Re: What is the benefit of learning Abhidhamma
Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 2:52 am
Greeting Sein,Sein wrote:When buddha refer to his teaching, he call it dhamma vinaya.
His disciples attain arahat, ...sotapatti doesn't need abhidhamma too (They just listen,and practice according to the sutta,).
And abhidhamma is very difficult to understand. And I find it no benefit in apply into practice. Because I hear my teacher said the citta and cetasika appear and disappear thousands times in a second. The process of mind happens so fast, that even you pay attention to it, you find only a general feeling, thought,.... If you don't have enough concentration to be aware of it (say, the four jhana), you can also find it helpful, but you missing the meaning of abhidhamma (like using mediation to relax).
What do you think about abhidhamma and it's benefit?
I will offer you my opinion below.
What do you think the Buddha's enlightenment was about? One would answer the Four Noble Truths, the Eight Noble fold path, and Dependent Origination, agreed?
Let's have a deep look at the Four Noble Truth first, the truth of suffering goes like this:
"...in short, the five aggregates of clinging are suffering"
There are two meanings for the five aggregates of clinging:
1. the aggregates that are object of clinging, so even the aggregates of the Buddhas and arahats are aggregates of clinging because they are object of clinging by others
2. the aggregates which are the result of clinging. Without clinging, there would be no cause for the arising of the aggregates.
So now,what are 5 aggregates: materiality, feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness.
They are all realities explained in details in the Abhidhamma.
If you consider the Abhidhamma a body of dry text books, there would be no appeal to study it. But if you consider it to be the description of the truth the Buddha has become enlightened about, and that it pertains to this very moment: seeing, hearing, touching....then you will see it is essential to the development of wisdom.
I used to think like you...that there's no need for abhidhamma to become a sotapana, I don't remember where I got that idea...but a lot of ideas we gather here and there are taken to be granted, to be the truth in that way. In reality, no one can become a sotapana without realizing the three marks, and without realizing dhammas as dhammas (seeing is just seeing ...etc) first, it would be only thinking about the three marks, because the three marks can only make sense with the arising and falling away of dhammas.
The extent to which one needs to go deep into the vast teaching of Abhidhamma varies. However, according to what I understand, the lower one is in wisdom, the more details we need to study in order to really understand the anattaness of phenomena. It is a long process.
You might wonder why we need to study it....then you might want to look into what is the real cause of wisdom according to the Buddha. Without hearing his words and right considering of them, there's no cause for wisdom to arise.
The Abhidhamma is also found in the sutta too. Whenever the Buddha was teaching about seeing, hearing, feeling, contact, perception etc...it was the dhammas that are talked about in the Abhidhamma.
And again, it is not the book, it is now appearing to your six-sense door to be understood,
Similar analysis can be made about DO and ENP
Brgds,
D.F