The Buddhist Psychology of Awakening: An In-Depth Guide to Abhidharma

A modern introduction to traditional Buddhist psychology

This practical overview of Buddhist psychology outlines step-by-step methods for examining the source of our habitual tendencies and hangups. In order to truly free ourselves from perpetuating patterns of suffering, the Buddha offered a clear system for understanding our psychological dispositions, processes, fixations, and challenges--a system known as the Abhidharma. This tradition has been studied by Buddhists for over two millennia.

Professor Steven Goodman has taught on the Abhidharma in both universities and Buddhist retreats for over twenty years, making these traditional teachings accessible for a modern readership for the first time. Goodman explains how becoming aware of our mental patterns can liberate us from cycles of emotional pain and shows how the Abhidharma can be applied to meditation practice through exercises of observation and reflection. This is the go-to manual for anyone interested in the world of Buddhist psychology.

STEVEN D. GOODMAN is Program Director of Asian Philosophies and Cultures at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco. He received his PhD in Far Eastern studies from the University of Saskatchewan, and he has lectured and taught Buddhist philosophy and comparative religion at the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Barbara, Rice University, the Graduate Theological Union, the Nyingma Institute, and Naropa University. In 1994, Steven was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship at Rice University Center for Cultural Studies for the study of Tibetan mystical poetry. He is the coeditor of Tibetan Buddhism: Reason and Revelation (SUNY Press, 1992) and the author of ＂Transforming the Causes of Suffering＂ in Mindfulness and Meaningful Work (Parallax Press, 1994).