Date: March 8, 2023
Speaker: Rupert Gethin
Professor of Buddhist Studies (emeritus), University of Bristol
President, The Pali Text Society
Location: Humanities Quadrangle HQ, 136, Yale University
320 York Street, New Haven CT, 06511
Contact: eric.greene@yale.edu (203) 432-4857
Abstract: That the doctrine of dependent origination is central to Buddhist thought is universally recognised. Not surprisingly the doctrine has been much studied and commented on in modern scholarship, especially with regard to its presentation in the earliest Buddhist scriptures and its exegesis as an account of the continuity of human existence over past, present, and future lives within later commentaries such as Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga and Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa. Surprisingly, the Abhidharma treatments of dependent origination as relevant to the arising of a single moment of cognition (cittakkhaṇa) seem to have been largely overlooked. The present talk focuses on the analysis of momentary dependent origination presented in chapter six of the Vibhaṅga, the second book of the Theravāda Abhidhamma-piṭaka, and its commentary. This reveals a series of overlooked variations in the constituents of dependent origination that key into the broader Abhidharma psychological theory.
