Web of Buddhist Wisdom, The: Introduction to the Psychology of the Abhidhamma

Long before people in the West started to study the workings of the human mind, Buddhism was trying to understand body and mind through introspection and meditation. This knowledge has grown to be a very thorough and detailed classification and analysis of mental and physical phenomena. This refined study is known as the Abhidhamma (literally: ‘Higher Teachings’). In Southeast Asia students normally spend more than seven years studying these teachings. 

Frits Koster has lived as a Buddhist monk in Thailand and Burma, where he had the privilege to study parts of the Abhidhamma. In The Web of Buddhist Wisdom he explains important themes such as consciousness, mental concomitants, physicality and the experience of Enlightenment in a clear and accessible way. In addition, he addresses the law of kamma, the process of dying and rebirth, the four Noble Truths and the value of the Abhidhamma. 

The Web of Buddhist Wisdom, which is illustrated with drawings by Fop Smit, offers a rich and accessible guide for anyone who is interested in the working of the human mind. It offers a clear and simple acquaintance with the world of the Abhidhamma and an old yet very accurate mirror of our existence.

About the Author

Frits Koster is a vipassana meditation teacher and qualified mindfulness teacher. He has also trained and worked as a psychiatric nurse. He has taught mindfulness in mental health settings, including clinics and hospitals for many years. He is a teacher and member of the faculty of the Institute for Mindfulness-Based Approaches (IMA) as well as other training institutes across Europe. He has been practicing Theravada Buddhism for 35 years and was a Buddhist monk for six years in the 1980s. He has been leading vipassana retreats and courses since then. While he was a monk he studied Buddhist psychology at various monasteries in Southeast Asia. 

He is the author of several books, of which the following books have been translated and published (by Silkworm Books) into English: Liberating Insight (2004), Buddhist Meditation in Stress Management (2007) and The Web of Buddhist Wisdom (2014). He is co-author, with Erik van den Brink, of Mindfulness-Based Compassionate Living (Routledge, 2015). 

See www.fritskoster.com or www.compassionateliving.info.