The Term Abhidharma
The term Abhidharma carries two primary meanings:
1. The literal translation of the term “higher teachings,” in the sense of “the essence of all other teachings,” and
2. “The basket” of the Abhidharma as a collection and systematization of these teachings.
Let’s look at the first of these two.
The literal and, at the same time, content-related meaning refers primarily to knowledge. This concerns everything we can know about ourselves as a person and the outer world. The term dharma can also be translated as “appearances” or “phenomena.” If we subsume all ten possible meanings of the term under one single expression, the result is “the way things are” or “Buddha’s teachings about the way things are.” This implies that Buddha, in his teachings, has shown the true nature of all phenomena.
Actually, the dharma would be enough to be able to recognize the nature of appearances, but in regard to the term Abhidharma, which means higher teachings, “higher” designates the summary or essence of all other teachings. It’s here that we find the central points of Buddha’s teachings neatly listed and explained. However, this can also present a special challenge. When reading the minutes of a meeting, for example, as interesting as the topics may have been, the sheer listing of these topics might be hard to digest. If we didn’t attend the meeting, it’s even harder. The same is the case with Abhidharma teachings. They contain surveys, often in detailed form, which refer to the constituents of the person and the world.
The need for this kind of presentation follows from the style of the other teachings. Most sutras and tantras—at least at the beginning and end—are written in a way that sounds a bit like a fairy tale. For example, at the beginning of the Lotus Sutra we read: “Thus I have heard. At a certain time the Buddha dwelled at Rajgir on Vultures Peak with a great assembly of 1,200 disciples, all realized Arhats having attained their goal, etc.” Time, place, teacher, teaching and surroundings are presented in all their flowery detail to highlight the deep meaning of the teachings of the respective sutra or tantra. A student of the Buddha often starts the teaching by asking a question, the answer to which comprises the actual content of the sutra or tantra after a few pages have been turned.
For many followers of the Buddha this flowery way of description is so difficult to read, particularly if they have a more technically-oriented mind like many people in the West have, that they don’t even get as far as the page where the actual topic starts. Therefore, students of the Buddha have very skillfully abstracted the essential points of Buddha’s teachings—Tibetan scholars say that this had already happened during Buddha’s time—and intensively worked through them. This method grants unique access to these teachings by means of a unified knowledge. This, too, fits modern people very well, because we are very knowledge-oriented. Knowledge is considered essential in our society. This approach can ease our access to experience, if we use this knowledge as a method on the way and not the goal itself. That is why Lama Ole Nydahl describes the function of the Abhidharma in his book The Way Things Are (p. 67) as: “Here Buddha shows how one may think logically, but not what one should think, thus enabling us to remove the root of confusion and unclear thinking.”
Let us now move on to the second meaning of the Abhidharma as one of the “Three Baskets.” This refers to a collection and systematization of all teachings pertaining to the Abhidharma. Buddha’s basic teachings can be classified into three groups, which are brought under the heading of sutra. The Buddhist tantras are then added as a fourth group. Under the topic “The House of Buddha’s Teachings,” Lama Ole Nydahl calls the first three groups the three pillars: “Knowledge is the basis for view, meditation and, eventually, for securing growth attained through conduct.” These line up with the Abhidharma, Sutra, and Vinaya teachings and act as remedies against ignorance, aversion and attachment.
Abhidharma Literature
In his treatise, Abhidharmakosha (Treasure or Treasury of the Abhidharma), Master Vasubandhu (ca. 420-500 CE) summarized the seven most important Pali works on this topic and subsequently composed a commentary on them. Herein we also find some references to the Mahayana teachings, but altogether it is more a Theravada work, meaning that it denotes a stronger reference to Buddha’s basic teachings. Together with six other commentaries it has been translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan. In the Kagyu lineage the most important and extensive commentary on the Abhidharmakosha originates from the 8th Karmapa Mikyö Dorje (1507-1554 CE).
With regards to content, the work of Vasubandhu is about distinguishing pure from impure phenomena. Alongside the Four Noble Truths and various aspects of wisdom, it contains the Five Foundations of form, mental factors, consciousness, factors that do not belong exclusively to matter or to mind and uncompounded phenomena.
