Hi Pt
Thanks for your response.
Seeing that you singled me out, I’ll try give a bit more detailed response (knowing you like long posts) and hoping to encourage your abhi studies.
The first thing that comes to mind is precision. I.e. when reading a sutta, I’d always end up with several possible interpretations and wondering which one is correct - even after considering the context, the audience, different translations, then consulting the commentaries by modern teachers (which can vary quite a lot in opinion, etc). In that situation it becomes very hard to figure out how do Buddhist teachings apply to my experiences, which are just as hard to make sense of. I mean, it’s pretty hard to nail down what exactly is the experience of mindfulness, or awareness, or more subtle stuff like vicara, passaddhi, etc, even without different people giving different definitions.
Yes, that's why knowing some Pali is so important, for precision. But I guess for reasons I was just writing to Chris, knowledge of Abhidhamma (very basic in my case) does not always help because I'm not convinced that all suttas are meant to be understood in Ahidhamma terms. But yes, the kinds of topics you mention, it's all paramattha.
Secondly (since I know you’re keen on sila these days), it really helps tremendously in observing daily experiences more accurately. I.e. since learning about a/kusala roots and other cetasikas, rapid change of cittas, etc, it is now possible to be aware of such situations for example when giving a gift – there’s a brief metta and generosity, then in the next split-second there’s conceit about it, then there’s aversion that there wasn’t enough gratitude from the other person, then there’s blaming myself for feeling aversion, then there’s remembering the goodnes of the act of giving, etc, etc, and all that in the space of a couple of seconds. Before I mostly didn’t notice all that. Not that you couldn’t get hints on all this from the suttas, but with abhidhamma it all becomes much more blatantly obvious and hard to ignore. So, I’d say abhidhamma helps with figuring out what’s kusala and what’s akusala, which I believe is the preliminary requirement for insight.
Yes, I see what you mean. I think having come across Abhidhamma at DSG made me more sensitive to that kind of thing. But we still aren't experiencing in Abhidhamma terms when that goes on, are we? Aren't we just forming a story about what we take to be paramattha only because our thinking has become a bit more responsive/attuned than before? Well, why not? It doesn't do any harm. Well, I think it can, actually. I know some people who are so interested in the akusala moments lurking in the good deeds that it seems they find more meaning in seeing those akusala moments (actually just speculating on them) and it waters down their desire to do good deeds. It seems to me it makes some people "unafraid of wrong doing" as one sutta puts it. I only think of one person I know in particular whose morality is a bit shady in my opinion but who has excellent knowledge of Abhidhamma. As you can see from my signature, my thinking is that the deeds themselves carry along enough kusala cittas with them that it makes up for any akusala cittas lurking in there. Eventually there will be better understanding of all those akusala moments, or there won't, but for now I will think about conventional behaviour and assume it is developing more kusala cittas than akusala. But at least I want to understand Abhidhamma in theory, that is better than not understanding it at all!
Thirdly, when it comes to meditation, which I believe is what you wanted to know, I mostly do samatha, so on that front it also works to nail down the differences between mental factors involved and whether they are akusala or kusala – i.e. is there chanda or lobha, is there right or wrong concentration, right or wrong effort, is there passaddhi or is it attachment to a concept of calm, etc. So, it helps again with accuracy and being more vigilant – abhidhamma makes it blatantly obvious how horribly fast a kusala moment can grow into an akusala one, even if all that you have on your mind is the breath.
I wonder how there can be that kind of insight going on in samatha, but I am not a very serious meditator and don't know much of it. I do a kind of samatha that feels more like new-age visualization sometimes. And rather than awareness of fleeting moments there is an effort to make an ongoing state of mind that is pleasant and interesting so that the mind can settle down and be anchored in it. (From that description you can probably guess what meditation teacher I listen to.) I primarily does this to condition more patience in daily life, better behaviour. And I find it works.
Anyway, all this is still, I believe, a conceptual level of understanding, i.e. no stages of insight yet, nor seeing the ultra-rapid change of cittas, nor the difference between a pannatti nimitta and a navattaba nimitta, etc. So I’d say abhidhamma is very helpful even if panna is not on the ultra-fast level of discerning individual dhammas and cittas. And still, I think anyone can see that the mind changes at least a dozen times per second, so even at this point, abhidhamma is very much applicable (i.e. all that about rapidity of cittas, the 3 marks, different a/kusala states, etc) and will eventually lead towards the point when the accuracy of seeing increases to insight-level speeds.
Of course, when it comes to things we can’t yet see directly, I find it’s kind of helpful to know about them a bit and then just move on, instead of going too far into intellectual speculation about it. In fact I don’t see any difference here between approaching the suttas, or abhidhamma+sutta. So, kind of keep the focus where it is most helpful practically. I.e. if there’s interest in sila, then it’s very helpful to keep reconsidering what is metta, what is generosity, what’s the near enemy, what’s the far enemy, what’s the proximate condition, what are co-nascent mental factors in each of those, etc. In this way it becomes easier to recognise all this in real-life and abhidhamma can provide a wealth of hints there. Obviously not much point yet going into too much speculation about navattaba etc.
Hopefully, once akusala and kusala are thoroughly understood in experience, then insight proper becomes possible, and at that point abhidhamma will really shine imo, as it’s all about insight in the fist place. In fact, I have to admit that I couldn’t really understand what’s exactly meant by insight until abhidhamma. And I wish I could get it all just from the suttas, but, probably don't have enough kusala accumulations for that, so I need more detailed abhi explanations to make it all a little more obvious and easier to notice in real-life.
Ok, thanks again for your kind and thoughtful response, pt1. My attention wandered, as it does, on the last 3 paragraphs because it is a nice sunny day and I want to go jogging and get a tan so I can be more handsome and charismatic when I go back to work tomorrow!You can see the kind of defiled mind I'm working with!
Metta,
Phil
p.s as I said to Chris, I'll be away for a week, so thanks for waiting if there is anything you'd like to discuss further.