The Body in Contemplation
C. Ram-Prasad
Oxford Scholarship Online September 20, 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198823629.003.0004 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that the contemplative practices described in Buddhaghosa's The Path of Purification progressively disrupt intuitions of stable subjects and objects and of separation between subject, body, and world, and that analysis through the abhidhamma categories yields a creative destabilization of any fixed tripartite ontology, leaving a methodologically sustained practice of treating the human as a phenomenologically dynamic system of analytic categories. |
Abstract
This chapter follows the process by which a highly detailed account of the human being as bodily being emerges through a series of contemplative practices described in the fifth century by Buddhaghosa in The Path of Purification, a Theravada Buddhist manual. In the first three practices studied, meditation practices are described that disrupt intuitions about the stability of subject and objects, intuitions held to lead to entanglement in suffering. The monk seeking disentanglement comes to be attentive of the way that an apparent sense of isolation of human from environment and of separation of subject from material body is dissolved. The fourth practice addresses the constitution of phenomenology, by analysis of experience through the abhidhamma categories taught by the Buddha. What results is a creative destabilization of any fixed tripartite ontology of subject–body–world, leaving a methodologically sustained practice of treating the human as a phenomenologically dynamic system of analytic categories.