FUNDAMENTAL ABHIDHAMMA – PART I – SAYADAW DR. NANDAMALABHIVAMSA

By Venerable Sayadaw Dr. Nandamalabhivamsa

Editorial Preface

I have followed and benefited from the lectures on Abhidhamma delivered by Ven. Ashin Nandamalabhivamsa to the Burmese Buddhist community in the Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C are during his visits to the United States of America in 1993-94 and again in April – June 1997. This book provides the core curriculum of these lectures.

Abhidhamma is, in the words of Narada Mahathera “a psyhology without a psyche. Abhidhamma teaches that ultimate really consists of four elementary constituents: Nibbana, which is unconditioned, an citta, cetasika and rupa (meaning consciousness, mental factors and matter, respectively) that are conditioned. They are also called dhamma. Dhamma literally means to hold its own nature and characteristics. Dhammas are natural laws that are always true. Thus, Abhidhamma describes the dhammas, their characteristics, their functions and their relations. All conceptual entities, such as self pr person are resolved into their ultimates, i.e., into bare mental and material phenomena that are impermanent.