13
The concept of Kamma implies that information is stored in the mind
No, it does not! Information and storage are concepts. Not realities! The issue here is, we make the assumption that for causes to give an effect in the future, something needs to persist in the interim. When you commit a Kamma, the action is done and finished then and there. There's ...
8
If you want an abhidhamma answer, you have to speak in abhidhamma terms. "Wishing for pain to go away" is a sutta statement. It involves a wisher, and describes a sutta action.
lobha and dosa cannot arise in the same citta, certainly. They are mutually exclusive cetasika that arise in the javana cittas of the process of a single experience, and all ...
8
This passage is according to the abhidhamma treatment of the attainment of nibbana. The two to three mind moments (yes, that's what it means) are called anulomañāṇa ("anuloma~naa.na") - knowledge of conformity, the twelfth stage of knowledge.
The Visuddhimagga (XXII.128) describes this according to the abhidhamma:
128. As he repeats, develops and ...
8
There are two types of nirvana: saupādisesa-nibbāna (nirvana with remainder) and anupādisesa-nibbāna (nirvana without remainder) (Iti. 44).
It is true that for one who has attained anupādisesa-nibbāna there will be no more consciousness. This is because someone who has attained anupādisesa-nibbāna is dead*. It is the equivalent to the more familiar ...
6
When the mind takes Nibbana as the object, all experiencing cease. But when enlightened beings do day to day activities, Nibbana is not the object of the mind. They do feel pain since there is experiencing. But they do not suffer. Being conscious of the pain is different from suffering due to pain.
6
It's a translation issue. The Pali terms are Hiri and Ottappa, and they are hard to translate into English because they have no one word equivalents.
Hiri refers to the feeling of not wanting to do a bad deed because you know the deed itself is bad, and Ottappa refers to the feeling of not wanting to do an evil deed because you know that the consequences of ...
5
There are ten fetters eliminated in Vipassana meditation. Elimination does not occur before you reach the Sothapanna(stream enterer) state. Until then, fetters are only subdued. Once a fetter is eliminated, it's gone for good. Refer to the table below to know the fetters eliminated at each stage of the path.
Yes, if you stop doing vipassana short of ...
5
A self wouldn't help in this case; a self is an untenable entity - it is permanent yet able to change to know multiple objects, an illogical paradox.
The very idea that a memory can be stored isn't tenable, because memories don't exist, just as "information" doesn't exist. The "information" stored in the brain or on a floppy disk isn't information, it's ...
4
According to the Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi's book A Comprehensive manual of Abhidhamma, Chapter 3 Guide to §8 :
The word bhavanga means “factor (anga) of existence (bhava),” that
is, “the indispensable condition of existence.” Bhavanga is the
function of consciousness by which the continuity of the individual is
preserved through the duration of any ...
4
The "Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma" is an excellent translation of the Abhidhammattha Sangaha with extensive explanation / charts by Bhikkhu Bodhi. It can be legally downloaded from:
CMA
There are scanned copies of some of the Abhidhamma Pitaka available at:
Dhammasangani Pali English
Vibhanga Pali English
The Pali versions appear to be legal, the ...
4
The Manual of Abhidhamma says,
With His supernormal knowledge the Buddha analysed
this so-called paramàõu and declared that it consists
of paramatthas—ultimate entities which cannot further be
subdivided.
The paramatthas are pañhavi, àpo, tejo, and vàyo. One
must not understand that these elements are earth, water,
fire and air as some ...
4
Vottapana is a Citta(thought moment) that has the function of determining or decision making. It is not a result of past Kamma. But it is not a self either. There's no 'I' in it. Why? Because it is also born of causes and impermanent like any other Citta.
there is no
control and yet I can control my reactions to situations. Is there
only a sense of ...
4
Mettā:
Commonly translated as Loving Kindness which is simply because a group at PTS chose that over a century ago and that just stuck. The problem with that is that sometimes people already have associations with the English words “loving” and “kindness”, put them together and think “well, now I know exactly what mettā means.”
Some other translations:
...
4
All words are like sign posts. The meaning of it is an idea that is in the mind of the person who is speaking it. And the communication will take place if the person who hears it has assigned the same meaning to the word in his/her mind.
Therefore the shared meaning has to be previously agreed upon or communication will not be very effective. As a result it ...
4
Space is a derived quality of matter, so consciousness cannot be said to take up or exist in space. To say that the mind arises here or there is not really proper in an ultimate sense. Consciousness can arise based on physical entities, and hadaya vatthu is the base for both the mind element and mind consciousness element. This doesn't mean that ...
4
Mendis refers to “Theravāda tradition”. His source is the introduction to the Atthasālinī, which was compiled by Buddhaghosa in about 400 AD based on earlier texts that no longer exist.
The Abhidhamma is a framework that consolidates teachings from more than 10,000 Suttas. This framework follows the Theravāda perspective. IMHO, the scholar’s view that the ...
4
As a computer scientist you are bringing some baggage with you that will continue to get in the way of what you want to find in the Dharma. I am speaking from the perspective of a computer scientist that spent thirty years looking into the same questions you are asking, ultimately finding the answers in contemplative practice.
While consciousness is ...
4
DO describes development of defiled subjective world, defiled mind and defiled sense of self.
"nama" is an idea of an object, a concept, a mental label. For example, when an infant sees the mother there's recognition: "it is She". The infant does not yet know how to speak, it has no words, but the recognizing consciousness (vijnana) ...
3
In the arupa worlds you cannot hear the Dhamma as you do not have this faculty, also the mental process is too subtle making it not possible to meditate on it. But if you have experiences even the 1st state of sainthood you can progress from here to the final goal.
By the way, living in an arupa world would imply in my understanding that it is possible ...
answered Nov 9 '16 at 11:35
Suminda Sirinath S. Dharmasena
36.7k3 gold badges24 silver badges76 bronze badges
3
From my understanding of Buddhism, there are no memories from beyond. Everything including memories are impermanent. There is no permanent memory-self that remains from moment to moment.
3
As far as I know, there is no single compiled translation of all the volumes of the Abhidhamma but they are separately translated by several people.
You can find an index of these translations in ATI's Abhidhamma Page.
Note that, although no English translation of the "The Book of Pairs" (Yamaka) is mentioned in the above link, there is one. You can find ...
3
The distinction goes back all the way to Buddha's students' original Maha-Sangha and its two sub-schools Bahushrutiya and Prajnaptivada. From Wikipedia:
According to Paramārtha, the Bahuśrutīya school was formed in order to fully embrace both "conventional truth" and "ultimate truth."
and
The Prajñaptivādins were early articulators of the two truths ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible