Abhidhamma Lectures
[Tape #1]
Chapter One
1. Getting Acquainted
Two Divisions of Buddhism
2.
Chapter One
1. Getting Acquainted
Today we begin a new class on Abhidhamma. Ever since I came to this country I have been teaching Abhidhamma. I have taught about three or four courses and then I stopped teaching. So I thought it was time to teach again. So we have this class now.
Two Divisions of Buddhism
Today's talk is just an introduction. I call it Getting Acquainted, i.e., to get acquainted with the Abhidhamma—what Abhidhamma is, what is found in Abhidhamma and so on. Before we understand what Abhidhamma is, we should understand the two major divisions of Buddhism nowadays in the world. The first one is called TheravÈdaBuddhism, or Southern Buddhism. The second is called MahÈyÈna Buddhism or Northern Buddhism. There was one Buddhism originally. But later there was difference of opinion among the Elders. And so different schools of Buddhism appeared in the course of time. Nowadays there are two major divisions of Buddhism.
TheravÈdaBuddhism is believed to be the closest to the original teachings of the Buddha. As a TheravÈda Buddhist, I believe the original teachings of the Buddha are recorded in the scriptures of TheravÈda Buddhism. TheravÈda Buddhism spread to the southern part of Asia , or to the southern countries. Therefore it is sometimes called Southern Buddhism. It may not be 100% accurate, but people call it Southern Buddhism. TheravÈdaBuddhism spread to Sri Lanka Burma Thailand Cambodia Vietnam
MahÈyÈnaBuddhism is a later form of Buddhism. It is different from TheravÈda Buddhism in many ways. This kind of Buddhism spread to northern countries. When I say north, I mean from the middle of India Nepal Tibet Mongolia China Vietnam Korea Japan
Sometimes TheravÈda Buddhism is called PÈÄi Buddhism, and MahÈyÈna Buddhism, Sanskrit Buddhism, because they adopted PÈÄi and Sanskrit languages as their sacred languages respectively.
In both TheravÈda and MahÈyÈna, there is Abhidhamma. The Abhidhamma you will be studying with me is TheravÈdaAbhidhamma. I belong to TheravÈda. I am a TheravÈda Buddhist monk. I know TheravÈda Abhidhamma, but I am not so familiar with Abhidhamma in other schools. Therefore, Abhidhamma you are going to study with me is that taught in TheravÈdaBuddhism.
How Buddha’s Teachings were Recorded and Handed Down
The First Buddhist Council
First we should know how Buddha's teachings were recorded and handed down to this day. Buddha did not write anything down. He just taught by word of mouth. His immediate disciples learned his teachings by heart. Three months after the death of the Buddha, the surviving disciples of the Buddha headed by the Venerable MahÈ Kassapa held a council, a Buddhist Council. At that Council all the teachings of the Buddha were collected and presented to the Council. The Council consisted of 500 Arahants, monks who were the immediate disciples of the Buddha. All the teachings of the Buddha were presented and scrutinized carefully. Only when they were satisfied that a particular teaching was the authentic teaching of the Buddha was that teaching accepted. As a sign of acceptance, the elders recited that teaching (a Sutta, for example) together. That is why the Councils are known in PÈÄi as Sa~gÈyanÈ or Sa~gÊti. Sa~gÈyanÈ or Sa~gÊti means reciting together. In this way Suttas and other teachings were accepted. As a sign of acceptance, the Arahants recited the teachings together. Thus at the first Buddhist Council the teachings of the Buddha, still fresh in the memory of his disciples, were collected, presented, scrutinized and then accepted as authentic. That was done in RÈjagaha , India
The Second Buddhist Council
The Second Buddhist Council was held 100 years after the death of the Buddha. Just before that Council there were some Elders who had difference of opinion with regard to some Vinaya or Disciplinary rules. They could not come to an agreement with other monks. So the SaÑgha was divided at that time. The other group was called MÈhÈsa~ghika. The original SaÑgha in order to preserve the original teachings of the Buddha held the Second Council. It was held in VesÈlÊ in India
The Third Buddhist Council
From that time on, different schools of Buddhism appeared. About 200 years after the death of the Buddha, there were as many as 18 or even more schools of Buddhism. At that time there were disagreements about not only the disciplinary rules, but other teachings as well.
At the Third Buddhist Council which was held 234 years after the death of the Buddha by our reckoning, all these different opinions were examined. According to TheravÈda Tradition they were found to be false. So the Third Council was held at that time. At that Council one book was definitely added. That book, as we have it now, is the KathÈvatthu. That Council was held during the time of King Asoka.
You may have heard of King Asoka. He was a very famous king. He is sometimes called Emperor Asoka because he ruled over almost the whole of India India
The Fourth Buddhist Council
Then from that time on until 450 years after the death of the Buddha, the teachings were handed down from teacher to pupil, from generation to generation, by word of mouth. It was an oral tradition until that time. At that time it was in Sri Lanka Southern India . Many monks remained in Sri Lanka India Sri Lanka Sri Lanka Kandy
The Fifth Buddhist Council
Then the Fifth Buddhist Council was held in Mandalay , Burma Mandalay Burma Mandalay
The Sixth Buddhist Council
After that king, there was another king. He was captured by the British and Burma Burma Independence Independence
The Sixth Buddhist Council was held in Rangoon , Burma Burma Rangoon
The teachings of the Buddha were handed down from generation to generation. At some intervals the Councils were held. The later Councils were actually the reconfirmation of what the First Buddhist Council had accepted and recorded. In this way the teachings of the Buddha have come down to us, the present generation. Nowadays it has reached the United States of America
Divisions of Buddha’s Teachings
Into NikÈyas
When the Buddha's teachings were recorded at the First Buddhist Council, the Elders of that Council divided the Buddha's teachings into different categories. There are several divisions or several categories. I want to tell you about two divisions only. The one is division into NikÈyas, five NikÈyas or collections. All the teachings of the Buddha were divided into five groups, or five collections. The first is the Collection is of long discourses, the second is of medium length discourses, the third, of the kindred discourses or miscellaneous discourses, the fourth, of gradual discourses, and finally the fifth is of minor discourses. All the Buddha's teachings were divided into these five NikÈyas—Collection of Long Discourses, of Medium Length Discourses, of Miscellaneous Discourses, of Gradual Discourses (Gradual Discourses means discourses with number of subject matters gradually increasing. There are Suttas which contain only one subject matter and so on until eleven subject matters.) and of Minor Discourses, or Smaller Discourses. In PÈÄi they are called DÊgha NikÈya (Long Discourses), Majjhima NikÈya (Middle Length Discourses), SaÑyutta NikÈya (Kindred Discourses) A~guttara NikÈya (Gradual Discourses) and Khuddaka NikÈya (Minor Discourses).
Into PiÔakas
Again, the Buddha's teachings were divided into three groups. They are called three TipiÔakas. The word 'piÔaka' means a receptacle, a vessel or a basket; or ‘piÔaka’ means ‘thing to be learnt’. The word ‘piÔaka’ is usually translated as ‘basket.’ There are three PiÔakas or Baskets. They are Vinaya PiÔaka, Sutta or Suttanta PiÔaka and Abhidhamma PiÔaka.
NikÈyas and PiÔakasare separate or different divisions. Many people misunderstand this because they think NikÈya division is a subdivision of PiÔakas. But that is not so. Please look at the handouts. There the books of the teachings are given along with which NikÈya and which PiÔaka they belong to. Look at them and you will know which NikÈya and which PiÔaka a particular book belongs to. Let's look only at the first one. The first book is the MahÈvibha~ga. It belongs to Khuddaka NikÈya. And as to PiÔaka, it belongs to Vinaya PiÔaka.
Please look at the second page. You will see asterisks. Netti, Petakopadesa and MilindapaÒhÈ—these three are not mentioned in the Vinaya and DÊgha NikÈya Commentaries as part of the Canon. That is why some people don't include them in the PÈÄi Canon. But in Burma
There is a PÈÄi verse found in the Vinaya Commentary and the Abhidhamma Commentary. It reads:
“®hapetvÈ caturo p’ ete, NikÈye DÊgha-Èdike,
Ta-d-aÒÒaÑ BuddhavacanaÑ, NikÈyo Khuddako mato.
The meaning is as follows: “The rest of the words of the Buddha excluding these four NikÈyas such as DÊgha (that means DÊgha, Majjhima, SaÑyutta and A~guttara) should be understood as Khuddaka NikÈya.” It is strange that the whole of Vinaya PiÔaka and the whole of Abhidhamma PiÔaka belong to the Khuddaka NikÈya. Khuddaka NikÈya means minor teachings or minor discourses. Abhidhamma is not minor. And Vinaya is not minor either. But both of them are included in Khuddaka NikÈya. The divisions into NikÈyas and the division into PiÔakas are two different divisions. NikÈyas are not subdivisions of the PiÔakas. The Abhidhamma we are going to study belongs, as to NikÈya, to Khuddaka NikÈya, and as to PiÔaka, to Abhidhamma PiÔaka.
The Word ‘Abhidhamma’
Now we come to the word 'Abhidhamma' itself. This word is composed of two parts—'abhi' and 'dhamma'. 'Abhi ' here means excelling or distinguished. 'Dhamma' means teaching. So Abhidhamma means excelling teaching or distinguished teaching. Excelling does not mean that the teachings in Abhidhamma PiÔaka are better than or loftier than, or nobler than those taught in the Sutta PiÔaka. The only difference between those taught in Sutta PiÔaka and Abhidhamma PiÔaka is the method of treatment, the method of presentation. The same things are taught in Sutta and Abhidhamma. You find the same Dhamma, the same subjects, in both Sutta PiÔaka and Abhidhamma PiÔaka. But in Abhidhamma PiÔaka they are minutely analyzed. It excels the teachings in Sutta PiÔaka, it is distinguished from the teachings in Sutta PiÔaka, with regard to the method of treatment.
Take, for example, the five aggregates. I hope you are familiar with the five aggregates. Buddha taught the doctrine of five aggregates. We are composed of these five aggregates. Most beings are composed of five aggregates. These five aggregates are treated in the SaÑyutta NikÈya on one page only. But the same five aggregates are treated in the second book of Abhidhamma in 68 pages! So 68 pages versus one page. You see how different the method of treatment is in Suttanta PiÔaka and Abhidhamma PiÔaka. In the Suttanta PiÔaka the Buddha may elaborate on the five aggregates a little more, but it is not a complete analysis, a complete treatment, as in the Abhidhamma. In the Abhidhamma PiÔaka, especially in the Vibha~ga, they are treated by way of explanation of Suttanta method, by way of explanation of Abhidhamma method and by way of questions and answers. Actually everything to be known about the five aggregates is treated in Abhidhamma, not in Suttanta PiÔaka. So this is why it is called Abhidhamma. It differs only in the method of treatment, not in the content, not in the Dhammas taught in it. You find the same five aggregates in Suttas and Abhidhamma. You find the Four Noble Truths in Suttas and Abhidhamma and so on.
What is taught in Abhidhamma?
What is taught in Abhidhamma? It is very hard to translate this word into English actually. We will see that. It is ultimate teaching in contrast to conventional teaching in Sutta PiÔaka. In Sutta PiÔaka the Buddha used conventional terms—like ‘I'’, ‘you’, ‘a person’, ‘a woman’. Without these conventional terms we cannot speak at all. We cannot communicate with other people at all because we live in this conventional world. So in the Sutta PiÔaka, Buddha taught in conventional terms. But in Abhidhamma PiÔaka most of the terms used are not conventional terms but terms of ultimate reality. They are different. There are almost no persons, no man, no woman in the Abhidhamma PiÔaka. You will find five aggregates, bases, elements, Four Noble Truths and so on. Although the subject may be the same, the way of presentation is different.
