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Semantics of Wholesomeness: Purification of Intention and the Soteriological Function of the Immeasurables (Appamāṇas) in Early Buddhist Thought |
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| Author |
Dhammadinnā, Sāmaṇerī (著)=釋法樂 (au.)
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| Source |
Buddhist meditative traditions: their origin and development
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| Date | 2014 |
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| Pages | 31 - 109 |
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| Publisher | Shin Wen Feng Print Co. |
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| Location | 臺北市, 臺灣 [Taipei shih, Taiwan] |
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| Content type | 會議論文=Proceeding Article |
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| Language | 英文=English |
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| Note | In Proceedings of the international conference "Buddhist meditative traditions: their origin and development", held at Dharma Drum Buddhist College, Taiwan, October 26th and 27th, 2012, ed. Chuang Kuo-pin. |
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| Keyword | appamāṇa/apramāṇa; brahmavihāra; early Buddhism; experience; intention; kusala; meditation; semantics; wholesomeness |
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| Abstract | This essay takes up the early Buddhist ‘immeasurable’ meditative experiences and mental qualities, the appamāṇas (Pali; apramāṇas in Sanskrit), to explore how their cultivation relates to the dimension of karma and intention and thereby to progress on the path to liberation. It comprises a first part devoted to philological findings supported by doctrinal analysis, and a second part taking up a few philosophical points. As for the first part, after a brief introduction (I), it starts off with an early Buddhist discourse on this theme preserved in parallel versions in different languages stemming from the Theravāda, Sarvāstivāda and Mūlasarvāstivāda reciters’ traditions (I.1), and then provides a translated excerpt – from the Tibetan Mūlasarvāstivāda version – of the passage on appamāṇa (I.2). It then turns to analyse in more detail the impact of the practice of appamāṇa on karma, providing doctrinal confirmation of the finding by Anālayo (2009), based on the comparative study of the Chinese Sarvāstivāda version of this discourse, that the three Pali discourses as presently found in the Theravāda canon could be the result of a garbling of what originally was a single discourse (I.3). The second part of the essay then continues with some more general philosophical considerations on the characteristics of the appamāṇas (II): on the notions of intention and purification of intention in early Buddhist philosophy of mind and soteriology, with special reference to the functioning of appamāṇa practice (II.1); and on the link between the conceptual and semantic aspect of appamāṇa theory, the practice of meditation, and the soteriological goal at large of gnoseological and moral freedom in early Buddhism (II.2). The discussion then concludes with some final reflections, arguing that the key to the appamāṇa (meditative and non-meditative) dynamics is that of a functional exploitation of the mind’s ‘being intent on’ and ‘attending to’ its contents of experience. This reading relies on the view that mind processes are inherently content-ful and meaning-ful and thus endowed with and determined by a semantic field and characteristic. The appamāṇas furnish the mind’s intending’ and ‘attending’ with wholesome (kusala) semantics, thenceforth wholesomely directing will and volition, and, ultimately, karma. In this way the mind’s mode of response is gradually transformed with the help of such a wholesome intending’ itself as its object, content, meaning and concept. The appamāṇas are, thus, means instrumental to the training in and fulfilment of the path factor of right intention (sammā-saṅkappa), with the appamāṇa ‘concept’ and ‘experience’ functionally intervening on the conceptual and conative levels of intention (II.2). Finally, some conclusions are drawn especially in relation to the main points discussed in the second part of the essay (III).
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| ISBN | 9789571722030 |
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| Hits | 1293 |
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| Created date | 2014.11.27 |
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| Modified date | 2016.10.11 |
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