The Divinity School is pleased to offer a series of lectures on topics in Theravada Buddhism.

Abstract: The Paṭṭhāna, the seventh text of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka, deals with the functioning of causality and interdependence in Theravāda thought. It uses the mathematics of enumeration and combinatorics to plumb the depths of causality. The emphasis on the Paṭṭhāna in Burmese Buddhism has been influenced by sociopolitical conceptions, developments and institutions. This paper focuses on a more technical aspect of the Paṭṭhāna – the Saṅkhyā-vāra, ‘Enumeration sections’. I examine the Paṭṭhāna through analysis of its mathematics, demonstrating not only the types of mathematics being used to further understand the nature and depths of causality, but also close parallels between the mathematics of the Paṭṭhāna and the mathematics of ‘combinatorics’.

Bio: Dr Pyi Phyo Kyaw (pronounced “Pyé Jaw”) is Dean of Graduate Studies and Lecturer in Theravada Studies at Shan State Buddhist University, Taunggyi, Myanmar. She is also a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at King’s College, London, United Kingdom. She studied BA in Economics and Management at Oxford University, before completing MA in Buddhist Studies at SOAS in 2010, and PhD in Buddhist Philosophy at King’s College, London in 2014. She has undertaken meditation practice within different meditation traditions in Myanmar for the past 14 years. She has also undertaken monastic training in Myanmar as a precept-nun in a meditation centre based at Pyay (formerly Prome) in 2007 and 2015.

She specializes in Burmese Buddhism, Abhidhamma (Theravada analytical philosophy), Theravada meditation, Buddhist business practices, and Buddhist ethics. She also teaches Vipassana meditation in Budapest, Hungary.

RSVP here.