About

Dr. Reetta Konstenius, Ph.D., philosopher and linguist, founded the Abhidhamma Lab, inspired by her studies at Somayia University, India, where she deepened her understanding of mindfulness and Buddhist psychology through the study of original Pali Abhidhamma.

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As a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist, Dr. Konstenius had been for a long time fascinated by how effectively Buddhist mindfulness and psychological principles had been successfully integrated into Western therapeutic practices. Mindfulness-based therapies have demonstrated significant success, notably Marsha Linehan’s Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for Borderline Personality Disorder, Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT).

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However, Dr. Konstenius soon recognized that the full Pali language Abhidhamma texts (approximately 2500 pages) had never been fully translated from into English or any Western language. This gap resulted in incomplete and biased interpretations in both scholarly articles and popular books about Buddhist psychology and philosophy. Essential Pali terms—mano, citta, and viññāṇa—were all simplistically translated as 'consciousness,' inadvertently introducing Cartesian dualistic metaphysics into the Buddhist framework. This significantly distorted Buddhist Philosophy of Mind preventing accurate philosophical and psychological understanding.

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Combining her expertise in linguistics, philosophy, and AI, Dr. Konstenius developed tailored GPT models to enhance translation accuracy and scholarly exploration of the Abhidhamma. The AbhidhammaLab provides custom-built AI assistants specifically trained according to scholarly needs and language preferences for scholars and Buddhist Societies.

 

Weekly online classes cover Western and Buddhist philosophy of mind, Abhidhamma concepts, linguistics and translation ethics, enabling scholars, Buddhist societies, and monks to approach Abhidhamma studies with unprecedented clarity and depth using AI.