Let us take the example of water. Actually I don't have the knowledge of chemistry. I only know that water is H2O. So I always take that example. When I say, "I drink water", I am using a conventional term. It is true that what I am drinking is water. I am not lying. But if you go to a lab and analyze the elements, you will not call that liquid ‘water’, but H2O. Abhidhamma is like the usage H2O. You are not a man. You are not a woman. You are five aggregates. So five aggregates are sitting right now. A group of five aggregates is talking. Other five aggregates are listening. That is something like Abhidhamma. In Abhidhamma the terms used are of ultimate realities and not of convention.
These realities are taught in many different ways. The realities, those that are accepted as realities, are four in number. We will come to that later.
In Abhidhamma, mind and matter are minutely analyzed. A person is composed of mind and matter. Mind is again composed of Citta which is translated as consciousness, and Cetasikas which is translated as mental factors. What we call mind is a group of two things—Citta and Cetasika.
There are 89 or 121 types of Cittas. Citta is divided into 89 or 121 types of consciousness. Mental factors are divided into 52. Mind is minutely analyzed and described in Abhidhamma. Matter is also treated in detail. There are 28 material properties taught in Abhidhamma. Their number or enumeration, their causes, and how they are grouped together in groups, how they arise, how they disappear in one given life—all these things are taught in Abhidhamma. In Abhidhamma what are ultimate realities is taught, that is, consciousness, mental factors, matter and NibbÈna.
What is Abhidhamma?
What is Abhidhamma? Is it philosophy? Is it psychology? Is it ethics? Nobody knows. Sayadaw U Thittila is a Burmese monk who spent many years in the west. He is still living in Burma
‘Because it deals with the working of the mind with thought processes and mental factors it can be called a system of psychology.’ It is really a system of psychology because it deals with mind, matter, consciousness, mental factors and material properties. ‘Therefore Abhidhamma is generally translated as psycho-ethical philosophy of Buddhism.’ I want to call it just Abhidhamma. I think that is better.
When we say it is Buddhist psychology, it is psychology, but it is more than that. And we call it philosophy, again it is more than that. When we call it ‘ethics’, it is ‘ethics’, but it is more than that. So, we will never do justice to translate it as psychology, philosophy or ethics. It is better to just call it Abhidhamma as we Burmese do.
I always tell people we Burmese are smart people. We do not translate these terms into Burmese. We just "Burmanize" them. So let's just call it Abhidhamma.
In Abhidhamma you find something of philosophy, much of psychology and also of ethics.
The Importance of Abhidhamma
Now the importance of Abhidhamma. Is the knowledge of Abhidhamma important? If you ask me, I will say, "Yes". Abhidhamma is not only necessary in my opinion but essential for a correct and thorough understanding of Buddha's teachings. Please do not be discouraged when I say this. You will not understand the Suttas correctly and thoroughly if you do not understand the teachings of Abhidhamma. Many teachings in the Suttas have to be understood against the background of Abhidhamma. It is something like a guide or guideline for understanding the teachings in the Suttas.
In Dhammapada (this is a Sutta) the Buddha said, "Do not do any evil or do not do what is bad; do what is good." If we are to avoid evil, we need to know what is evil, what is unwholesome. Sometimes we may think something is wholesome, while actually it is unwholesome. Or sometimes we may think something unwholesome, while it is wholesome. We need to understand which is evil and which is good. That we can understand with the help of Abhidhamma. Abhidhamma teaches us that whatever is associated with greed, hatred and delusion is evil, is unwholesome. Whatever is associated with the opposites of these three—non-greed, non-hatred (that means loving-kindness.) and non-delusion or knowledge or understanding is wholesome. If you don't know Abhidhamma, you may be at a loss as to what is evil and what is not.
In some Suttas Buddha said, "A monk develops the Path." Path consciousness is a type of consciousness that arises at the moment of enlightenment. According to Abhidhamma, Path consciousness arises only once. It never repeats. In that Sutta the Buddha said, “The monk develops the Path.” But according to the teachings of Abhidhamma, Path consciousness only arises once. The meaning to understand there is that the monk practises meditation further to reach the higher stages of enlightenment, to reach the higher Paths. If we do not understand that, we will understand it incorrectly. There are many places like this in the Suttas. Without the knowledge of Abhidhamma you will always misunderstand or you will not fully understand. So, in my opinion the Abhidhamma is essential for the correct understanding and for the thorough understanding of the teachings given in the Suttas.
Is Knowledge of Abhidhamma Essential for Meditation?
Then there is another question. When we want to practise meditation, do we need the knowledge of Abhidhamma? There can be different answers—yes and no.
There is a book called Visuddhimagga. It was written by the Venerable Buddhaghosa in the fifth century A. D. It is actually a handbook for meditating monks. It describes the practice of meditation from the foundation of purity of morals up to the attainment of enlightenment. When describing VipassanÈ meditation (there are two kinds of meditation—Samatha and VipassanÈ meditation) the author taught in that book the essentials of Abhidhamma—about aggregates, bases, elements, faculties, PaÔicca SamuppÈda(Dependent Origination). He said this is the basis for knowledge. Knowledge means VipassanÈ Knowledge. Just looking at it we might conclude that we must study Abhidhamma before we can practise VipassanÈ meditation. But when we look at the stories where a person came to the Buddha and the Buddha preached to him and he gained enlightenment or he became an Ariya, he did not know Abhidhamma. Still he became enlightened. So in my opinion knowledge of Abhidhamma is not absolutely essential for realization of Truth. Even if you do not know Abhidhamma, you can practise VipassanÈ and you can get results. It is extremely helpful, however, to have knowledge of Abhidhamma. It is like reading a map before you go to a place. When you reach that place, you don't have to be told because you already know which is which. It is something like that. Knowledge of Abhidhamma is very helpful. It is good, as you are doing now, to study the Abhidhamma a little before you practise meditation. But there are some teachers who think that it is essential. You must know Abhidhamma before you practise VipassanÈ. Knowledge of Abhidhamma is good to have.
Is Abhidhamma Necessary for Understanding the Teachings?
There are some, especially scholars, who think Abhidhamma is not necessary for understanding the Suttas. One person wrote like this, "The third division of the PÈÄi Canon, the Abhidhamma PiÔaka, need not be considered at length for it differs from the Sutta literature already discussed only in being drier, more involved and more scholastic. Originality and depth are comparatively lacking. And our knowledge of Buddhist philosophy would be little less if the Abhidhamma PiÔaka were altogether ignored.” He means that though you don't know Abhidhamma, your knowledge of Buddhist philosophy would not be less; you don't need Abhidhamma to understand Buddhist philosophy. The author of that quote was Ananda K. Kumaraswami. This was written in his book “Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism.” He said, "Originality and depth are comparatively lacking." May be originality is lacking because the same things are taught in Abhidhamma as in the Sutta PiÔaka and Vinaya PiÔaka. There may be no new subjects taught in Abhidhamma. But depth—I will let you decide for yourself. I will not say anything more. So whether you think it is shallow, or it is deep, or it is profound or whatever, you will understand later after you go through this course.
There is another person who wrote something like that. Perhaps Kumaraswami got his idea from that book. It is called “The History of Indian Literature” by a German author, Winternitz. He wrote something like this: "There are so many synonyms given; there is no originality." They might have picked up a book of Abhidhamma and just saw enumerations, synonyms and others, and became disillusioned with Abhidhamma. Before you can pick up a book of Abhidhamma and read it and understand it, you have to have some knowledge of the fundamentals of Abhidhamma. Without a fundamental knowledge, you cannot go direct to books in Abhidhamma PiÔaka. If you don't know the multiplication table, you cannot do math. You cannot go to arithmetic and do the sums without the multiplication table. That is, until some time ago. Nowadays people use calculators. You don't need to learn multiplication tables. Without basic knowledge it is almost impossible to go into any kind of knowledge. So you need some kind of fundamental knowledge of Abhidhamma before you go to the Abhidhamma itself. Without that knowledge, whatever book you pick up it will be like Greek to you.
Sayadaw U Thittila said, "Abhidhamma is highly prized by the profound students of Buddhist philosophy, but to the average student it seems dull and meaningless.” If you pick up an Abhidhamma book, even if you understand PÈÄi, you will find it very dull and boring. This is because ‘it is so extremely subtle in its analysis, and so technical in its treatment that it is very difficult to understand without the guidance of an able teacher.’ You may read a book on Abhidhamma and understand to some extent. But I think you need a teacher to guide you through Abhidhamma. ‘That is probably why the Abhidhamma PiÔakais not so popular as the other two PiÔakas among western Buddhists’—maybe not only western Buddhists but also modern scholars. Ananda Kumaraswami was not a westerner. He was an Oriental. So it is not so popular even with scholars in the Orient because ‘it is extremely subtle in its analysis and extremely technical in its treatment.’ You will see that when you pick up a book of Abhidhamma and read it. I will not say whose statement is true. You can find out for yourself later after you have gone through the course.
How Buddha Taught Abhidhamma
Let's go to the seven books of Abhidhamma and the Commentaries. Abhidhamma is a vast literature. Buddha taught Abhidhamma to gods and not to human begins. In the seventh rainy season after his enlightenment, the Buddha went up to TÈvatiÑsÈ Heaven and preached Abhidhamma to the gods there. His mother who died seven days after his birth was born as a Deva, as a deity in another heaven called TusitÈ Heaven. She or he (we believe she was reborn as a male deity) came down to TÈvatiÑsÈ Heaven and listened to the Abhidhamma taught by the Buddha.
It is said that the Buddha taught nonstop for three whole months. When I say 'nonstop', I really mean nonstop. Buddha was a human being. So he needed to eat and so on. When it was time for almsround, he created another Buddha by his mental power. He willed that the created Buddha teach Abhidhamma from such and such a place to such and such a place during his absence. Then he went down to human world for alms. At that time the created Buddha took over. When he went down to the human world, the Venerable SÈriputtamet him there. When Buddha met SÈriputta, he told him that he had taught a particular portion of Abhidhamma during the interval. That means between their meeting the day before and the present today. What the Buddha said to SÈriputta was just something like a table of contents. When SÈriputtaheard this, he was able to understand, down the smallest detail, what the Buddha had taught. He was so endowed with analytical knowledge. He understood all that Buddha taught during the interim. When SÈriputta went back to his place, he taught the Abhidhamma he had learned from the Buddha, to 500 monks who were his disciples. Then the Buddha after spending the day in the human world went back to TÈvatiÑsÈheaven in the evening and resumed his teaching.
Did the deities know that the Buddha had left and that a created Buddha was preaching at that moment? Some did and some did not. Those who had greater power knew and those who had lesser power did not. Because there was no difference between the Buddha and the created Buddha as regards their rays, their voices, their words— everything was exactly the same, it was an exact replica—those deities of lesser power did not know.
