Why study the Abhidhamma?

Learning, practice, realisation

The Buddha's teaching has three levels: pariyatti (learning), paṭipatti (practice) and paṭivedha (realising for oneself). The fourteen lessons so far belong to learning. That has great value as the basis for the other two, but it is not the goal.

In the Alagaddūpama Sutta the Buddha compares someone who learns the Dhamma and misuses it — for arguing or showing off — to a person who grabs a poisonous snake by the tail and gets bitten. One who learns in order to reflect and practise is like someone who grips the snake correctly. In the same sutta he compares the Dhamma to a raft for crossing a river, not something to carry on one's head after crossing.

Reviewing the path of the lessons

Each lesson is one piece of the same map:

• Lessons 1–2 — what the Abhidhamma is, and the two levels of truth: concepts and the four ultimate realities (consciousness, mental factors, matter, Nibbāna).
• Lessons 3–6 — mental phenomena: 89 types of consciousness and 52 mental factors, unwholesome and wholesome.
• Lessons 7–8 — 28 kinds of matter, and Nibbāna, the one unconditioned reality.
• Lessons 9–12 — how life works: cognitive processes, the life-continuum, birth and death, kamma and the 31 planes.
• Lessons 13–14 — everything is cause and effect: dependent origination and the 24 conditions.
• Lessons 15–17 — putting the whole map into practice, the step-by-step method of the four foundations of mindfulness, and the 16 insight knowledges that result from vipassanā.

Samatha and vipassanā

Samatha is training the mind to be calm and fixed on a single object. Developed fully, it gives jhāna and can lead to rebirth in the Brahmā worlds (Lesson 12), but not to the end of suffering. Vipassanā is training wisdom to see mind and matter as they really are, until the three characteristics are seen, leading to the paths, fruitions and Nibbāna (Lesson 8).

An important Abhidhamma point is that the object of samatha is often a concept — the sign of a kasiṇa, or a meditation word — while the object of vipassanā must be ultimate reality: mind and matter actually arising and ceasing (Lesson 2). In the Yuganaddha Sutta, Venerable Ānanda says practice may begin with samatha followed by vipassanā, begin with vipassanā followed by samatha, or develop both together. The two are like a pair of wings.

The 40 meditation subjects and the 6 temperaments

The Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha and the Visuddhimagga list 40 objects for samatha, and recommend choosing according to one's temperament (carita), the basic disposition of each person.

• Greedy temperament (loving beauty) — suited to foulness meditation and mindfulness of the body.
• Hating temperament (quick-tempered) — suited to the four divine abidings and the colour kasiṇas.
• Deluded and speculative temperaments (absent-minded, overthinking) — suited to mindfulness of breathing.
• Faithful temperament (easily moved and trusting) — suited to recollection of the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Saṅgha.
• Intelligent temperament (fond of reflection) — suited to mindfulness of death, recollection of peace and analysis of the four elements.

Three stages of development and three signs

In samatha meditation the mind passes through these stages in order:

• Preliminary development with the preliminary sign — the beginning: the mind attends to the object, such as gazing at a kasiṇa disc or repeating a meditation word.
• Access development with the learning sign — the image is remembered clearly even with the eyes closed, the hindrances subside, and the mind comes close to jhāna.
• Absorption with the counterpart sign — the sign becomes a pure, refined image and the mind is absorbed in jhāna (fine-material consciousness in Lesson 3).

The four foundations of mindfulness: the training ground of vipassanā

In the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta the Buddha says the four foundations of mindfulness are “the direct path” for the purification of beings, for overcoming sorrow, for ending suffering and for realising Nibbāna. The four foundations correspond to all the ultimate realities we have studied.

The seven purifications: a relay to the goal

In the Rathavinīta Sutta, Venerable Puṇṇa Mantāniputta compares the seven purifications to seven relay chariots that a king uses to travel from Sāvatthī to Sāketa. The first chariot does not take him to the destination, only to the second chariot, and so on until he arrives. Each stage matters in itself, but none is the goal. The Visuddhimagga uses these seven purifications as the framework of the whole book.

The 16 insight knowledges

Thai teachers often present the stages of wisdom in practice as 16 knowledges (ñāṇa), compiled from the Visuddhimagga and the Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha. Each connects with earlier lessons (details of each knowledge are in Lesson 17).

• 1–2 Discerning mind and matter, discerning conditions — distinguishing mind from matter (Lessons 2–7) and seeing their conditions (Lessons 13–14).
• 3–4 Comprehension, arising and passing away — seeing the three characteristics, and seeing mind and matter arise and cease (Lessons 3 and 9).
• 5–11 Dissolution through to equanimity towards formations — seeing cessation, danger and drawbacks, disenchantment, the wish for release, re-observation, and finally equanimity towards all formations.
• 12–13 Conformity and change-of-lineage — knowledge in conformity with the Noble Truths, and the knowledge that crosses from worldling to noble one (Lesson 8).
• 14–16 Path, fruition and reviewing — realising Nibbāna, and reviewing what has been abandoned and what remains.

The three characteristics: what vipassanā sees

Dhammapada verses 277–279 go on from the verse above to say that all formations are suffering and all phenomena are not-self; seeing this with wisdom, one becomes disenchanted with suffering. All three can be seen from what we have learned:

• Impermanence — consciousness arises and ceases one moment at a time (Lesson 3); matter lasts only 17 mind-moments (Lesson 7); nothing endures.
• Unsatisfactoriness — formations are constantly oppressed by arising and ceasing; even pleasant feeling must cease (Lesson 8).
• Not-self — no one controls the cognitive process or the network of conditions (Lessons 9 and 14); “me” is just a concept naming the five aggregates (Lesson 2).

How to begin, and where to study further

• Start by making the five precepts firm: virtue is the first purification, and it keeps the mind free of troubling matters.
• Set aside a short time every day, such as ten minutes after waking, for samatha or mindfulness. Regularity matters more than length.
• Find good friends and a qualified, trustworthy teacher. Practising entirely alone, without guidance, risks going astray.
• Read the Canon in translation, for example on SuttaCentral or Access to Insight; the Abhidhamma Piṭaka is the third basket.
• For systematic study in English, A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma (ed. Bhikkhu Bodhi) translates the Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha with clear explanations. In Thailand, the Abhidhamma Jotika College of Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University offers a nine-level curriculum (in Thai).

Common misunderstandings

• “You must finish studying the Abhidhamma before you can practise.” — No. Bāhiya attained awakening from a short teaching (Lesson 9). Study helps a great deal, but practice can begin today.
• “Studying a lot of Abhidhamma makes me better than others.” — Careful: knowledge that breeds self-importance is conceit (Lesson 5) — grabbing the snake by the tail, as the Alagaddūpama Sutta says.
• “Vipassanā is sitting and analysing according to the textbook.” — No. Vipassanā is knowing mind and matter as they actually appear, with mindfulness — not thinking about mind and matter as we remember them.
• “You must attain jhāna before you can practise vipassanā.” — The commentaries speak of those who develop vipassanā without first attaining jhāna (sukkha-vipassaka), though a reasonable degree of concentration is still needed.
• “Seeing lights or feeling intense rapture is progress.” — Careful: the Visuddhimagga calls these the imperfections of insight (vipassanūpakilesa). If we become attached to them, they become obstacles. Knowing that “this is not the path” is the fifth purification.