Abhidharma.
A philosophy the Buddha never taught to the living during his lifetime.
Legend has it,
the Buddha ascended to heaven,
and before a host of deities,
and his long-deceased mother,
expounded this body of knowledge for the first time.
For three whole months,
he taught an incredibly precise and vast philosophy.
How precise was it?
So precise that over a thousand years later,
some began to quietly wonder—
"Did the Buddha really say this?"
Hello,
everyone.
I’m Wang Lijie.
In the last episode,
we entered the laboratory-like philosophical edifice of the Sarvastivada school.
The reality of the three times;
the eternal existence of the dharmas.
They took the Buddha's simple concept of dependent origination
and broke it down to the atomic level.
I left you with an unanswered question back then:
This edifice—
exactly what materials was it built from?
Today, we’ll look at these building materials themselves.
They have a name that might sound unfamiliar:
Abhidharma.
Many people study Buddhism for years
without truly understanding these words.
But once you finish today's episode,
you’ll realize
that the entire Buddhist philosophy—
from the early schools to Madhyamaka,
to Yogacara—
all grew out of these concepts.
It is the foundation of Buddhism.
Let's break down the name first.
Buddhist scriptures
are traditionally divided into three categories,
collectively known as the Tripitaka.
The first basket is the Sutra—
the actual words spoken by the Buddha,
recorded as series of dialogues.
The second basket is the Vinaya—
the rules of the monastic community.
And the third basket
is the Abhidharma,
the philosophical treatises.
In Sanskrit, "Abhi"
means "facing," "toward," or "higher level."
"Dharma" means the law or reality.
So, Abhidharma
literally translates to "higher Dharma."
It is the Dharma concerning the Dharma.
It’s the discipline that pushes the Buddha's teachings to the next level.
Keep one key point in mind:
Of the Tripitaka,
the Sutras and Vinaya appeared early,
while the Abhidharma appeared latest.
When the Buddha was alive,
there were Sutras;
there was the Vinaya;
but this third basket was missing.
So how did it emerge?
The story begins with those humble lists found in Buddhist sutras.
If you look through early scriptures,
you'll find the Buddha loved using lists to teach.
The Five Aggregates:
form, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness.
The Twelve Bases,
the Eighteen Elements,
the Thirty-Seven Aids to Enlightenment,
the Four Noble Truths.
Set after set of numbers,
list after list.
Why did the Buddha love lists?
Because it was an era without writing.
All teachings
had to be memorized word-for-word by his disciples.
Lists
are the best memory tools.
Just like how we memorize formulas today,
Abhidharma
grew out of these lists.
Later scholars did something specific:
They took every concept scattered across thousands of sutras,
extracted them all,
laid them out on the table,
and began to classify, define, number, and sort them,
and then study their relationships.
It's like this:
The Buddha left behind a floor full of parts and manuals.
The scholars picked up all those parts,
classified them by material,
labeled each one,
and then drew a complete circuit diagram.
They broke the world down into its smallest units,
called "dharmas."
Note:
This "dharma" is not the same as the one mentioned before.
Here, "dharma"
refers to the smallest elements that constitute all experience,
somewhat like elements in chemistry.
The mind is one category;
mental factors that arise with the mind are another;
matter is another;
and things that are neither mind nor matter
form yet another category.
The Sarvastivada school eventually counted
that such basic elements
total seventy-five types.
Have you noticed?
This is no longer just storytelling;
it's drawing a periodic table of dharmas.
To what degree
can this precision go?
Let me give you an example,
so you can get a sense of it.
In the Abhidharma system,
you might think glancing at a color
is something completed in a single, instant moment.
But they tell you,
it's not.
Even an action as simple as seeing the color red,
your mind
must go through exactly seventeen moments.
From the mind being stirred by the object,
to receiving,
to discriminating,
to judging,
to arising like or dislike,
and finally falling into memory.
Step by step,
perfectly organized,
like an extremely precise assembly line.
And these seventeen moments
happen so fast you can't perceive them.
In the time it takes to snap your fingers,
this kind of assembly line
has already completed countless cycles.
To decompose the act of seeing color
to such a degree—
what kind of mindset is this?
