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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: A good book about Buddhism...??? [Re: redgreenvines]
#5921205 - 08/01/06 07:29 AM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: Alan Watts was a great introduction 35 years ago, as was Philippe Kapleau and Evans Wentz. I like Thich Nhat Hanh, adore Joko Beck, but learned the most useful little meditation from Nyaponika Thera in "The Heart of Buddhist Meditation".
but if you must go deep, deeper than most buddhists care, and deeper than many of the authors would wish even, deep deep deep underneath it all there is a mapping of the mind called Abhidhamatta Sangaha, ( or manual of Abhidhamma) - It is very difficult to read at first (archaic phrasing and repetitios as if written for oral repetition and memorization), but if you can get through it somehow, it provides an interesting view of citta or mind moments and how they are composed, as well as molecularizing Karma as an attribute of intention in each citta or a resultant feeling in each citta.
Nomad's link is authorative - especially http://web.archive.org/web/2003122422403...a_vipassana.htm is useful.
To dovetail on redgreenvine's response: The Psychological Attitude of Early Buddhist Philosophy: And Its Systematic Representation According to Abhidhamma Tradition by Lama Anagarika Govinda (Hardcover - May 1992) and,
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Nomad
Mad Robot

Registered: 04/30/02
Posts: 422
Last seen: 16 years, 1 month
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Re: A good book about Buddhism...??? [Re: redgreenvines]
#5921230 - 08/01/06 08:01 AM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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I must admit I don't get the Abhidhamma entirely. It does not seem to me that the system is meaningful. Perhaps this is not the real Abhidhamma, as teached by the Buddha to supernatural beings, but only it's table of contents? (Given that the legend has it that it took 5000 years to communicate this stuff.)
Edited by Nomad (08/01/06 08:07 AM)
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,534
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Re: A good book about Buddhism...??? [Re: Nomad]
#5921280 - 08/01/06 09:03 AM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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abhidhamma talks about the gears of the mind that MarkosTA sees as doilies in the sky.
It takes a certain detatchment to see mind moments or cittas as clearly as doilies, with 1) this or that dominant sensation (eye, ear, touch...or memory) with 2) this or that feeling (pain, pleasure, neutral) - being the contents with 3) this or that type of origin (prompted or spontaneous(indirect)) and with 4) this or that intention( good will or ill will; avarice or generous; clouded or clear - the karmic roots).
Also abhidhamma includes AKUSALA (non karmic-rooted citta) which are Buddha only stuff (is enlightenment when there are no essential compulsions)- and it examines resonant states of jhana or absorption ... i.e. the layered states of dreams(, and wink, wink).
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