It is said that the Buddha spoke very quickly. How quickly? During the time an ordinary person speaks one word the Buddha could speak 128 words. Buddha spoke very fast. Even a discourse given after taking a meal at a house could run into the size of one NikÈya. Now imagine the Buddha talking in that way for three months without stopping, continuously preaching. So the volume of Abhidhamma could be very great. We have three versions of Abhidhamma—that taught to the gods which is very large, then the second that was taught to the Venerable SÈriputtalike a table of contents, and the third one that the Venerable SÈriputta taught to his disciples; that is neither too large nor too small. The Venerable SÈriputtamade it suitable for those monks to accept. He did not teach all that he knew. He taught just enough for them. So, there are three versions of Abhidhamma. Fortunately that last version which is neither too large nor too small was recorded at the first Buddhist Council. That version is what we have as Abhidhamma now.
I want to show you the Abhidhamma books. There are twelve books. I added up the pages. The pages are altogether 4981. There are seven books of Abhidhamma, but in our edition there are twelve volumes. Those 4981 pages contain many ellipses. There are repetitions or there are some that are not difficult for the reciters to put in and so, they are left out. If everything were printed in full it could be ten times greater than what we have here. The Abhidhamma is very wide and very large.
The Seven Books of Abhidhamma
There are seven books of Abhidhamma. The first one is Dhammasa~gaÓÊ, classification of Dhammas. That means classification of Cittas (consciousness), Cetasikas (mental factors), and R|pa (matter). The second book is called Vibha~ga, that is analysis of the Dhammas; those taught in the Dhammasa~gaÓÊ are further analyzed. The third one is called DhÈtukathÈ. That is, the discussion of Dhammas taught in the Dhammasa~gaÓÊ. The fourth one is called Puggala PaÒÒatti, designation of types of beings. This book is not like Abhidhamma. It is like Sutta discourses. Different types of individuals or different types of beings are classified or mentioned. This is one book which is not like Abhidhamma. The next one is KathÈvatthu, Points of Controversy. It is also not like Abhidhamma. It is a book of debate. Different opinions current at that time were examined on the basis of debate. It is very different from other books. It is a dialogue between TheravÈda monks and other monks. The sixth book is called Yamaka, Book of Pairs. That means, there are questions and answers in pairs. There are questions in pairs. There are answers in pairs. For example: “There are wholesome states. Are all of those wholesome states wholesome roots? There are wholesome roots. Are all those wholesome roots wholesome states?” It is something like that. And also with regard to aggregates, bases and so on there are questions and answers like that which go in pairs. The seventh book is called PaÔÔhÈna. It is the Book of Causal Relations. There are 24 modes of causal relations. The PaÔÔhÈna is the largest of the seven books of Abhidhamma. And to us it is the deepest, the most profound, book of Abhidhamma.
In our books it is said that the Buddha contemplated on the Abhidhamma in the fourth week after his enlightenment. He did not preach to anyone. He just sat down and contemplated on the Abhidhamma. When he contemplated on the first six books, nothing happened. He just contemplated on them. But when he contemplated on the seventh book, the six colored rays were emitted from his body; they came out of his body. (We don't have a Buddhist flag here. A Buddhist flag represents these six rays—blue, yellow, red, white, orange and the mixture of these five.) Why was that? The other six books were not deep enough for the Buddha's super wisdom. When he was contemplating on these six books, it was like a whale put in a small tank. He could barely move in the tank. But when coming to the seventh book, the subject matter was measureless and his wisdom was measureless. His wisdom could go as far as the subject matter went, and the subject matter could go as far as his wisdom could go. When he reached the seventh book, he was like that whale put in the ocean. He could move about very easily and so he became very glad. When the mind becomes glad, it effects the physical parts of the body. So the rays came out of his body. PaÔÔhÈna is the most profound of the seven books and also the largest.
These are the seven books of Abhidhamma. But we are not going to study these seven books. What we are going to study is just an approach to these books. So you have to go a long way.
The Commentaries, SubCommentaries and Sub-subCommentaries
Then the Commentaries. These Abhidhamma books as they are cannot be understood very well. So we need somebody to explain and to ask about the things taught in these books. Therefore we need the Commentaries. There are Commentaries by the Venerable Buddhaghosa. The Venerable Buddhaghosa was a very famous and celebrated commentator who lived in the 5th century A. D. What he wrote was not all his own. He was like an editor. He compiled those that were before him and put into one continuous book. What he wrote or what are contained in his Commentaries could go back even to the time of the Buddha, because these explanations were handed down from teacher to pupil, teacher to pupil. Some explanations given in his Commentaries may be those given by the Buddha himself. Therefore, we have great respect for his Commentaries. Buddhaghosa wrote the Commentaries. They are AÔÔhasÈlini, SammohavinodanÊ and PaÒcappakaraÓatthakathÈ. Those three are the Commentaries on the seven books of Abhidhamma.
Sometimes we find it difficult even to understand the Commentaries. We need some other books to explain those Commentaries. So we have what are called SubCommentaries that are called M|laÔÊkÈ. The SubCommentaries are written by ŒnandaThera. We don't know the exact ages of these authors. So all the ages are approximate, say fifth century A. D. and circa seventh century A. D. Sub-subCommentaries that are called AnuÔÊkÈ, are written by DhammapÈla Thera. We don't know exactly when he lived, but he is definitely later than the Venerable Buddhaghosa. Then there are treatises on Abhidhamma by another monk named Buddhadatta Thera. He was a contemporary of the Venerable Buddhaghosa Thera himself. He wrote some condensations of Abhidhamma. Then there are treatises by many other monks. Among them the Abhidhammatthasa~gaha is the best or the most popular. We will be using the Abhidhammatthasa~gaha for our course.
Abhidhammatthasa~gaha
Abhidhammatthasa~gaha was written in the 11thcentury A. D. by Anuruddha Thera. He was a native of South India . That is definite. He wrote three books. In another book he wrote that he was born in KaÒcipura, south India South India . When he wrote this book it is believed that he was living in Sri Lanka
It is still a textbook for beginners in Burma Burma Upper Burma in 1057 A. D. About 1044 A. D. there was a king called Anawrahta (Anuruddha). Some of you may have been to Pagan. At that time there was a debased form of Tantric Buddhism. One day the king met a monk from Southern Burma and was converted to TheravÈda Buddhism. Later he managed to get sets of TipiÔaka from the Thaton kingdom in lower Burma Burma Burma
Night Lessons
Then there are what are called Night Lessons. They are found only in Burma
The Abhidhamma is a compulsory subject for every monk, novice and nun in Burma
English Translations of Abhidhammatthasa~gaha
I said we will be using Abhidhammatthasa~gaha or its translation for this course. There are three English translations of the Abhidhammatthasa~gaha. The first one is called the Compendium of Philosophy by U Shwe Zan Aung. It first appeared in 1910. The introduction to this book is very good. Different Abhidhamma topics are discussed and explained in it. It alone consists of 76 pages.
The second book is called The Abhidhamma Philosophy, Volume 1 by Bhikkhu J. Kashyap. It first appeared in 1942. It is another translation of Abhidhammatthasa~gaha.
Number three is A Manual of Abhidhamma written by NÈradaThera. It first appeared in 1956. I used this book for my Abhidhamma class until now.
Recently another book appeared. This is Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma. We will use this book as a textbook for this class. It is actually a revised edition of the Venerable NÈrada's book. At first the editors thought they might have to edit only a few places. As they went along they found they had to do extensive editing. Actually it is almost a new translation of the Abhidhammatthasa~gaha. I have a personal attachment to this book. The charts I use here are included in this book and are acknowledged in the introduction. Another monk who helped edit this book is my friend, Dr. U Revata Dhamma. He lives in England
Some References
If you want to read or if you want to get a description of the Buddhist Councils and some history of Buddhism or Buddhist SaÑgha, this (“Inception of Discipline and Vinaya NidÈna”) is the book. Actually this is the translation of Introductory section of the Commentary to Vinaya PiÔaka. The Venerable Buddhaghosa, at the beginning of the Commentary on Vinaya, gave us a history of Buddhism up to the time Buddhism was introduced to Sri Lanka Sri Lanka
SÈdhu ! SÈdhu ! SÈdhu !
Be Patient
Let me tell you something. For many of you, Abhidhamma is a very new subject. Please be patient with your study. If you don't understand something here or there, do not get discouraged easily. You have to be patient. I always say it is like a jigsaw puzzle. Until you put in the last piece, the picture is always not complete. Sometimes you may want to know something. Please hold it. You will understand later. Please be patient.
Don’t miss the classes
Also I would like to ask you not to skip or not to miss the lessons. Because if you miss the lessons, it will be very difficult for you to make that up. If you miss, try to study it with the help of the tape or with the help of a friend. If you miss one lesson here and one lesson there, then at the next lesson you will not know what the teacher is talking about. Sometimes it happens. It is best not to miss a class. But if you must miss a class, please try to make it up with a friend or with the help of the tape.
Also Do Not be Afraid of PÈÄi
Also please do not be afraid of PÈÄi words. That is why I gave you the PÈÄi alphabet. We cannot altogether avoid using the PÈÄiwords. We always use PÈÄi words because sometimes the English translation is not adequate. In order not to have you misunderstand, I will use both PÈÄi and English. So please do not be afraid of PÈÄi words. After you memorize some words, you will see it is not so difficult. It is inevitable and unavoidable that you have to know some PÈÄi words. If you learn or study something new, you have to learn some technical words. If you study Zen, you have to study Japanese words. In the same way, you have to learn some PÈÄiwords. So please do not be afraid of the PÈÄiwords. In the Comprehensive Manual the PÈÄitext of Abhidhammatthasa~gaha is given. You can try reading the PÈÄi text.
[Tape #2]
Chapter One
2. Two Kinds of Truth
What is Truth?
We will study two kinds of truth recognized in Buddhism or in the teachings of the Buddha. Whenever people talk about truth, they say there is only one truth. Different people interpret it in different ways. But since different people interpret it in different ways, there cannot be one truth but many truths. If you ask a Christian what truth is, you get one answere. If you ask a Hindu, you will get a still different answer. So truth can be different depending upon what kind of person you ask.
According to Buddhism truth means simply something that is true, that is real either in the conventional sense or in ultimate sense. Some things are true only according to the convention, only according to the usage or mode of expression accepted by a certain group of people or accepted by people at large. Some are true according to the ultimate sense. Whether it is true according to convention or according to ultimate sense, it is called truth or it is called reality in Buddhism.
Since something which is true, which is real, is called truth, truth need not be good only. Truth need not be lofty only. It can be anything which is true as it is described. It is supported by the fact that craving which is an unwholesome mental state is taught by the Budddha as the second Noble Truth . The second Noble Truth is craving. Craving is an unwholesome mental state which gives bad results, which is bad, which is not lofty. Still it is called truth in Buddhism. So truth need not necessarily be good or lofty. It may be good or it may be bad. It may be lofty or it may be lowly. But it must be true. When I say the fire burns, the burning is the truth of fire. That is truth. So in Buddhism craving is the truth. Mindfulness—you all practise mindfulness meditation—is the truth. Wisdom is truth. Concentration is truth. In Buddhism truth needs not be good only. It may be either good or bad , lofly or lowly. Whatever is true in the conventional sense or in the ultimate sense is truth.
Two Kinds of Truth Recognized in Buddhism
In Buddhism two kinds of truth are reconized. The first is the Conventional Truth. The second is Ultimate Truth. We can call truth reality. They are interchangable. There is conventional reality—something that is true in conventional sense, and something that is true according to ultimate sense. There are always these two kinds of truth in world.