It is the mindset of an engineer.
An almost obsessive desire to see through everything,
to dismantle and number everything.
Actually, think about it,
this mindset
is the same as that of scientists 2,000 years later
who broke matter into molecules, atoms, and quarks.
It's the same mindset.
They both believe that
if I break the world down small enough and clearly enough,
I can thoroughly understand it
and control it.
This impulse—
humanity has never stopped pursuing it.
Of course,
this is just an analogy to help you understand.
It is the finger pointing at the moon,
not the moon itself.
Let me use an analogy to explain.
If we say
the sutras spoken by the Buddha
are a user manual,
telling you how to operate,
how to maintain,
and how to end suffering,
then the Abhidharma
is the source code of the operating system.
It aims to show you,
at the lowest level,
exactly how this machine runs, line by line.
So why did the masters insist on doing this?
Instead of telling good stories,
why write source code?
There were three practical historical drivers.
First,
the need for lineage preservation.
After the Buddha passed away,
and after centuries of oral tradition,
interpretations began to diverge among Sanghas.
Is the 'impermanence' you speak of
the same as mine?
Standard definitions were necessary
to lock everything in place;
otherwise, the Dharma would eventually fragment.
Second,
the need for debate.
In that era,
India was an intellectual arena.
Buddhists had to debate Brahmins,
Jains, and also other Buddhist sects.
On the debate stage,
it is useless to just tell stories.
If an opponent grills you on a concept
and you are vague, you lose.
You must define every term perfectly.
Abhidharma
was the Sangha's arsenal for debate.
Third,
and most often overlooked:
it is actually a meditation manual.
What is Vipassana for?
It's to deconstruct your current experience,
moment by moment,
to see how every thought arises and ceases.
The 'periodic table' of the Abhidharma
is exactly the map used by meditators.
Which is the mind,
which are the mental factors,
how they interact,
and how they flow—
it's all there.
So Abhidharma isn't just a game for nerds;
it is practical.
It solved real problems.
However,
this is precisely where the issue lies.
Have you noticed
that the Buddha himself
was actually quite wary of such things?
There is a famous set of questions
called the Fourteen Unanswered Questions.
Someone asked the Buddha:
Is the world eternal?
Are the soul and body the same thing?
Does one exist after death?
How did the Buddha respond?
He didn't.
He remained silent.
He said,
'These questions
do not lead to liberation.'
Like a man hit by a poisoned arrow
who, instead of pulling it out,
asks who shot it
and what wood the shaft is made of.
It's a distraction.
Then they would die still asking questions.
The Buddha also once said something even more significant.
He said:
"My teaching is like a bamboo raft for crossing a river."
"Once you reach the other side,"
"you should leave the raft behind."
"No one continues their journey carrying the raft on their shoulder."
Think about that.
The Buddha is telling you
not to become attached to the tool itself.
But Abhidharma took
exactly the opposite direction.
It wants to define everything clearly,
classify it precisely,
and explore it to the very end.
It works tirelessly and meticulously to craft that raft,
making it more and more complex,
and increasingly ornate.
This leads to the most pointed question of the day.
A while ago,
a viewer left me a message.
It was quite blunt,
but accurate.
He said, "Mr. Wang,
when you talk about Buddhism,
your framework of terms is too elaborate."
"Alaya-vijnana is the hardware,"
"the Three Natures are the software,"
"and Samatha-Vipasyana are the patches."
"Before viewers see the reality,"
"they are already dazed by the architecture you've built."
"You block out small delusions,"
"but you can't stop a larger influx of concepts."
After hearing this,
I felt a chill down my spine.
Because this criticism
is not unique to our time.
This debate
already played out over two thousand years ago.
And the protagonist of that debate
was the Abhidharma.
Turning living teachings
into a precise, dead system—
is this a deepening of understanding,
or a deviation?
Now, looking back
at the story from the beginning,
you might understand
why tradition insists that
the Abhidharma was taught by the Buddha in Heaven
to the gods and his mother,
rather than on Earth to his disciples.
Because it doesn't sound like what the living Buddha said.
It's too systematic, abstract, and meticulously designed.
