The Tree of Enlightenment

already have some intellectual acquaintance with the general
outline of the picture we are trying to bring into focus. In this
sense studying the Abhidharma can be useful in bringing about
an indirect understanding of ourselves and the world around us
in Abhidharmic terms.
ere are two ways Abhidharmic investigation works:
(1) through analysis, and (2) through synthesis, or relation.
e basic structure of these two methods is given in the first
and last books of the Abhidharma Pitaka, the Dhammasangani
(Classification of Factors) and the Patthana (Book of Causal
Relations), respectively. ese are the two most important
books of the Abhidharma. It is through the analytical method
and the synthetic or relational method that the Abhidharma
arrives at a basic understanding of not-self and emptiness.
Let us look first at the analytical method and then at the
relational method; finally, we will combine the two, as, indeed,
we must to reap the full benefit of the Abhidharmic method of
investigation. In e Questions of King Milinda (Milinda Panha),
it is said that the Buddha has accomplished a very difficult
task: ‘If a man,’ Nagasena says in reply to King Milinda, ‘were
to take a boat out to the sea, and if he were to take a handful
of sea water and were then able to tell you that in it this much
water is from the Ganges, this much from the Yamuna, and
this much from the other great rivers of India, this would certainly
be a very difficult thing to accomplish. In the same way,
the Buddha has analyzed a single conscious moment of experience
– for instance, the experience of seeing a form – into its various
component parts: matter, feeling, perception, volition, and
consciousness.’
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