Conventional Truth
What is conventional truth? Conventional truth is that which conforms to the convention or usage of world. Now in the beginning, in the early days of a human life on this earth, by common consent a name for something is accepted. That was accepted by all people. A thing comes to be known by that name. For example a certain kind of animal is known as, or is designated as ‘a cat’. That was accepted by all the people. If you want to refer to that animal you say the word 'cat'. That is conventional . Conventional Truth is something which is accepted by the people at large. It is accepted by 'common consent' . I was afraid of using the expression 'common consent' before. To be exact just yesterday I picked up this book and there that very expression is given. So I was glad. It is said there "people have simply agreed by common consent that a particular group of written letters or oral sounds shall represent or stand for a particular object or idea. We can have common consent. That is agreement by all people: Let us call this a man. Let us call this a woman. Let us call this a cat, a dog and so on. That is Conventional Truth.
Suppose there is a cat here. Then I say, "There is a cat." I am telling the truth. I am not telling you a lie because the animal which is accepted as a cat is here. That is one kind of truth which is conventional truth or conventional reality. Or we can take the example of a car. How did you come here? You came in a car. When you say you came in a car, you are not lying to me. You are telling the truth, the conventional truth. It's true that you came in a car. The conventional truth 'car' or the thing represented by the name 'car' is a reality, a conventional reality. The same is true for a house, a man, a woman. You can give as many examples as you like. Everything in the world which is given a name can be a conventional truth.
This conventional truth is called Sammuti Sacca in PÈÄi. I want you to be familiar with these words. Sammuti Sacca. Sammuti means just common concept or common agreement. Sacca means truth. You may have met with a phrase 'CattÈri AriyasaccÈni'. The word 'Sacca' is truth. It is called Sammuti Sacca or conventional reality.
It is also callled PaÒÒatti. PaÒÒatti is translated as concept. ©ÈÓamiÄi in his translation of the Visuddhi-magga, the Path of Purification, gives some information about the concepts, PaÒÒatti. He concluded that, "all this shows that the word 'PaÒÒatti' carries the meaning of either appelation or concept or both together. No English word quite corresponds." There is no English word which corresponds squarely with the word PaÒÒatti. Let us accept the word 'concept' as the translation of this word.
NÈma-paÒÒatti
PaÒÒatti is in contrast to Paramattha which will come next.The conventional truth is also called PaÒÒatti.There are two kinds of PaÒÒatti. This much I think you need to understand because if you are impatient, if you want to know more about PaÒÒatati, you can read the end of the eighth chapter of this book (Abhidhammatthasa~gaha).That section deals with the PaÒÒatti or conventions. Here we just need to understand two kinds of PaÒÒatti two kinds of concepts.The first is called NÈmaPaÒÒatti. NÈma here means name. The word 'NÈma'means name or mind, mental phenomena. But here it means name. Therefore Nama PaÒÒatti means name concept. Name concept means just names just names given to objects.These names make things known.Therefore they are called in Pali nama PaÒÒatti.The word 'PaÒÒatti' has two meanings. One is active and the other is passive. PaÒÒatti means something that makes some other thing known.When we say 'a car', the name 'a car' makes the real car known. By the word 'car' we know the real thing, a vehicle with four wheels and so on. Pannatti here means something that makes some other thing known, a name that makes things known. Nama PaÒÒatti is names given to objects.There are thousands and thousands of Nama Pannattis. Here in this room you can have how many PaÒÒattis? Ten, twenty, thirty. Any name given to a thing or to a being is called Nama PaÒÒatti. A man, a woman, a house, a camera, a tape recorder they are called Nama PaÒÒatti.
Attha-paÒÒatti
The second one is called Attha PaÒÒatti.Attha means here a thing. Attha PaÒÒatti is thing concept. That means the objects conveyed by the names or concepts. That means the objects represented by these names. They are called PaÒÒatti because they are made known. Here we get the passive meaning of the word 'PaÒÒatti'.Sometimes it is good to have two meanings to a word.But sometimes it is confusing because it can mean both things. So we have to understand in which meanng it is used in a given context. In the word 'Attha PaÒÒatti' the word 'PaÒÒatti' means something which is made known, something which is made known by a Nama PaÒÒatti, by the name. Again let us take the example car. We have the name 'car'. And we have the thing which we call 'a car'. That thing is Attha PaÒÒatti, thing concept. The name 'car' is Nama PaÒÒatti. In most cases there are always these two Pannattis going together—Nama PaÒÒatti and Attha PaÒÒatti. A house—the name 'house' is Nama PaÒÒatti. The real house the house itself is Attha PaÒÒatti.A man-the name 'man' is Nama PaÒÒatti. The person, the man is Attha PaÒÒatti. In most cases we can get both Nama PaÒÒatti and Attha PaÒÒatti for these things.
When we say 'objects', we mean both mental and physical objects. Mental states are objects. Material states are objects.
What about the name given to a mental state called contact? It is Phassa.The contact which is given to the mental contact—the contact of mind with the object-can we get two PaÒÒattis there, NÈma PaÒÒatti and Attha PaÒÒatti? We have not come to Paramattha, ultimate truth yet. Contact or Phassa is one of the ultimate realities. So in the case of Phassa we can have NÈma PaÒÒatti because Phassa is a name. The contact itself however is not called Attha PaÒÒatti. It is Paramattha. It is ultimate truth.With regard to names given to those belonging to ultimate truth we can have Nama PaÒÒatti and Paramattha, ultimate truth—not NÈma PaÒÒatti and Attha PaÒÒatti. With regard to other things, those that do not belong to ultimate reality, there can be these two concepts or PaÒÒattis, Nama PaÒÒatti and Attha PaÒÒatti. You can see many NÈma PaÒÒattis and Attha PaÒÒattis all around you.
These concepts, these conventional usages we cannot do away with them. We cannot avoid using conventional terms, conventional language when we communicate with other people. That is because we live in this conventional world.We have to use the terms of convention to make the meanings known to other people. Otherwise there would be great confusion. A man is made up of five aggregates. A woman is also a group of five aggregates. If one says a group of five aggregates comes to the monastery, you don't know if it is a man or a woman. So we cannot do away with conventional terms when we speak, when we communicate with each other. But we must understand what ultimate reality we are talking about when we use these conventional terms.
PaÒÒatti is Timeless
These are called concepts. Concepts are said to be out of time, beyond time, timeless.There are people who want to argue against this. PaÒÒatti or convention or concept has no existence of its own, in its own right. What is PaÒÒatti? You cannot grasp it in your hands. For example a name-a name is a name. We cannot say a name arises, stays for some time and disappears. A name is a name because it is in our minds. They are products of mental construction. We think of them as something and then we use that designation. Since it is said to exist only in our minds, it actually has no reality, no existence. That is why it cannot be said that concept is past, or concept is present, or concept is future. It is beyond this time frame. That is why PaÒÒatti is said to be timeless. Only these phenomena which have an arising, and then a static stage, and a disappearing, only those that have these stages are said to be existent. Those that do not have these three-arising, aging and dying - if something does not have these three phases of existence, we do not say it exists. The convention or the names given to the things and the things themselves are said to be nonexistent in reality. As a man you exist. A man is a convention or a concept. The name is a concept and the person is also a concept. The person does not really exist. What really exists is the five aggregates. But we call this group of five aggregates a man, a woman, a person, a being and so on. A man, a woman, an animal or whatever is only our mental projections or mental constructions. We think of them as existing although actually they do not exist in the ultimate sense. In the conventional sense they exist. Since concepts have no arising, no aging and no disappearing, they are said to be out of time. They are timeless. So PaÒÒatti is said to be timeless, like Nibbana. Nibbana has no beginning, no arising. So it has no disappearing, no end. That is why Nibbana is also called timeless. In the same way PaÒÒatti is called timeless.
We may say if call something by some name that it arises at that moment. Let's take a car. That's my favorite example. Somebody invented a car and then he called it a car. You may argue that the convention or PaÒÒatti car arises at that time. Actually since the PaÒÒatti is in your mind only and not an ultimate thing, we cannot say that it arose at that moment or that it exists.
We can understand more with names. You give a name to a child. You call it by that bane. But we cannot say when that name first came into being. And then when people use that name it seems to exist. When people forget that name, it seems to disappear. Later on somebody will come and say there was such a person by this name perhaps a hundred years ago. We then remember that name again. So that name which is a concept is beyond time. It is not present, not past and not future. So it is timeless.
Ultimate Truth
The second one is ultimate truth. We are more concerned with ultimate truth because Abhidhamma deals with ultimate truth. What is ultimate truth? Ultimate truth is that which conforms to reality. In this book, A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, it is said that if it is reducible, it is not an ultimate truth. Ultimate truth is that which is irreducible. It is the last thing which you cannot reduce any further. That is the ultimate truth.
A person,let us say a man, the name 'man' is a name concept. The person is a thing concept. What is real in that person is the five aggreeates. These five aggregates have a beginning. Also they age. And ultimately they die. They have this existence of their own, existence in their own right. So they are called ultimate reality. If we reduce what we call a person to the irreducible elements, we get the five aggregates or we can say we get mind and matter. The five aggregates or the members of these five aggregates are called ultimate truth because they are real. They have areal existence. They have an existence in their own right.
Consciousness means Citta. Citta would be an ultimate truth. It really is. It has the three phases of existence—arising, aging and disappearing. After remaining for these three phases or these three stages, one conciousness disappears and then another conciousness has arises. Since consciousaness has arising, aging and disappearing, we say that it exits in the ultimate sense. Ultimate truth is that which conforms to reality.
It is called Paramattha Sacca in PÈlÊ. Paramattha is defined as the ultimate or correct thing. We can say ultimate or correct reality. Why? Because it is real as it is. It is not otherwise than is stated. It is not turned round. It is not the reverse of what it is said to be. It is not the opposite of what it is said to be. It is not wrong. That is what we call the ultimate thing or the ultimate truth. When we say there is consciousness, there really is consciousness. Consciousness really exits. So conciousness is said to be the ultimate truth.
The ultimate truth is not like things in magic shows or in mirrors. At magic shows they will produce something out of nothing. We think they are producing a real thing. But actually they are tricks. Sometimes they seem so real that we want to believe they are producing real things. Things shown at magic shows are not real. They are just illusiors. In the same way what we call a man, or a woman, or a car, or a house is an illusion. It is not a real thing. But what is real is the components contained in these things.
I think you have seen a mirage. It is like water. From a distance people who see it may think there is water there. You follow the water but you never get to that place. It moves with yoirself. In PÈlÊ it is called deers' carving. The deer see the mirage in the distance. When they are thirsty, they will follow the mirage untill they fall and die. A mirage is not a real thing. If you have seen it, it looks like it is real. It looks like there is water up there. When you get closer to it, it moves further and further away from you. That is an illusion.
Paramattha, the ulimate thing, is not like that. It is real and it really exists. That is why it is called ultimate thing.
Another meaning of Paramattha is it can be seen by oneself. It can be realized by oneself. We can say it is to be seen by oneself. It is to be experienced by oneself. The ultimate realities can be seen by ourselves, by us. They can be experienced by us.
Ultimate realities are not like things known by hearsay which may or may not be true. When we hear something about somebody from someone, that may or may not be true because it is hearsay. We cannot be sure that it is really true. It may be false. We have not seen it for ourselves. Once we see it for ourselves, then we know it really is. Then we know it is true. Things we know from hearsay, things we know from report from others may or may not be true. Such things are not called Paramattha. In order to be called Paramattha they must be experienced by ourselves.