Master Asanga (ca. 410-490 CE), Vasubandhu’s elder brother, likewise composed an important work on this topic entitled Abhidharmasamuccaya (The Compendium of the Abhidharma). In it he also summarizes seven central Abhidharma works, which are today available only in the Chinese language. In his presentation he relies heavily on the Mahayana teachings, especially on the view of the Yogacara School with its emphasis on mind. Although the topic is the same in both brothers’ works, they elucidate it from different perspectives: Vasubandhu in a more basic and Asanga in a more advanced way. A later compilation of the Abhidharma teachings translated into English was provided by the 1st Mipham Rinpoche (1846-1912) in his work The Gateway to Knowledge.
The Abhidharma Model of the Universe
Looking outwards, the Abhidharmakosha explains the constituents of the world. Here we have three realms inhabited by beings: The realm of desire, the realm of form and the formless realm. The human realm is deemed to be part of one of the six realms inside the desire realm. The realms of form and formlessness are in fact very stable concentration states with or without form, which are also often understood to be god realms. The beings in these realms fall, after an extremely long period of time, back into the lower realms again. As long as insight into the nature of mind is not developed far enough, these realms do not entail liberation from suffering. The three realms together comprise the Abhidharma model of the universe.
The classical presentation of the Abhidharma model of the universe is already very popular. In the Diamond Way it is used within the Preliminary Practices (Ngöndro) in the context of the Mandala Offerings. Mount Meru towers in the center of the universal ocean and is surrounded by four major and eight minor continents. In this system our world is identical with the southern continent, Jambudvipa. In meditation practice this model functions like a map that in itself contains all possible riches. It also corresponds to the simple conception of the world that many people had at the time of the Buddha. However, Buddha also taught different models to his advanced students, including the cylinder-shaped universe of the Kalachakra Tantra.
The Constituents of the Personality, The Inner Aspect
Clinging to the existence of the ego, the belief in a truly existing unity of a person is the principal cause for the chain of rebirths in the cycle of existence. Here, the five accumulations (Skt. skandhas), or components of the personality, are explained in detail. These are form, feeling, discrimination, mental factors or mental activity, and consciousness.
The topic of the five components of the personality, the inner aspect, is treated extensively in Abhidharma literature. This is one of three closely interconnected terms. The two others are the twelve origins (Skt. ayathanas) and the eighteen elements (Skt. dhatus). The difference concerns the respectively stronger emphasis on mind or matter. The five accumulations stress the mental components. Here, only form is material, while the other four accumulations are of a mental nature. Most of the twelve origins place stronger emphasis on the material aspects, with only the mental consciousness with its objects being of a mental nature. With the eighteen elements, where the six aspects of consciousness or perception accrue, both aspects are highlighted equally. Lama Ole Nydahl often provides evidence for the non-existence of the ego on the basis of the components of the personality by explaining that we can neither be this body, nor these feelings, nor these thoughts, but are instead the open, clear, limitless nature of mind, the realization of which leads to lasting happiness.
Abhidharma as Buddhist Psychology
The explanation of the components of personality, experience and conduct belongs, among Western fields of knowledge, to the domain of psychology. Psychology is not concerned with the nature of mind and phenomena (this is left to philosophy) but instead focuses on the way mind functions. Comprehension of mental processes yields great benefit on a general, everyday level, for example by skillfully dealing with disturbing emotions and developing greater awareness in everyday situations, and especially in the practice of meditation. Therefore the Abhidharma teachings can be termed Buddhist psychology. Here, particularly in the context of the five accumulations, the whole range of positive, negative and changing states of mind are explained as the fifty-one mental factors or mental activities.
Another topic often assigned to psychology in the West is the cognitive process, which we, from a Buddhist perspective, also classify under the Abhidharma teachings. Cognitive sciences also belong to this field, but their main focus today is more on neuroscience (brain research) and informatics. The Buddhist epistemology or theory of perception (Skt. pramana, Tib. tsema) was founded by Vasubandhu and most notably by his student, the Indian master Dignaga (ca. 480-540 CE), based on Buddha’s teaching. Later he was succeeded by Dharmakirti (ca. 600-660 CE) and in Tibet’s Karma Kagyu lineage mainly by the 7th Karmapa, Chödrak Gyamtso (1454-1506 CE).
