“Bhikkhu Bodhi argues that there is no mentioning of Buddha teaching Abhidhamma to the monks in the Suttas”
- That is correct. That is why Abhidhamma is not included in the Sutta Pitaka.
- The Buddha described the Abhidhamma theory (in detail) to the Devas over several days. Each day, he returned to the human realm to meet Ven. Sariputta and summarized that day’s desana. Ven. Sariputta and his lineage of bhikkhus expanded on that summary to end up with what we have in the Abhidhamma Pitaka today. Even after Ven. Sariputta’s Parinibbana, the project continued, and it was finalized only at the third Buddhist Council, as I remember. This account is on p. 11 of Bhikkhu Bodhi’s Abhidhamma book.
- The completed Abhdhamma Pitaka was recited at the Third Council, attended by only Arahants. That is enough evidence for me to support the authenticity. Of course, the other point is that NO ONE ELSE could develop such an elaborate and self-consistent theory on the human mind even if tried.
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“But you also state in the above referenced page: “The minute details on the structure of a citta vithi (a series of citta) of 17 thought moments, with each citta lasting sub-billionth of a second, can be seen only by a Buddha.” If you don’t mind me asking, how did you come to this conclusion?”
- Our minds are incapable of experiencing a citta vithi. It runs unimaginably fast: ” sub-billionth of a second.” We experience mental phenomena on the millisecond scale.
- That is why the Buddha ALWAYS referred to “khandhas” or “aggregates, ” encompassing millions of cittas. Scientists have done experiments to figure out the minimum time one needs to look at a picture to recognize it. That time is around ten milliseconds. (See Ref.1 of “Vision Is a Series of “Snapshots” – Movie Analogy.”) Within that time period, millions of cittas would have gone through our minds! The human mind is the ultimate quantum system. The “quantum” (or the smallest unit) is a citta. On the “material side,” the smallest unit (quantum) is a suddhāṭṭhaka: “The Origin of Matter – Suddhāṭṭhaka.”
- Detecting/experiencing a single citta or a suddhāṭṭhaka is possible only for a Buddha. Anyone else, including Arahants, cannot do that.