But it is also the worst theory as its prediction shows a difference of 124 order of magnitude different from observation. Considering both effects, it is actually the worst theory ever. What is it telling us? Has this anything to do with Max Planck's intuition: consciousness and mind-matrix?

What M-theory, which is now a cornerstone of string theory, is revealing is the Matrix-Machine-Mechanism as described by Yogacara Buddhism which is 8th Consciousness which is also cornerstone to Yogacara Buddhism. We also need to know that the entire universe is filled with conscious beings that are Form (ordinary matter) and Formless (non-ordinary matter) which are also part of the mind-matrix as described by Yogacara Buddhism.

It is only by dropping the past excess baggage of success we can move on to new milestones and frontiers. We are in a totally new era of theory of consciousness which string theory is about.

This dissertation examines whether something like free will is implied by or consistent with the causal, ethical and soteriological theories presented in the works of the fifth century Indian Buddhist master, Vasubandhu (namely, the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya and Karmasiddhiprakaraṇa) and in the Theravādin Abhidhamma.  I argue that Vasubandhu and his Thervādin counterparts assume persons have the ability to choose or control their actions and have the conceptual resources to account for these freedoms.  I also explain why it is a mistake to read their claims about action and causation through the lens of the categories and assumptions that inform the modern, Western debate over free will.  I demonstrate that, despite what some interpreters have claimed (and despite significant differences in between their causal theories), neither Vasubandhu or his Theravādin counterparts engage with the problem of causal determinism.  They do, however, deny agent causation and explain a person’s ability to control his actions in terms of the impersonal mental events that issue in action.  The result is a view of action similar to some forms of compatibilism, but unlike most compatibilists, they are not primarily concerned with the rational control required for moral responsibility, but with the self-control required for liberation--a self-control born of habit, affection and moral sentiment as much as responsiveness to reason.  I pay particular attention to the role the distinguishing feature of karma, intending (cetanā), plays in both incontinent action and the cultivation of this self-control.  Conceiving of a karmic result as a kind of moral desert, many interpreters take intending to signal some variety of free will, but an intending is simply the movement of a mind toward an object or end.  I explain how this movement may be sensitive to desire and reason and thus amenable to various sorts of control, but also unconscious or compelled in ways that we and/or Buddhists would not consider free. In the final part of the dissertation, I explain how the view that persons are free to choose or control their actions is consistent with the view that actions are caused by impersonal mental events such as intendings and why both perspectives on action are essential to the Buddhist soteriological project.

This dissertation offers a narrative perspective of the “Indian Buddhist discursive world” with respect to the power dynamics between the Buddha and his disciples. It selects multiple narratives revolving around figures from the early monastic community as represented by Śāriputra, Devadatta, Ānanda, and Kāśyapa, who attempt to compete with, challenge, or succeed the Buddha. Through close and contextualized readings, the dichotomy between the two concepts—“buddha” and “arhat”—in their usage in early texts is first challenged. A comparative reading of the narratives of Śāriputra and those of the Buddha in the Sūtra of the Wise and Foolish presents to us a variety of buddha–disciple interactions in which disciples not only obey but also challenge the Buddha’s authority. My treatment of the Devadatta narratives in their historical development and ideological complexities reveals that the Devadatta narrative itself is a body of multilayered, ever-changing and self-reflective rhetoric, whose pivotal function is to cope with the potential problems substantialized by Devadatta’s challenges to the Buddha. The narratives of how to pass down the Buddha’s authority in the fifth chapter concern not only the theoretical question of who are theologically legitimate inheritors, but also the practical issue of how monastic economy should be managed. All of the vibrant stories I analyze here, which are wide-ranging in terms of geography and chronology, are open windows into the Buddhist self-understanding of fundamental theological questions concerning the nature and significance of the buddha and the identity of being a Buddhist, as well as practical issues such as how to maintain their authority and accommodate their updated needs in an age without a buddha. Seeking its methodological basis in philology, history, literary theory, and linguistics, this dissertation sheds light on the dynamic interplay between narratives and ideologies and enhances our understanding of the significance of narrative in reflecting and stimulating new ideologies and constructing histories of early Buddhism.