Let us take consciousness. Especially when you practise meditation you know there is consciousness. You know that your mind goes out here and there. You can experience it or you can see it for yourself. It is not through reading books or attending talks, or by speculation, but by experience that you can see that. Something which are experienced by ourselves, are called ultimate truths.
For example feeling – it is too real. You sit for meditation and after some time you get pain there. Sometimes it becomes so intense that you have to give up. It is very real. You can experience it. You know that there is feeling. You know there is painful feeling. Or if you are happy, you know there is pleasurable feeling. You know it for yourself because you have experienced it for yourself. You don't have to go to another person to verify by oneself through direct experience is called ultimate reality. Ultimate reality can be verified by one's own experience.
This definition shows that until we see them for ourselves, they are not ultimate realities for us . For example Nibbana-Nibbana is the highest of the ulitimate realities. Until we see Nibbana for ourselves, until we realize Nibbana for ourseleves, it is not yet an ultimate reality for us. I will say,May Iattain Nibbhana! or "May you attain Nibbana!"I do some meritorous deed so I may get to Nibbana. We always say that. When we say 'Nibbana', the Nibbana we are are taking in our mind is not the real Nibbana. It is just the name concept, Nibbana. But when we see it for ourselves, when we experience the enlightenment for ourselves, then we will Nibbana through direct experience. Only then will Nibbana become ultimate reality for us. Until we reach that stage although Nibbana is an Ultimate reality, it is not yet an ultimate reality for us.
For something to become an ultimate reality it must be real as it is stated. It must not be otherwise than is stated. If it is said there is consiciousness, there is consciousness. Also it must be experienced by oneself. It is to be seen by oneself through direct experience.
There are similes or examples to explain ultimate reality and conventional reality. The most obvious is a house. What we call a house is not ultimate reality. The ultimate reality is the parts. Without these parts there can be no house. If you take away these parts one by one, you don't have a house.
The same is true for a man .If you cut that man into pieces one by one, you lose the man. There is just a heap of different parts of the body. It is just a simile. What is real in a man is just the parts and not the whole. Without the parts there is no whole.
Another example is a circle of fire. That is very obvious. Does a circule of fire really exist? If I pick up a torch and move it round, you say you see a circle of fire. But you know there is no circle of fire. There is fire at different places on the circumference of the circle. Your mind takes all these points and constructs a whole circle. Actually there is no circule of fire. Everybody knows that. The circle of fire is PaÒÒatti. It does not really exist. What really exists is the light of the fire at different places one at a time, one at a moment. We are so adept at constructing these thoughts, these images into a whole that we think we see a circle of fire. But actually we don't see a circle of fire.
That is because our minds work very very fast. We don't realize it when we are ordinarily talking or speaking. When we consider a child learning to read, we can see how the mind works very quickly. When a child learns to read, it has to spell. It cannot read right away. He has to spell out the word 'two' for example. Then he knows it is the word 'two' but now you know it right away. You don't have to think of anything. You think you don't have to construct it. It is like second nature to you. You just read the word the word 'two' or a long word like 'comprehension' or 'meditation' or whatever. In order to read a long word like 'comprehension', you have to read all the letters. Then your mind constructs or composes all these letters into one whole. For a child it may take two seconds, but for you it does not take even a second. This thinking is always with us, but with things familiar to us we are not aware of that thinking. With things unfamiliar to us such thinking becomes apparent.
Let us look at a line of ants. Is there a line of ants? You take the individual ants away and you lose the line. There is no line of ants. But people say, "I see a line of ants". Our mind constructs it into a line, but actually there is no line of ants. A line is a concept. A line is an illusion. Only the individual ants are real.
A piece of rope is made up of small fibers or strands. If you take away the small strands one by one, you will not have a rope at all. What really exists is just the small threads, just the small strands. If you put them back together, then you say there is a rope. What you call a rope actually is an illusion. What exists are those threads or small fibers.
You look at a river and you think the water is always there. You know that every second there is new water flowing. There are many similes to demonstrate the ultimate truth and the conventional truth. These are just some of the similes. For example a car we say that a car is a convention and the parts are ultimate truth. Of course even the parts are not ultimate truth yet. If you break it down to the smallest particle, that particle is the ultimate truth. The smallest particale of matter is the ultimate truth.
There are two kinds of truth-conventional truth and ultimate truth. Abhidhamma deals mostly with ultimate truth. I say 'mostly' because there are seven books of Abhidhamma and one book deals with concepts. Designation of Types of Beings-that book does not deal with ultimate truth. That book is about kinds of persons. Let 's say Abhidhamma deals mostly with ultimate truth.
Four Kinds of Ultimate Truth
Citta
There are four kinds of ultimate truths accepted in Abhidhamma. The first is Citta. Citta is translated as consciousness. What is Citta? Citta is the pure awareness of the object. Here awareness means just pure awareness, not the awareness we use in meditation. In meditation we use the word 'awareness'. Awareness in meditation is actually mindfulness. In defining the word 'Citta' awareness means just the bare awareness. It is knowing that something is there. It is something like that. That pure or bare awareness of the object is what is called Citta in Abhidhamma. The word 'conciousness ' is not an adequate word for the Pali word 'Citta'. There is no better word for it, so we have to accept it as the translation for the word 'Citta'. Whenever we use the word 'conciousness' please understand in the Abhidhamma sense and not in the sense known by common people. Conciousness is the pure or bare awareness of the object. It is like water which is clear.
Citta is never without an object. According to Abhidhamma we cannot block our minds from objects even though we are fast asleep. We still have this flow of conciousness going on. And so long as there is consciousness,there is the object of that consciousness. That object is obscure. So we are not aware of that object. Actually there is an object. That object serves as something for the conciousness to hold on to. Even when we are fast asleep, even when we have fainted or even when we are under anesthesia, there is conciousness going. Conciousness is never without an object. It is always with us. Whether we are asleep or awake, or whatever we are doing, there is always consciousness. In our life there is not a single moment when we are without consciousness. Conventionally we say he is unconscious. That means he has lost consciousness. In an ordinary sense that is true. According to Abhidhamma he still has consciousness. There is still awareness of an object. In that case it is awareness of an obscure object. Citta is never without an object. And Citta is always with us.
We Buddhists accept rebirth. Citta always goes on and on, not that it is permanent. This flow of Citta, this continuity of Citta goes on and on. Cittas are always with us.
There are synonyms for the word 'Citta'. I think you should understand these words. The first one is ViÒÒÈna. In the formula for dependent origination the word' ViÒÒÈna is used. Sankhara paccaya ViÒÒÈnam. ViÒÒÈna means Citta. Sometimes Mana is used. Sometimes Ceta is also used. You will find the word 'Cetasika.' The next ultimate reality is Cetasika. There you have Ceta. Ceta means mind. Then sometimes mind or Citta is called Manasa. Sometimes it is even called Hadaya. Hadaya means the heart. Both in English and in pÈlÊand perhaps in other languages as well, the heart and the mind are connected. The word 'heart' is a synonym for Citta or consciousness or the mind. We say, "He has a good heart" or something like that. That does not mean the physical heart. It means he has a good frame of mind. These words are the synonyms of the word 'Citta'. Sometimes especially when something is written in verses they may use these words to conform to the meter of the verse. Sometimes you need only two syllables. Other times you need three syllables. When you need three syllables, you will use ViÒÒÈna. When you need only two syllables, you may use Citta or Mana. These are the synonyms of Citta.
There are 89 or 121 types of Cittas or consciousness recognized in Abhiddhamma or taught in Abhidhamma. In this first chapter we will study the different types of consciousness in detail.
Cetasika
The second ultimate reality is Cetasika. You find the word 'Ceta' there. It is translated as mental factors, mental concomitants or maybe by some other names also. The definition is these which are yoked on Citta or those which are yoked with Citta. That means those which arise together with Citta depending on it. That is why they are called Cetasika. Ceta is synonomous with Citta. Those that depend on Ceta for their arising are called Cetasika. Cetasikas are those that arise together or at the same time with Citta. Only when Citta arises can they arise. If there is no Citta arising, they cannot arise. Citta and Cetasikas arise at the same moment, at the same time, but if there is no Citta, there can be no Cetasikas.
Bare awareness of the object, that is like a connection between yourself and the object. Without that connection how can one experience the object? How can there be feeling for that object? How can there be understanding of that object? How can there be remembering of that object? How can there be attachment to that object? In order for these mental states to arise there needs to be Citta. Citta is something like the connection between you and the object. Cetasikas are those that depend on Citta for their arising. They arise together with Citta.
There are four characteristics of Cetasikas. Actually you will learn these four characteristics in the second chapter. Just so you would have a taste of what Cetasikas are I put them here.
1. They must arise toghter with Citta at the same moment, at the same time.
2. They must perish or disappear with Citta. So they arise and disapper together with Citta.
3. They must have the same object as Citta. If the Citta takes visible object as object, then the Cetasikas also take visible object as object. There is no such thing as Citta taking one object and Cetasikas taking another object. That is impossible. They must have the same object. They must take the same object as Citta takes.
4. They must have a common base. Common base means-for example seeing consciousness depends on the eye. If you have no eyes, you do not see. There will be no seeing consciousness. Seeing consciousness is said to depend on the eye. Hearing consciousness depends on the ear. Smelling consciousness depends on the nose. Tasting consciousness depends on the tongue. Touching consciousness depends on the body. Knowing consciousness depends on the mind. They must have a common base. If Citta depends on the eye, then Cetasikas must also depend on the eye. These are the four characteristics. If any phenomenon answers to these four characteristics, that phenomenon is called a Catasika.
There are some material properties that arise with Citta and perish together with Citta. But they do not take an object. They do not have a common base. So they are not called Catasikas. You will understand that later.
These are the four characteristics of Cetasikas. In order to know if something is a Cetasika we can check with these four characteristics. If they have four charateristics, then we can say they are Cetasikas. They must arise simultaneously with Citta. They must disappear simultaneously with Citta. They must have the same object with Citta. They must have a common base or depend on the same base with Citta.
How many Cetasikas are there? 52. 52 Catasikas are recognized in Abhidhamma. We will study Cetasikas in the second chapter of this manual.
R|pa
The third reality is called R|pa. The pÈÄi word is R|pa. The English translation is matter. What is R|pa? R|pa is that which changes when coming into contact with adverse conditions such as cold, heat etc. . ., especially the R|pa in your body. When you go in the sun and it is hot, there is one continuity of material properties. Then you go into the shade and there is another continuity of material properties. If you take a shower, there is another kind and so on. That which changes with cold, heat, hunger, thirst, bite of insects is called R|pa or matter. Change here means obvious or discernable change. Mind changes more quickly then matter, but mind is not called R|pa. The change of mind is not so evident, not so obvious as the change of R|pa. Only the change which is obvious, which is easy to see, which is easily discernable is meant by change here. That which change with these adverse condition is called R|pa, matter.
R|pa exists in living beings as well as outside things. There is R|pa in our bodies. There is R|pa in the house, in the trees and so on. R|pa is both internal and external. R|pa is both in living beings and outside things. Cittas and Cetasikas arise only in living beings.
R|pa has no ability to cognize. It doesn't know. You can hit the desk and it will not say, "Oh, this is painful." Or something like' that. R|pa has no ability to cognize. It does not know. It does not take objects because it is the object itself.
There are 28 types of matter or material properties recognized in Abhidhamma. In Abhidhamma 28 material properties are taught. Although there may be different kinds of matter in our bodies, if we break them down to the ultimate realites, we get 28 kinds of matter.
