Abhidhamma Studies: Buddhist Explorations of Consciousness and Time

Rating:
Summary: outstanding
Review: A little gem of clarity and succinctness which deals with the deepest concepts of Buddhism.

Rating:
Summary: outstanding
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Best book on Early Buddhist notions of self and mind.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Best book on Early Buddhist notions of self and mind.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Being delighted by being astonished
Review: 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.