Mapping a Buddha's Mind

Mapping a Buddha's Mind is a study of the ways the early generations of the Buddha's monastic followers explored and developed his teachings in order to present them in a form of systematic thought they termed abhidharma—'the ultimate teaching'. This process of systematizing the Buddha's teaching resulted in several rival Indian schools of Abhidharma, three of which came to exercise particular influence on the subsequent history of Buddhist thought and practice beyond India: the Sarvāstivāda and Yogācāra schools in the north of India and the Theravāda school in the south and Sri Lanka. Although offering alternative perspectives on the Buddha's teaching, the Abhidharma thinkers shared a common concern in wishing to explore and map fully what they understood as the Buddha's unique insights into the processes of mind and body. Building on the Buddha's teaching as presented in the early discourses, they first map in detail the nature of embodiment. Next they map the way our conscious lives are characterized by a flow of different episodes of consciousness that alternately try to hold on to pleasant experiences and push away unpleasant experiences. They then delineate types of consciousness that skilfully hold these conflicting tendencies of the mind in balance in a state of goodwill, generosity, and understanding—a state they take as reflecting the Buddha's teaching and the mind of a buddha. For the Abhidharma scholars this is a state that offers the possibility of spiritual transformation, leading ultimately to nirvana-freedom from the endless cycle of actions and their results, of death and rebirth. Relatively neglected in Buddhist studies, the Abhidharma systems constitute one of the great achievements of human intellectual history. The different Abhidharma perspectives, explored together for the first time in this book, reveal the richness and subtlety of Abhidharma thought.

Rupert Gethin completed a PhD on the theory of early Buddhist meditation at the University of Manchester in 1987. Between 1987 and 2022, he taught Indian religions at the University of Bristol where he is now Professor Emeritus of Buddhist Studies. He has been President of the Pali Text Society since 2003. He is author of The Foundations of Buddhism (1998) and other books and articles on Buddhist meditation theory, Abhidharma, and Pali canonical and commentarial literature.