How to tackle the abhidhamma?

I’ve tried reading bikkhu bodhi’s manual of abhidhamma a few times, but it goes over my head. Is there a good primer I could use to get a good foundation instead of jumping into the deep end?

level 1

lucid24-frankk

·just now

Rather than tackle it, you should be running away from it as fast as you can to avoid being tackled by IT.

B.Bodhi says:

The Abhidhamma Piṭaka is obviously the product of a later phase in the evolution of Buddhist thought than the other two Piṭakas.

The Pāli version represents the Theravāda school’s attempt to systematize the older teachings. Other early schools apparently had their own Abhidhamma systems.

The Sarvāstivāda system is the only one whose canonical texts have survived intact in their entirety. Its canonical collection, like the Pāli version, also consists of seven texts. These were originally composed in Sanskrit but are preserved in full only in Chinese translation. The system they define differs significantly from that of its Theravāda counterpart in both formulation and philosophy.

(from Bhikkhu Bodhi’s In the Buddha’s Words introduction)

my comments:

If the Buddha didn't teach Abhidhamma to his original disciples, what makes you think teachings based on Buddhism that come a few hundred years later would be better than the Buddha's teaching?

I once spent about 80 hours researching Theravada Abhidhamma just to determine whether I should take up study of it in earnest.

I found that there was nothing there that seemed like it could bring something to the table that the Buddha didn't teach originally. That's a personal decision everyone has to make, but it helps to hear other people's experience.

For example, it's pretty common for people to need a year or more and prerequisite study just to work through an Abhidhamma PRIMER that is supposed to be a concise summary of Abhdhamma.

It's totally antithetical to the oral teaching of the core Dhamma, a small kernel of very basic principles the original disciples of the Buddha commit to memory and recite and reflect on regularly. The essence of Dhamma can be memorized in much less than 2 hours worth of chanting Dhamma.

It would take quite a bit of skill just to commit the simplified PRIMER on Abhidhamma to memory.

Also, will the real Abhidhamma stand up? Whereas the kernel of core original Dhamma, is consistent and nearly identical in all the 18 original schools of early Buddhism, their Abhidhammas are significantly different, and also claim different authors. Theravada says the Buddha taught it to Sariputta, which modern scholars have proven to be impossible. Other Abhidhamma schools regard their Abhidhamma as commentary not taught by the Buddha.

So if you decide Abhidhamma is for you, how do you even determine which is the right one to go with? It takes you a year just to get a handle on a simplified primer for Theravada Abhidhamma, who knows how long to compare with the other schools of Abhidhamma.

Run away, run far far away as fast as you can is my advice.