We will study matter in the sixth chapter. They are comparable to the elements in chemistry. Is anyone familiar with that chart? Here also there are 28 material properties. They are put together in different ways like the chemical elements. They are comparable to the chemical elements, but not exactly the same as the chemical elements.
NibbÈna
The fourth ultimate reality is NibbÈna. This is the highest aim of Buddhists. What is Summum Bonum? The best, the highest?
Student: the greatest.
Sayadaw: Bonum comes from Bonafide? NibbÈna is defined as the extinction of desire, illwill and delusion. Actually it is the extinction of all mental defilements. It is like health or peace. Many people don't like the negative words to describe Nibb|na. But I think we cannot avoid using negative terms. We do not mean that NibbÈna is a negative state simply because we use negative terms to describe it. Health for example-what is health? No disease. Freedom from disease or having no disease is called health. So health is a positive state, but it is described as absence of disease, absence of illness. Peace is also like that. NibbÈna is the extinction of desire, illwill and delusion. Actually that means NibbÈna is the extinction of all mental defilements.
Also it is described as liberation or freedom from suffering. We can say it is the extinction of all suffering.
It is unconditioned. Please note this. About two years ago you gave me an article on Paticca Samuppada. In that article the author said, "NibbÈna is conditioned". I was very surprised. She said, "NibbÈna is uncompounded, but it is conditioned". That is not correct. She did not understand the PÈÄi word 'Sankhata' correctly. NibbÈna is described as Asankhata. 'A' means not-not Sankhata. Sankhata is translated as compounded by many authors. She took that as a correct rendering. So she accepted that NibbÈna is uncompouned. NibbÈna is not a compound of anything, but she said NibbÈna is not unconditioned. When the Buddha described NibbÈna he used the word 'not made'. Not made and unconditioned are the same. Along with the word 'Asankhata' another word used is 'Akata'. Akata means not made. NibbÈna is definitely unconditioned. There is no condition for NibbÈna. We cannot say NibbÈna exists because if we say NibbÈna exists we are saying it has a beginning and it must have an end. It is said that NibbÈna has no beginning and no end. NibbÈna is unconditioned and NibbÈna is not composed of any component parts.
NibbÈna cannot be adequately described in everyday terms. Do you know the simile of the fish and the tortoise? A tortoise goes about on the land. He walks about on the land. Then he went into the water and talked to the fish. The fish asked, what he had been doing? The tortoise replied, "I walked on the land and saw trees" or something like that. The fish could not understand what that was because they had never been on the land. We have never seen NibbÈna and so we cannot really understand. And also NibbÈna cannot be described adequately in everyday terms. It is totally out of this world. We always think in terms of this world, in terms of existence. Many people think NibbÈna is a place or some realm to go to or to reach. If we say NibbÈna is the extinction of all suffering and means the extinction of the five aggregates, you may not want to go to NibbÈna. You may not want to realizie NibbÈna because we all think in terms of existence. If we are going to go out of existence and not become anything again, would it be acceptable to you? So it cannot be described in everyday terms. NibbÈna is explained in the last section of the sixth chapter in this manual. If you are impatient, you may read that section.
The Four Noble Truths Belong to Ultimate Truths
The Four Noble Truths - we have talked about truths, but up until now we have left out the Four Noble Truths. You may want to know how the Four Noble Truths relate to the four ultimate truths. The Noble Truth of Suffering means Cittas, Cetasikas and Rups. Supramundane Cittas are outside of the Four Noble Truths strictly according to Abhidhamma. The supramundane Cittas do not belong to any of the Four Noble Truths. The Noble Truth of the Origination of Suffering what is that ? Craving. Craving is one of the 52 mental factors or Cetasikas. The second Noble Truth is a Cetasika which is craving or attachment. The third Noble Truth is the cessation of suffering which is NibbÈna. The third Noble Truth is the fourth ultimate truth. The Fourth Noble Truth, the way leading to the cessation of suffering or simply the Noble Eightfold path—where does it belong? The Noble Eightfold path is just a combination of eight Cetasikas, eight mental factors. The fourth Noble Truth belongs to the second ultimate truth. The Four Noble Truths are included in the four ultimate truths. It is not one on one. The first Noble Truth belongs to the first ultimate truth, the ultimate truth and third ultimate truth because it consists of Cittas, Cetasikas and R|pas. The second Noble Truth belongs to the second ultimate truth. The Third Noble Truth belongs to the fourth ultimate truth and the Fourth Nobsle Truth belongs to the second ultimate truth Cetasikas. So' the Four Noble Truths are included in the four ultimate truths.
When Buddha taught he taught in different ways become his aim is for his listeners to understand and to realize the truth. Therefore he taught in different methods for different people. That is we have so many teachings, but actually they meet at some place and are the same. Buddha may use the word aggregates for one group. To another group he may use the word elements or sense bases. Actually they mean the same thing. He taught the Four Noble Truths in his first sermon—the Noble Truth of Suffering, the Origination of Suffering, the Cessation of suffering, the way Leading to the Cessation of Suffering—but in Abhidhamma he taught the four ultimate truths. Actually they are the same.
If you have questions we have some time.
SÈdhu ! SÈdhu ! SÈdhu !
Student: It is difficult to understand that NibbÈna is still Anatta.
Sayadaw: Anatta means not Atta. means a soul or a permanent entity. It is translated as self or soul or whatever. NibbÈna is not sould. That is why NibbÈna is called Anatta. NibbÈna has no causes. NibbÈna does not depend on any condition. That is why it is called unconditioned. It is not made by any causes. Since it is not Atta it is called Anatta.
Student: Not clear what student said.
Sayadaw: We cannot say NibbÈna is here or NibbÈna is there. There is no place for NibbÈna. It is something like health. We can enjoy health but when we come to define it there is difficulty. Health is absence of disease. NibbÈna is absence of mental defilments. Once a monk asked Sariputta if NibbÈna has feeling. Then Sariputta said, "No." So actually we do not enjoy NibbÈna. We can say we experience it, but not that we enjoy it. We do not enjoy or suffer. NibbÈna is just a state of peace.
Student: Some say NibbÈna is a state of nihlism because you don’t feel anything at all. What is the difference? Is it the same thing?
Sayadaw: I don’t know what nihlism is.
Student: Nihilsm is a philosophical term reducing everything to nothing, no feeling, to zero as a state.
Sayadaw: It is said when a Buddha or an Arahant dies there is no rebirth for him. That means there is more existence for him, no more life for him. He just disappers. I don't know whether you call it nihlism or not. Whether one calls it nihlism or not, NibbÈna is NibbÈna. You may like it or you may not like it. That is your business. NibbÈna is NibbÈna. That is why I told you that you may not like it if you really know what NibbÈna is.
Student: Is there Citta within NibbÈna?
Sayadaw: No. NibbÈna is one ulitmate reality. If there were Citta in NibbÈna, NibbÈna would not be permanent. It would be impermanent. So there is no Cittas, Cetasikas or R|pas in NibbÈna. NibbÈna is one distinct reality.
Student: Suppose you have three pails of water, one cool temperature, one medium temperture and one warm temperature. Then you stick one hand in cool water and one in warm water. Next you put both hand in the water of medium temperature. One hand will feel it is cool and one hand will feel it is warm. That may be an illusion. In that case it is hard to tell what is real and what is not.
Sayadaw: When you feel heat or cold, what is ultimate reality is the feeling there, not your hand. Feeling is feeling. It has the characteristic of experiencing the object. The object may be hot or it may be cold, but you feel it; you experience it.
That experince is what we call feeling. Feeling does not change. Feeling is feeling. The characteristic of feeling cannot be changed. That is one way of explaning the ultimate truth. The ultimate truths are impermanent. Every moment they are arising and disappearing, arising and disappearing. Even though they are always arising and disappearing, their intrinsic nature does not change. For example consciousness is the awareness of the object. It is always the awareness of the object. It does not change form that to some other thing. That is what we call ultimate truth.
Student: You said that Catasika must have the same object as Citta. I just want to make sure that mental object is included with that.
Sayadaw: Mental object—yes any kind of object.
Student: Cetasikas need to have Citta to arise. The other way around—can you have Citta to arise without Cetasikas?
Sayadaw: No. Cittas and cetasikas arise together. They always arise together at the same moment. Only when there is Citta can they arise together. Only when there is a king of
connection with the object can there be experincing of the object, the feeling of the object the attachment to the object and so no. That is why they are dependent upon Citta, but they arise at the same time. Like this (Sayadaw claps his hands.) The sound is dependent upon the meeting of two hands. The meeting of two hands and the sound arise at the same time. The sound depends upon the meeting of the two hands. We say there is sound because of the meeting of the palms together. The sound does not arise later but at the moment of their coming together. Similary when consciousness arises, Cetasiks arise together with Citta.
Student: Do you always need to have Cetasika with Citta?
Sayadaw: We Do not say that Citta needs Cetasikas to arise, but they always arise together. Since the arising of Cetasikas depends on Citta, we say that Cetasikas depend on Citta, Although they depend on Citta, they arise together with Citta, like the sound.There is an explanation that Cetasikas cannot arise without Cittas.The same is true for Cittas. Cittas arise with Cetasikas.Cittas do not arise alone. Whenever Cittas arise, Cetasikas also arise. It is like you are doing something together. One is the leader. The others are followers. You walk toghter, but you depend on the leader.
Student: You cannot have a leader without someone following.
Student: It is said that pannatti is timeless. Is it also not conditioned?
Sayadaw: PaÒÒatti is not conditioned. You know pannatti is nothing actually. It is just the creation of our mind. That is why we cannot say that arises or that it disappears. The name Sumedha-many- many world cycles ago Buddha was born-
End of Tape
[Tape #3]
Chapter 1(D)
Akusala Cittas
Citta Defined
Citta as you know is one of the four ultimate realities. I've told you that Citta is the awareness of the object. In Abhidhamma every term is adequately defined. Citta is defined as awareness of the object. When defining the terms of Abhidhamma, the ancient Commentaries used three ways of defining. That is explained in the manual on page 27. They define the Abhidhamma terms as agent, as instrument and as sheer activity or mere activity. Let us take the example of Cittas. When they define Citta, they define in three ways. The first way is Citta is that which knows the object. That means Citta is something which does some other thing. Citta is something which knows the object. That is the definition ‘by way of an agent’. That means Citta is the one that does. The second one is ‘by way of instrument’. That means Citta is something with the help of which the other concomitants know the object. Citta is an instrument. Citta is indispensable for these concomitant states to know the object or to be aware of the object. That is by way of instrument. The third one is just ‘by way of mere activity’, just mere happening. That means Citta is a knowing of the object. They use an abstract noun when they define in this way. Every term in Abhidhamma is defined or explained in these three ways - as an agent, as an instrument or as just mere activity, mere happening. Among these three the last one, definition as mere activity, is the most adequate definition of these terms.
Why did they use the other two? Buddhists are always concerned with rejection of soul. There are people who think Citta is something that knows the object. There is something like a permanent soul, a soul that knows the object. In order to refute that, in order to deny that, they gave the first kind of definition. It is not the Atman, it is not the soul that knows the object. It is the Citta that knows the object. The rejection of Atman is very important for Buddhists. Sometimes people think that when we know something, we know with the help of Atman. The Atman helps us to know things to know objects. To refuge that belief they give the second kind of definition. No, it is not the Atman that makes the other concomitants know the object. It is the Citta that makes the other concomitants know the object. Citta is instrumental in these concomitants knowing the object. If they want to define adequately without reference to these other opinions, they would just say Citta is knowing of the object. There are always these three kinds of definitions. Any one will do. Citta is that which knows the object; Citta is that with the help of which concomitants know the object; or Citta is just the knowing of the object.