With regard to content, the Buddhist epistemology deals with our cognition and to what extent this is deluded or free of delusion. Deluded cognition can, for example, be based on mistaken sensory perception, or on holding the concepts about an object to be the object itself. In terms of delusion-free cognition, conceptual states of mind based on valid reasoning or logic are distinguished from non-conceptual states of mind, which are always direct and clear and thus perceive their object as it truly is. Only the wisdom of a buddha is completely free of any delusion.
One practical example from this field is generalities and particularities. We often have the tendency to enlarge a small problem occurring in a certain area by generalizing and immensely increasing it, and even extending it to other areas. This can easily block us completely. Taking the contrary approach, by closely examining the problem in question we diminish it as much as possible and vigorously search for the best possible solution. As a result, we can deal well with every situation and transform all problems into a learning process.
The Four Bases or Reliances
By examining the different aspects of consciousness and the way they are distinguished from wisdom, we find old Indian guidelines for pointing these out. Gyalwa Karmapa also mentioned these during his course at the Europe Center. These are the Four Bases or Four Reliances (Skt. catuh-pratisarana, Tib. rton pa bzhi), reputedly important in all Buddhist schools:
Do not rely on the person, but the teachings.
Do not rely on the words, but the meaning.
Do not rely on relative truth, but the ultimate.
Do not rely on consciousness, but wisdom.
As to how to understand these Four Bases, this is also explained in detail in Mipham Rinpoche’s Gateway to Knowledge. The fourth guideline is of special interest to us here, which the 3rd Karmapa Rangjung Dorje taught extensively in his Collected Works, especially in his treatise Distinguishing Consciousness From Wisdom (Tib. Namshe Yeshe). It’s a key to understanding his tantric teachings as well as his treatises on the Great Seal (Mahamudra), where he elucidates eight aspects of consciousness and the way they—once purified—change their state into wisdom.
Consciousness and Wisdom
Explained in brief, six aspects of consciousness turn outwards: the five sensory consciousnesses, plus the mental consciousness (also called the intellect). The sixth consciousness thereby operates by coordinating the senses and by conceptually assessing all sensory impressions. These are then transported further into the store of the mind by the seventh, inwardly directed, afflicted consciousness. In doing so, the seventh consciousness veils all impressions through the conception of an ego and subtle disturbing emotions. The store of the mind is then the eighth aspect, the all-base consciousness or store consciousness. Ripening of the stored impressions happens inversely.
Whatever we do, think and say is stored away as an impression in mind, the same way we store away certain information in our computer on the hard drive only to later retrieve it back on screen. Usually we do not notice this storing process, but the fact that we can remember earlier experiences is proof that everything we experience must be stored in the mind and can be retrieved again. These processes are referred to as storing (the cause) and ripening (the effect) of karma. When we understand this correlation of cause and effect better, we try as much as possible to implement only positive actions, the ripening of which means more happiness.
How does the basic delusion of mind, which is responsible for all difficulties, come about? The root is ignorance, a misconception. Mind looking inwardly misunderstands its space nature to be an I, a subject. It experiences its clarity or free play as a separate outer world, as objects. From this mistaken conception of duality—or of subject, object and action as separate—all further deceptive concepts, disturbing emotions, and negative actions arise.
If, by working with mind untiringly, we succeed in transcending coarse disturbances and can experience subject, object and action as parts of the same totality beyond all fixed concepts, we thus remove the basic delusion and realize things the way they are. The innate wisdom of mind and all other outstanding qualities then manifest quite naturally. As soon as clouds vanish, the sun shines through more and more. Likewise, mind awakens from the sleep of ignorance and accomplishes liberation and enlightenment.
When summarized, the Abhidharma teachings treat everything that can be experienced, the objects of knowledge, cognition itself, the subject and—last but not least—the processes that constitute the connection between experiencer and experience. All three are always interdependent or empty of independent existence. This view progressively turns into experience, primarily through the meditation practice of the Great Seal. In this way it is possible to recognize that, on the ultimate level, there is no actual difference between the Abhidharma teachings, the Wisdom teachings (Skt. Prajnaparamita), or the essential teachings of the Great Seal (Skt. Mahamudra).
