School
Abhidharma
Abhidharma is the systematic Buddhist analysis of experience into momentary elements called dharmas, and of how those elements arise and pass away.
It grew in India in the centuries after the Buddha, from the third collection of the early Buddhist canon, and was developed by schools such as the Sarvāstivāda and the Theravāda. Its best-known summary is the Abhidharmakośa of Vasubandhu, traditionally said to have been written before he turned to Yogacara. Abhidharma lists the elements of mind and matter and explains a person as a stream of such events rather than an enduring self. On this site it answers questions on personal identity (1.3.2), consciousness and qualia, causation, persistence and change, and free will.
Guide: Schools of Philosophy: The Main -isms and the Questions They Answer
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Reading group: the chariot in the Milindapañha, read beside Hume’s “Of personal identity”
My working rule is that comparisons should be made text against text, not summary against summary. Here is a small experiment: read the most famous Buddhist passage on the self and the most famous Western one side by side, slowly, and see…
Started by Kenneth Lam Chi-ho5 replies -
Reading group: Nāgasena’s chariot and flame in the Questions of King Milinda
The Milindapañha, the Questions of King Milinda, is a dialogue between a king usually identified with the Indo-Greek ruler Menander and a monk called Nāgasena. It is a composite text that grew over centuries, so I read Nāgasena as a literary interlocutor…
Started by Nirmala Jayasekara6 replies