Knowing
What is the knowing here? Knowing here is just the awareness - not knowing something to be true, something to be good, something to be bad, not that kind of knowing. Here knowing means simply the awareness, the bare awareness, not even the bare attention we use in the instructions for meditation. It is just the bare awareness of the object. That is what is called Citta.
Since it is defined as the awareness of the object, Citta can never arise without an object. Whenever there is Citta, there must be its object. Sometimes it may be a vivid object. Sometimes it may be an obscure object. But object there must be always of Citta is to arise. Citta depends on the object to arise.
Classifications of Citta
This Citta is analyzed in Abhidhamma in different ways. In the Dhammasa~gaÓÊ Citta is classified (We call them genus) according to their nature. That means it is classified according to whether it is wholesome consciousness, unwholesome consciousness and those that are neither wholesome nor unwholesome. That is the order given in the first book of Abhidhamma.
Here in this manual the arrangement is different. Here the arrangement is with reference to the planes of existence. In order to understand that division, you must first understand the planes of existence. These are treated in the fifth chapter of this manual. Briefly there are 31 planes of existence. Eleven belong to sensuous realms or sensuous spheres. Sixteen belong to form spheres. Form here means material. Four belong to formless or inmaterial spheres. Altogether there are 31. Human beings and lower celestial beings belong to the eleven sensuous realms or sensuous spheres.
Consciousness that frequents these realms is called consciousness of sensuous sphere. In PÈÄi that is KÈmÈvacara. That does not mean these types of consciousness do not arise in other realms. They do arise in other realms, but their primary location of arising is the sensuous realms. They are called Cittas pertaining to the sensuous sphere.
There are other types of consciousness, which are called Jhanas, which arise mainly in the fifteen form spheres, fifteen form realms. At first I said sixteen. Now I say fifteen. Out of the sixteen form sphere realms, one realm is the abode of mindless beings. It is said that there is no mind in that realm. We are now studying consciousness which belongs to mind. Therefore that realm has to be left out. The types of consciousness which arise mostly in those fifteen realms are classed as form sphere consciousness. We will use the PÈÄi words later.
There are other highter types of consciousness which mainly belong to or which mainly frequent the four formless realms. We get three groups - the first belonging to sensuous sphere, the second belonging to form sphere or material sphere and the third belonging to formless or inmaterial sphere.
There is another sphere which is called supramundane. That one goes beyond these spheres or three kinds of realms.
In the manual Citta is classified according to the planes of existence. We call these classifications planes of consciousness. You will find the word 'plane of consciousness' in the manual.
How many types of consciousness are there altogether? 89 or 121. You can see at a glance all 89 or 121 types of consciousness on page 28 of the manual. You see first the 81 mundane Cittas. Then if you go to the bottom of the page, you see supramundane Cittas 8 or 40. This is the first division. Citta is actually one with reference to its characteristic of knowing the object. It is accompanied by different mental factors. So Citta becomes many. First Citta is divided into mundane and supramundane.
Then mundane Cittas are subdivided into sense sphere Cittas - how many? 54. And then there are form material sphere Cittas or fine material sphere Cittas. And then next there are inmaterial sphere Cittas twelve.
Sense sphere Cittas are again divided into subdivisions. They are unwholesome Cittas twelve, rootless Cittas eighteen, and sense sphere beautiful Cittas twenty four. Altogether we get 81 mundane Cittas.
Then supramundane Cittas are subdivided into two. First there are wholesome supramundane Cittsa four or twenty. Next there are resultant supramundane Cittas four or twenty. So altogether there are 89 or 121 types of consciousness.
Akusala Cittas
Lobham|la Cittas
Today we are going to study the first group, the unwholesome Cittas. How many unwholesome Cittas are there? Twelve unwholesome Cittas. Why are they called unwholesome? Sometimes they are called immoral or unskillful. I prefer to use unwholesome. Those types of consciousness which are accompanied by greed, hatred and delusion (Lobha, Dosa and Moha) are called unwholesome. Those that are accompanied by the opposite of these three non-greed, non-hatred, non-delusion are called wholesome consciousness. They are also called beautiful consciousness. Those that are accompanied by greed, hatred and delusion (Lobha, Dosa and Moha) are called wholesome.
Lobha, Dosa and Moha are the three roots of unwholesomeness, three roots of evil. Always Lobha is mentioned first and then Dosa and then Moha. There is always this order Lobha, Dosa, Moha. In the Commentary to this manual it is stated that consciousness acconcanied by Lobha is mentioned first because in a given existence the first Javana consciousness that arises is accompanied by Lobha. In whatever existence we are born there is first the attachment to that existence, to that life. That is so strong that we are always attached to our lives. That is why consciousness accompanied by Lobha is mentioned first. Consciousness accompanied by illwill, hatred, anger or whatever you call it is mentioned next. The last two are accompanied by delusion.
Moha or delusion is common to all twelve kinds of consciousness, all twelve types of Akusala consciousness. Since it is common to all, the first eight are not called Lobha-Moha-rooted— just Lobha is taken—so Lobha rooted consciousness. When we say Lobha-rooted consciousness, we must understand there is Moha also. The same is true for Dosa-rooted consciousness as well.
The first Citta—please read the PÈÄi also. You look at the PÈÄi page. Lobham|la Citta—M|la means root. So that means Lobha root, Citta that has Lobha root, Citta which is accompanied by Lobha. Lobha means attachment, greed, craving. All these are Lobha.
The first Citta is Somanassa Sahagata DiÔÔhigata Sampayutta Asa~khÈrika. Somanassa means pleasurable feeling. Somana comes from Su and Mana. Su means good and Mana means mind. Somanassa means the state of having a good mind. When you are happy, your mind is in good shape. Somanassa means pleasure and here it is pleasurable feeling. Sahagata – Saha means together and Gata means to be or arising; So Sahagata means arising together or to be together with Somanassa. That means to be together with this pleasurable feeling. Their blending is so complete that it is difficult to differentiate which is which. It is like water from two rivers blending together. You cannot say which water is from which river. They are blended that way.
DiÔÔhigata Sampayutta–DiÔÔhi means view or opinion. When DiÔÔhi is used without any adjective in front of it, it usually means wrong view. When we want to say right view, we say SammÈdiÔÔhi. SammÈdiÔÔhi is one of the eight factors of Path. Gata has no special meaning here. DiÔÔhigata means wrong view. Sampayutta means to be associated with, so associated with wrong view.
Asa~khÈrika in English means unprompted. I told you the word 'Sa~khÈra' has many meanings. It is very important that you understand correctly what it means in a given context. When you say Sa~khÈra khandha, Sa~khÈra aggregate, you mean fifty Cetasikas. You will come to know them later. When we say all Sa~khÈras are impermanent, we mean all conditioned phenomena, all conditioned mind and matter–not just fifty Cetasikas. Depending on ignorance Sa~khÈras arise. Here Sa~khÈra means Kamma formations. So Sa~khÈra means fifty Cetasikas or five aggregates or just volition (one of the Cetasikas). But here in this particular context Sa~khÈra means effort or inducement or prompting or encouragement by oneself or by others. A means no. So Asa~khÈrika means having no Sa~khÈra, having no prompting, unprompted, spontaneous.
Please read the explanation on page two (of the handouts). "Unprompted (Asa~khÈrika), prompted (Sasankharika): The PÈÄi word Sankhara is used here in the sense specific to Abhidhamma to mean prompting, instigation, inducement (Payoga), or the application of an expedient (UpÈya). This prompting may be induced by others." Sometimes a consciousness arises because others encourage you, other people instigate you. "Or it may originate within yourself." Sometimes you are lazy to do something and then you encourage yourself. "The means employed may be bodily, verbal or purely mental." For example you see someone doing something and you also want to do it. Sometimes other people may show you by example. Sometimes other people may use words to instigate you. Sometimes it is purely in your mind. You encourage yourself.
"That consciousness which arises spontaneously, without prompting or inducement by expedient means is called unprompted (Asa~khÈrika). That consciousness which arises with prompting or inducement by expedient means is called prompted (Sasa~khÈrika)." Actually it means with prompting.
So this kind of consciousness is accompained by pleasurable feeling. It is associated with wrong view. And it is unprompted. Wrong view means believing there is no Kamma, there is no result of Kamma, there is no law of Kamma, there is no this existence or the other existences–something like that. That is called wrong view.
The feeling, wrong view and prompting–these three are what make one consciousness become eight types of consciousness. We will have another feeling, UpekkhÈ, when we reach the fifth Citta. The first Citta is accompanied by pleasurable feeling, associated with wrong view and is unprompted. On the English side I say "with pleasure, with wrong view" so you don't have to use many words. With pleasure, with wrong view and unprompted is the first kind of consciousness. That kind of consciousness arises when? You may read it on page 39 of the manual. "With joy, holding the view that there is no evil in stealing, a boy spontaneously steals an apple from a fruit stall."
The second one is accompanied by pleasurable feeling and is associated with wrong view, but now it is with prompting. It is prompted. So the example given is: "With joy, holding the same view, he steals an apple through the prompting of a friend." His friend asks him to steal it, or sometimes he may encourage himself, "You will get an apple and get to eat it. Why not take it." He may say something like that to prompt himself. Then he steals the apple. In that case his consciousness is accompanied with pleasure, with joy, with wrong view, and with prompting.
The third kind of consciousness arises with joy, but not holding any wrong view, he steals unprompted. He knows that it is wrong to steal but he steals anyway. If he knows that it is wrong to do it, but still he does it, his consciousness is not accompanied by wrong view. The fourth is the same except that it is prompted–so it is with joy, there isn't any wrong view, and it is prompted.
We get four types of consciousness–with pleasure, with wrong view, unprompted; with wrong view, prompted; with pleasure without wrong view, unprompted; with pleasure, without wrong view, prompted. If you understand these four, you understand the other four. Substitute indifferent feeling for pleasurable feeling. Sometimes the boy may steal not with joy. He just steals it. How is it described here? These four are -------- one to accept that the stealing is done with neutral feeling. Here he is not happy. He is not sad. He has a neutral feeling and he steals. In that case one of these' four types of consciousness arises in his mind. Altogether there are eight kinds, eight types of consciousness accompanied by greed (Lobha), accompanied by attachment. Those that make the Citta different are feeling, view, prompting or not prompting. Altogether we get eight types of consciousness.
On the sheet there are circles. I want you to put colors in the circles. It is for you to practise in order to memorize. These circles represent these eight. For the Cittas accompanied with pleasure I use red color. For those that are accompanied by neutral feeling I use blue color. I want you to use these colors, so later I can tell you to look at the red ones, lock at the blue ones. I want you to put colors on your sheets.
Four are accompanied by pleasurable feeling or Somanassa feeling. Four are accompanied by neutral feeling or indifferent feeling.
The word 'UpekkhÈ' is translated as equanimity or indifference. I think equanimity is too great for UpekkhÈ here. I prefer to use indifferent or maybe neutral feeling. Whenever you see the word 'UpekkhÈ', you have to understand which is meant. This term UpekkhÈ is used both for neutral feeling and the lofty state of equanimity. Here it is just neutral feeling. It is neither pleasurable feeling nor displeasurable feeling, just neutral feeling. When you take an object, you are not happy and you are not sad. You have a neutral mind; you just take it. That is UpekkhÈ here.
