From: KLEINSCHMIDT@mcclb0.med.nyu.edu
Subject: Re: Abhidharma and prajnaparamita
Organization: ----
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 18:33:24 GMT

Richard Kenneway asked whether the abhidharma is worth studying.  His 
question may be academic: those of us who have to spend most of their time 
earning a living won't have the opportunity to make even a slight dent into 
this vast and abstruse subject.  The abhidharma (= study of the dharma), as 
I understand it, is the body of thought concerned with Buddhist psychology 
and theory of mind.  As Richard alluded to in his superb satire of an 
ancient Chinese system of classification of animals, the abhidharma 
theories can be extremely abstruse, bone-dry and ludicrous.  There are 
countless enumerations in it of scores of mental factors, types of dharmas, 
aggregates, fields and faculties, mental states, stages of meditation etc. 
etc.  A volume on corporate law would make thrilling reading by comparison.

However, if there is one compendium full of abhidharma theory that may be 
interesting to browse through, it is Buddhaghosa's visuddhimagga (Path of 
Purity).  This is a tome of nearly 900 pages that focusses on meditation 
and purification of mind.  It is available in a well-received English 
translation made by Bhikkhu Nanamoli (Buddhaghosa "The Path of 
Purification", Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka, 4th ed., 
1979, $40.00).

Another well known book on the subject, also from the Theravada 
perspective, is "A Manual of Abhidhamma" by Narada Mahathera, also 
published by the BPS (4th ed., 1980, $10.95).  A wonderful cure for 
insomnia; read two pages and you're guaranteed to doze off.

The definitive treatise on the abhidharma from a Sarvastivadin perspective 
is Vasubandhu's abhidharmakosha, available in French translation by Louis 
de la Vallee Poussin (and from there into English by L.M. Pruden, 1989, 
$300).  This work comprises a mere 1600 pages in 4 volumes; since Richard 
is willing to read in French, he surely can breeze through Poussin's 
translation in the span of a Sunday afternoon.

All of these books are available from Wisdom Publications, Boston, MA, at 
the prices indicated in U.S. dollars.  I have no connection with this 
publisher, aside from having sunk many hundreds of dollars into their 
coffers.  Wisdom Publ. is also based in England, and Richard might get 
these books there as well.

I have never heard the idea expressed that in order to understand the 
prajnaparamita (perfection of wisdom) literature (a collection of about 40 
sutras of varying length), one has to be versed in abhidharma theory.  By 
contrast, I perceive the two bodies of thought as mutually exclusive and 
antagonistic.  The abhidhamma pitaka was a product of the late flowering of 
nikaya buddhism (what is derogatorily called hinayana by the mahayanists) 
three to nine centuries after the time of the Buddha whereas the first PP 
scriptures were the earliest expressions of Mahayana Buddhism which was 
trying to set itself apart from all the other established schools of 
Buddhist thought.

The PP sutras are as difficult to absorb as are the abhidharma writings, 
the former because of their abstrusity, the latter because of their 
pedantry and scholasticism.  Just think of the Diamond Sutra which is one 
of the late PP sutras: for the most part it reads like sheer nonsense.  
Unfortunately, little easily accessible commentarial literature is 
available on the PP sutras, at least on the big ones.  Edward Conze, the 
foremost Western authority on the PP sutras, supposedly has done a good job 
at translating many of them from the Sanskrit; I only wished he had written 
equally as much in running commentary and explication.  The little in the 
way of comprehensible exegesis he has written about the PP sutras can be 
found in his "Buddhist Thought in India" and in several essays in "Thirty 
Years of Buddhist Studies".  Both of these books, I believe, are out of 
press.  Conze always is worthwhile reading even though this opinionated 
teuton may occasionally annoy you.

I believe the most expedient way of cracking the tough nut of grasping what 
the PP sutras are all about, is to read commentaries on the heart sutra 
(prajnaparamita hridaya sutra).  This sutra is one of the shortest PP 
sutras (aside from the PP sutra in one sentence, in one word, or in one 
letter = A).  It has been vastly popular and influential in all Mahayana 
Buddhist settings, being considered the distilled essence of the PP 
teaching, esp. that of emptiness, and as such this sutra has stimulated the 
minds of many commentators.

My tack in approaching the PP teachings has been twofold: 1. to browse 
through the PP sutra in 8000 lines which according to Conze constitutes the 
original PP teaching (he believed that the first 41 verses = 2 chapters of 
its verse version are the original core from which the whole literature 
developed), and 2. to collect and read a couple of good commentaries on the 
Heart Sutra.  Among the latter, I would recommend the following:

1. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. "The Heart Sutra Explained", SUNY Press, 1988, 
$16.95.  Lopez is well versed in madhyamika philosophy (he has written a 
big book on svatantrika madhyamika).  In this book, he explicates the main 
points of the PP literature by going through the heart sutra word by word, 
with several Indian and Tibetan commentaries at hand.  Quite an 
illuminating book.

2. Geshe Rabten "Echoes of Voidness", Wisdom Publications, 1983, $8.95.  
Read part one of this book.

3. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso "Heart of Wisdom", Tharpa Publ., 1989.

There is also a famous exposition on the prajna paramita in the ninth 
chapter of Shantideva's bodhisattvacharyavatara, translated by Stephen 
Batchelor.  One of the best of the many commentaries on this is by the 
present (14th) Dalai Lama in his book "Transcendent Wisdom" (Snow Lion 
Press).

In closing, I think that even though the PP sutras look forbidding and 
unapproachable, it may be worthwhile to dig into them: they have been 
extremely influential and they got Mahayana Buddhism under way.

If, on the other hand, you get sick of trying to understand emptiness by 
filling your head to the brim with what may seem like verbiage, then I 
recommend reading just one or two more books and then put all of them away 
for a while or forever.  These two books are:

John M. Reynolds "Self-liberation through seeing with naked awareness", and 
Namkhai Norbu "The cycle of day and night".  They deal with the dzogchen 
practice of rigpa, which is intrinsic, pure awareness, resting the mind in 
its own natural and self-perfected state, beyond all words and concepts.

Jochen Kleinschmidt
  


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