Hello all,
I bought this book (Architecture of the Brain and Mind in Abhidhamma) because it sounded interesting& promising. It was about something I am interested in, the brain, and I though that the author might have some interesting modern insights and ideas that could be integrated with Abhidhamma. Sure he did… Too much of it. There were errors almost on every page… Not to mention very annoying way of writing Pāḷi using english words mixed with modern Indian pronounciation where the last vowel is dropped. Can you guess what is “Chaxuvidnyan” is ?
He was very inconsistent. On one hand he was very much pro Theravāda orthodoxy and talking about how “Dhammasoka” got rid of heretical 18 schools. On the other hand the author frequently quotes Abhidharmakosa, and… even used the ālāyavijñāna concept. All of this mixed with Theravādin Abhidhammasangaha…
“The mind does not evolve in a day. According to Buddhist philosophy, it started from the marine (niraya) animals then reptiles (prutta), avian (asura), quadrupeds (tirchhana), pro-human (manussa) and human (deva) i.e. special species” - page xii-xiii
Why did he correlate nirāya with … fishes? Prutta (peta?) with reptiles, pro (proto?) humans with manussa and deva as humans?! Sounds too insane… I am open minded, but not that much.
Realm of 33 gods is equated to a (1) region in the brain that controls 32 parts of the body… 1+32 =33
“ In Buddhism the total number of consciousness mentioned are 89 in lay beings and 120 in supramundane beings” -pg 115
!!!
That’s totally incorrect!
Then he writes:
“Naama is defined as (Nameti te naama) the entirt which bends the object in front of it.” pg176
What??!!! Nāma itself bends (or inclines) toward the object, it doesn’t bend any object.
Is it just me, or are some books really “out there”???