About the Academy a monthly email newsletter for premium subscribers, developed in collaboration with Tricycle’s resident Ho Family Foundation General scholar of Buddhism. Each issue provides scholarly insight into a key theme in Buddhist thought and practice, with additional reading and videos for further exploration. Some of the numbers are published here for a wider audience Tricycle community.
If you spent some time Tricyclemet the abhidharma quoted in articles on meditation, consciousnessand Buddhist psychology, but the texts themselves probably remain strangely unknown. The Abhidharma (Skt.; Pali: abhidhamma) – the “higher” or “further” dharma – is one of the three divisions. Buddhist canonnext to the sutras (speeches) and the vinaya (monastic codices). Beginning in the 3rd century BC, the abhidharma texts organize the Buddha‘s teachings are compiled into comprehensive lists and offer highly technical and philosophical explanations of causation and perception as outlined in the sutras.
Various views of abhidharma are preserved in texts such as Pali canons‘s Dhammasangani and the commentary of the famous scholar-monk Vasubandhu, a Abhidharmakosakarikacritical summary and reinterpretation of earlier doctrines. Abhidharma commentaries are often abstract and dense, yet they provide a valuable theoretical framework for meditation practice.
According to the sutras, the Buddha skillfully tailored his teachings to specific audiences. Although the sutras always begin with that that’s what I heardtheir content varies widely and often appears inconsistent. Questions arose for later Buddhists: How should the abstract ideas found in the sutras be applied to real-world experience? What are the best mindsets transience or not yourself? What is final or final meaning and what is temporary? Such questions persistently forced scholars and monks to clarify the Buddha’s intentions.
In their commentaries on the sutras, early abhidharma scholars created new rubrics to organize the topics discussed by the Buddha. List-making was a popular strategy, and anyone familiar with the abhidharma knows that there are exhaustive lists of four of these, seven of these, and twelve. These oral teachings were eventually compiled and written down, heralding a new era of Buddhist scholasticism and polemics. The rigorous debates surrounding the abhidharma laid the foundation for an ongoing tradition of commentary.
What is in Dharma?
Of particular interest to abhidharma scholars was the further clarification of the Buddha’s teachings on the nature of reality. They interpreted complex objects (such as tables and chairs) as collections of smaller components and concluded that the only thing that ultimately exists dharmas-the physical and mental “factors” or “phenomena” behind everyday objects and cognition. Accordingly, each moment of consciousness was described as a rapid interweaving of seven universal mental factors (sensory contact, perception, perception, volition, concentration, vitality, and attention). Different systems may agree on the number of mental dharmas (fifty-two) and the number of material elements (twenty-eight), but disagree on other points. Thus, the listing of dharmas gave the opportunity to create new lists! Competing theories about the nature of dharmas—especially their temporal duration—are difficult to follow without a broad understanding of abhidharma theory.
A living tradition of learning and practice
The Abhidharma literature continues to shape modern Buddhism. Causal analyzes of cognitive processes and dharmas inform contemporary mindfulness practices, and Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachers rely on abhidharma lists such as the fifty-two mental factors (which include both beneficial and harmful states) to understand psychological patterns, emotions, and ethical decisions. For practitioners, abhidharma is a reminder that careful examination of mind and reality has always been a cornerstone of the Buddhist path—study and meditation are not as separate as they seem.
Additional resources
- Noah Ronkin, “Abhidharma”, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophysubstantive update March 31, 2026 A free survey of abhidharma philosophy covering dharma theory, momentariness, causality, and epistemology in the major schools.
- Beth Jacobs, The Original Buddhist Psychology: What the Abhidharma Tells Us About How We Think, Feel, and Experience Life2017. Clinical psychologist and Zen practitioner Jacobs brings insights from Abhidharma and contemporary consciousness research into everyday experience. Read Tricycles interview with Beth Jacobs.
- Nyanaponics Thera, Abhidhamma Studies: Buddhist Explorations of Consciousness and Timeedited and introduced by Bhikkhu Bodhi, 1948/1998. A classic work by one of the most famous Theravada scholars of the 20th century, it explores Abhidhamma as a living source of philosophical inquiry and meditation practice.
- Steven Goodman, The Buddhist Psychology of Awakening: An In-Depth Guide to the Abhidharma2020. Goodman offers a practical guide to the Indo-Tibetan system of abhidharma analysis of mental patterns and habitual tendencies, linking them with practice.
