The Original Buddhist Psychology: What the Abhidharma Tells Us About How We Think, Feel, and Experience Life

This is an excellent introduction to Buddhist psychology, the Abhidharma. In writing about the complexity of our experience on a moment-by-moment basis, it would be tempting to oversimplify, to offer summations, to diminish life with breezy explanations. Beth Jacobs never does this. She uses the sources at hand, her own 21st century life and the writings of the early Buddhists who gave us the Abhidharma, to invite us to contemplate the largeness of our lives and those of others. There is elegance in this book, and humor, and a good and necessary dose of humility.

This insightful study of an ancient core Buddhist text, "The Abidharma," rings true for 21st century practitioners. The writing is crystalline, graceful and rich with practical examples. Beth combines her sensei wisdom with her psychotherapy skills to invite the reader into material many Buddhists might not realize is immediately vital to waking up. When reading I often stopped in order to directly practice the teachings about consciousness Beth explains. Such a treasure trove of startling relevance!

Beth Jacobs has taken an extremely complex subject from early Buddhism, the Abhidharma, and presents it in an understandable style to a modern audience. She bring together modern neuroscientific findings which often confirm the early Buddhists theories of the mind and her own experience as a therapist and a Buddhist student to make this an enjoyable and accessible read. It is an important contribution to the study of the original Buddhist sources and their relevance for us today.

a deep dive into Buddhist perceptual understanding , some of which you see in the sutras, seasoned with a perspective of a modern psychoanalyst

Good

Excellent very well and clearly written exposition of this difficult topic. I loved the original poetic language used to describe many of the concepts

If you are serious about understanding the profound contribution that traditional Buddhist psychology can make to modern psychology, you’ll have no better guide than Dr. Jacobs.Over a quarter century ago, the late neuroscientist Francisco Varela made tentative efforts to correlate the Buddhist skandhas (the five “aggregates” or components of experience) with similar components of experience as conceived of by modern neuroscience.Subsequent research has determined that the unfolding of experience as laid out in ancient Buddhist texts - beginning with “form” or what we nowadays misconceive of as self-existent ‘matter’, on through sensation or feeling, perception, mental formations (‘schemas’ in the language of cognitive science) and consciousness (or more properly, egoic self-consciousness) – does in fact correlate quite closely with modern neuroscientific discoveries.But to the best of my knowledge, nobody has dived as deeply as Dr. Jacobs into the fascinating intricacies of ancient Buddhist psychology. She identifies 17 stages (or “steps”) in the unfolding of a moment of consciousness. She offers us in-depth and enlightening parallels with modern neuroscience, yet never trivializes Buddhist psychology – a remarkable achievement in itself.There are tantalizing hints of radically different understandings of the nature of matter, time and space. Considering that the book was published in 2017 and in just the last few months, at least a half dozen more neuroscientists have jumped on the ‘panpsychism’ bandwagon (considering “consciousness” – “Chit” rather than “citta” – to be a fundamental force in the universe ), we can add “prescient” to the list of attributes of this book.If you believe, as I do, that deep reflection on the nature of the personality and the self is a powerful practice in itself, you’ll find that “The Original Buddhist Psychology” is not only a fascinating read but a valuable guide to meditation practice as well.

Thank you