Process of Consciousness and Matter - Abhidhamma.com

INTRODUCTION
sometimes neutral. The cittas and their concomitant cetasikas are
continuously arising and passing away, millions of times a second 1 . It
is not possible for the mundane mind to understand this ceaseless
mental activity.
In Buddhism the mind is very important: “Mind is the forerunner
of all activity, mind is chief, all is mind made” 2 . In order to understand
the ceaselessly changing nature of the mind one has to develop it in
various ways. The Buddha taught two kinds of meditation:
concentration or tranquillity (samatha) and insight or understanding
(vipassanā). If one practices samatha one’s mind becomes pure and
concentrated. Only with a concentrated mind can one see things as
they truly are, this is the insight of vipassanā. We can here draw an
analogy with the modern scientist (say a biologist or physicist), who
needs special equipment in order to do his work. Thus a biologist may
need a microscope, or a physicist may need a particle accelerator.
They need this equipment in order to effectively and systematically
study within their respective domains - of organic and inorganic
matter. In a similar way the student of the fundamental realities
spoken of in the Abhidhamma must have a “tool” and that tool is none
other than the student’s own highly concentrated mind. To that end the
student of the Abhidhamma must make considerable effort to train,
develop and purify the mind. This effort must be all encompassing,
and the Buddha spoke of three aspects: morality (sīla), concentration
(samatha) and wisdom (paññā). Without effort in all these areas it is
not possible to attain the final liberation offered by vipassanā.
Mind and Matter
The Abhidhamma deals in detail with all mental and material
phenomena and their interdependence. In Western philosophy there is
no detailed treatment of consciousness as a separate entity, instead it is
spoken of in terms of the way the brain uses consciousness. Even
modern Western psychology does not tackle the nature of
consciousness itself but instead is limited to the study of behaviour (be
it human or animal).
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