The academic consensus today is that
Abhidharma was written after the Buddha's death,
over several centuries,
by generations of masters
compiling it slowly.
That story of ascending to Heaven
can be understood as an official seal of authority.
When you introduce something entirely new that the Buddha never taught,
how do you get everyone to accept it?
You must stamp it with the Buddha's approval,
saying it was taught by the Buddha in the heavenly realm,
where mortals couldn't hear it at the time,
and that it's only now being compiled for everyone.
In this legend,
there is also a very subtle detail.
The Buddha taught in Heaven for three months,
but fearing no one on Earth would hear it
and that it would be lost to the future,
he would descend every day
to summarize the key points of the day's teaching
for Sariputra, his wisest disciple.
Sariputra then expanded and organized them;
that is how this body of knowledge reached the human world.
See how
perfectly constructed this story is?
It simultaneously explains
Why among the thousands of the Buddha's dialogues
this specific system cannot be found;
while simultaneously providing it with a lineage
straight to the Buddha that you cannot question.
Interestingly,
even the most conservative Theravada school,
which values the original teachings most,
admits that of the seven Abhidhamma books,
one called the Kathavatthu
was written by Moggaliputta-Tissa during Ashoka's reign,
specifically to refute other sects.
This is as good as admitting
that the Abhidhamma Pitaka can be continued by later generations.
So how should we view the Abhidharma?
As a necessary evolution,
or as over-engineering?
I will present both perspectives to you.
Proponents would say,
without the Abhidharma,
nothing that followed would exist.
Without this foundation,
Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka could not have been built,
nor Asanga and Vasubandhu's Yogacara.
The philosophical peaks of two millennia of Buddhism
are all built upon this source code.
And for those who truly sit down to meditate,
that map is not a burden;
it is a life-saving guide.
To this day,
monks in Theravada Buddhist countries
still study those seven books one by one,
treating them as fundamental tasks for meditation.
It has survived for over two thousand years
and remains alive today.
Opponents would say,
you took a raft intended to cross a river
and turned it into a palace.
You built it so exquisitely
that no one wants to get off the boat anymore.
The Buddha told you to look at the moon,
but you are studying the finger pointing at it.
You studied it for five hundred years.
There is a specific term for this in Buddhism:
the cognitive obstacle.
It means the more you know,
the more your knowledge blocks you
from seeing the truth.
This debate
has never actually ended.
You could even say
the last two thousand years of Buddhist history
is a history of building systems,
then having people tear them down.
Some build buildings,
some demolish them,
and then someone builds an even taller one.
And the Abhidharma
was the first truly high-rise building.
It took the Buddha's simple words
and built a labyrinth you'd fear entering without a map.
But don't forget,
a labyrinth
can hide a treasure,
but it can also trap the treasure hunter.
Which side is right?
I won't conclude for you;
I am also still feeling the stones to cross the river.
But I want to leave you with something you can test right now.
Right now,
at this very moment as you listen to me,
pay attention.
In your mind,
is there a voice
constantly categorizing,
filing things away,
labeling every sentence,
judging what makes sense and what doesn't?
That restless voice, busy organizing everything,
is the Abhidharma master in your heart.
It is very industrious.
It is also very useful.
But can you...
just watch it,
without interrupting it,
or following it?
Observe that organizer itself.
Abhidharma deconstructs dharmas to their smallest scale,
reaching an astonishing conclusion:
'The three times truly exist,
and the essence of dharmas is eternal.'
Dharmas of the past, present, and future
are all real existences.
This edifice
was built to the very top.
But within that same camp,
someone already stood up,
frowning and saying,
'No.'
'The more finely you deconstruct,
the further you may stray from the Buddha.'
'Past and future
do not truly exist at all.'
Who was this person?
And what gave him the right
to dismantle the edifice his peers built over centuries?
This is the story
we will explore next time.
Having heard this,
I really want to know your answer.
Do you think
turning a path of spiritual wisdom
into a precise system of theories
is ultimately helping us,
or getting in our way?
On your own journey of learning and growth,
have you ever felt that the more you knew, the more lost you became?
Tell me in the comments.
I am Wang Lijie.
See you next time.