Dosam|la Cittas
Then we go to Dosamula Cittas two, consciousness rooted in illwill. The word 'Dosa' means anger, illwill, aversion. All these are covered by the word 'Dosa'. The second root is let us say illwill. The type of consciousness accompanied by Dosa is called in PÈÄi Dosa M|la Citta (consciousness rooted in illwill). 'Rooted in' really means accompanied by roots, not coming out of these roots, not the result of these roots. In the manual on page 28 he used greed-rooted, hatred-rooted, delusion-rooted.
The first one is Domanassa Sahagata PaÔigha Sampayutta Asa~khÈrika. The second one is Domanassa Sahagata PaÔigha Sampayutta Sasa~khÈrika. What is Domanassa? Displeasure. Domanassa comes from 'Du' and 'Mana'. Du means bad. Mana means mind. So we get the state of a bad mind or bad mental state. That is Domanassa. It is a feeling, a bad feeling, a displeasurable feeling. Sahagata means the same thing-together with Domanassa feeling. And the PaÔigha Sampayutta–PaÔigha means Dosa. The literal translation of PaÔigha is to strike, to strike at something. When you are angry, it is like striking someone or striking your mind with anger. So it is called PaÔigha Sampayutta Asa~khÈrika.
There is a different between Domanassa on the one hand and Dosa and PaÔigha on the other. Dosa and PaÔigha are the same. Patigha is another word for Dosa. Domanassa is different. Domanassa is feeling. Dosa or PaÔigha is not feeling. It is a separate mental factor. With reference to five aggregates Domanassa belongs to feeling aggregate. Dosa belongs to formation aggregation, Sa~khÈra Khandha. That is the different. Although they arise together and in experience it is very difficult to differentiate these two, still they are different in nature. Domanassa is feeling or VedanÈ. Dosa or PaÔigha is not feeling; it is another mental factor. But whenever there is Domanassa there is PaÔigha. Whenever there is PaÔigha, there is Domanassa. Therefore here we do not have PaÔigha Vipayutta. We have only PaÔigha Sampayutta and not PaÔigha vipayutta. Vipayutta means not associated with. These two (paÔigha and Domanassa) are always associated together. There can be no Domanassa without paÔigha. That is why there is no paÔigha vipayutta here. Whenever a type of consciousness is a accopanied by Domanassa, it is invariably associated with Dosa. They go together always.
Sometimes you get angry spontaneously, without prompting. Sometimes you get angry being prompted. So there are two kinds of consciousness.
"With hatred one man murders another in a spontaneous fit of rage." That is the first Dosam|la Citta. "With hatred one man murders another after premeditation." After encouraging himself or being encouraged or instigated by another the man murders another man. In that case the Dosa is Sasa~khÈrika.
When you are sad, you are sad with one of these two Cittas; when you are depressed one of these two Cittas arises; when you are angry one of these two Cittas arises. Also when you are afraid, when you are fearful, one of these two Cittas arises.
In Abhidhamma fear is included in Dosa. Fear is described as passive Dosa. Anger is active Dosa or let us say aggressive Dosa. Anger is aggressive. Fear is passive. They are both called Dosa. When you are afraied of something, when you fear someone or something, then your fear is one of these two Cittas.
Moham|la Cittas
Let us go to the Moham|la Cittas. Moha is translated as delusion. It deludes the mind. It makes your mind fuzzy or something like that. Moha has the characteristic of covering up or hiding the real nature of things. Because of this Moha we do not see things as they are. we do not see things as impermanent, as suffering and so on.
These two Cittas are accompained by Moha root only. The first eight are accompanied by Lobha and Moha. The two Dosam|la Cittas are accompanied by Dosa and Moha. The last two are accompained by Moha only. Although Moha is with the other Cittas, its function is not so prominent as in these two Cittas. In the others Lobha or Dosa is more active than Moha. Moha is not very prominent in the first ten Cittas. In the last two Cittas Moha is supreme because there is no Lobha and no Dosa.
The first Moham|la Citta is UpekkhÈ Sahagata vicikicchÈ Sampayutta. You know UpekkhÈ. It is indifferent feeling. VicikicchÈ means doubt. VicikicchÈ is defined in two ways: vexation due to perplexed thinking and the other is 'being devoid of the remedy consisting of knowledge.' The first one is vexation due to perplexed thinking. That means you cannot decide which is which. You are wavering. When you try to find out which is which, you become agitated and you become perplexed. Sometimes it is called perplexion. So it is vexation due to perplexed thinking. This is called vicikicchÈ. Actually it is indecision. You cannot decide on one or the other. There may be either wrong view or right view. Here you cannot decide on either of the two. It is like a two pronged road.
The second explanation is that there is no remedy for it; it is devoid of remedy consisting of knowledge. When there is doubt, there can be no correct understanding. There can be no knowledge. That is why it is said to be devoid of the remedy of knowledge. If knowledge actually arises, it will disappear. So long as there is doubt, knowledge cannot arise. It is said to be devoid of remedy of knowledge.
That is a play on words. The first meaning is based upon the separation as 'vici' and 'kicchÈ'. 'Vici' means investigating. 'kiccha' means perplexion. The second meaning is based upon the separation as 'Vi' and 'CikicchÈ'. 'CikicchÈ' means curing, remedy, medicine. 'Vi' means no. That gives us no remedy, no medicine, no cure. In essence it is doubt–doubt about the Buddha, Doubt about the Dhamma, doubt about the Sa~gha, doubt about the practice, doubt about the four Noble Truths or about Dependent Origination. These are called doubt.
With doubt and with indifference the first Mohamula consciousness arises. With doubt there can only be indifferent feeling, neutral feeling. There can be neither pleasurable nor displeasurable feeling there, just neutral feeling. There is only UpekkhÈ Sahagata here and no Somanassa and no Domanassa.
The Cittas that are accompanied by Moha only are not so strong as those accompanied by either Lobha or Dosa. They are dull consciousness. Since they are dull consciousness, they do not enjoy the taste of the objects fully as the other Cittas do. So they are always accompanied by UpekkhÈ feeling, neutral feeling and not with pleasurable or displeasurable feeling.
The example given in the manual: "A person, due to delusion, doubts the enlightment of the Buddha or the efficacy of the Dhamma as a way to deliverance." When you talk like this, there is this vicikicchÈ in your mind. Sometimes even during meditation, you may have these doubts. You may think, "Is it really right that just by making notes of the movement of the abdomen or making notes of the breath I can discover the true nature of things? Is it really beneficial to do this?" When there is doubt, you cannot go on meditating. It is one of the mental hindrances which obstruct concentration.
The next one is UpekkhÈ Sahagata, but it is associated with Uddhacca (restlessness), Uddhacca actually is a mental factor. VicikicchÈ is also a mental factor. There are many mental factors here. You will study mental factors in chapter two. Uddhacca means trembling above the object. That is its literal meaning. 'Ud' means above. Dhacca means shaking or trembling. Trembling above the object means you cannot take the object clearly. Your mind is not on that object nor is it on another object. You cannot be on the object firmly. You are wavering. It is something like that. If you are on another object, it is another thing. So it is the inability to be fully aware of the object. Sometimes when you practise meditation, you do not see the object clearly. You may note in and out, in and out or rising–falling, but you do not see it clearly. At that time there may be Uddhacca. Try to pay more attention so that you may see clearly. That is Uddhacca Sampayutta.
Uddhacca is with all twelve types of consciousness actually. It is not just with this last consciousness, but it is also with the other eleven types of consciousness as well. Only this last Citta is described as Uddhacca sampayutta, as accompanied by Uddhacca. That is because in the other Cittas there are more active mental states so that it cannot raise its head. (It is not so evident.) Here there is no Lobha ans no Dosa. In this Citta it becomes supreme. Therefore this last Citta is described as Uddhacca Sampayutta. It is strong here; it is prominent here. That is why this last Citta is Described as Uddhacca Sampayutta.
The last two Cittas are called Moham|la Cittas, consciousness rooted in delusion or consciousness accompanied by delusion. There are three roots of unwholesomeness. These three roots accompany these twelve types of consciousness in different ways. The first eight are accompanied by how many roots? Two roots. What two roots? Lobha and Moha. Then the second group of two Cittas is also accompanied by two roots. What are they? Dosa and Moha, the last two are accompanied by only one root which is Moha. Eight are accompanied by Lobha and Moha. Two are accompanied by Dosa and Moha. Another two are accompanied by Moha only. Thus we get altogether twelve types of unwholesome consciousness.
Definition of the Word ‘Akusala’
Why are they called unwholesome or Akusala? They are called Akusala because they are blameworthy in themselves and they bring painful results. They cause painful results. The characteristic of being unwholesome or wholesome depends on whether they are blameworthy or without blame, whether they cause painful results or happy results.
On page 31 "with respect to its nature, consciousness divides into four classes: unwholesome, wholesome, resultant, and functional. Unwholesome consciousness (Akusala Cittas) is consciousness that is accompanied by one or another of the three unwholesome roots-greed, hatred and delusion. Such consciousness is called unwholesome because it is mentally unhealthy, morally blameworthy–". That is important. Morally blameworthy is that which is blamed by Noble People. "And productive of painful results." –They bring painful results. Wholesome consciousness is the opposite of this. It is called unwholesome because it is morally blameworthy and because it is productive of painful results. That is why these types of consciousness are called unwholesome or Akusala consciousness.
There are other translations like unskillful or immoral. I do not think they convey the meaning quite as adequately as ‘unwholesome’.
For example, let us say you are enjoying food at home. If you eat with attachment, that eating is unwholesome, but we cannot say or call it immoral. You are eating your own food. You are enjoying it. So there is no moral blame in that. Still it is unwholesome. Your mind in fact is accompanied by attachment. Sometimes you may be angry because you don't like something in your food. That is Dosa. The word immoral for the PÈÄi word Akusala is not so good as the word unwholesome. Therefore we will use unwholesome.
There are twelve Types of unwholesome consciousness. Eight are accompanied by Lobha. Two are accompanied by Dosa. And two are accompanied by Moha only.
Akusala
When we talk about unwholesome (Akusala), people are very afraid of unwholesome mental states. But sometimes at least in one or two instances, although a mental state is unwholesome, it is not so bad. "Not all craving is bad.", I said here. It is from the Anguttara NikÈya. "It has been said that this body has come into being by craving; and that based on craving, craving should be abandoned." That means craving for attainment. You want some results from your practice. That is a kind of craving, a kind of attachment. That is why I tell you at retreats not to have any expectation. Expectation is a kind of greed, a kind of attachment. Because you that craving, that attachment for the results, you practise. As a result of practice, you are able to get rid of that craving. Based upon craving you practise meditation and you get rid of craving. Such craving is described as 'permissible or pursuable'. The PÈÄi word is SevitabbÈ. That means pursuable. That means it is permissible. It is OK to have such craving or attachment. If you do not have any craving at all for attainment, for results, you will not practise at all. If you do not practise, you will not get results. You will not get free from mental defilements. So sometimes some kind of craving Buddha said is permissible. It is OK.
The Commentary explains, "Based on the present craving (i.e. desire for becoming an Arahant), he gives up previous craving that was the root-cause of (one's involvement in) the cycle of rebirth." That means based on the present craving for becoming an Arahant, he gets rid of craving that is the root of this life, that is the root of existence.
"Now (it may be asked) whether such present craving (for Arahantship) is wholesome (Kusala) or unwholesome (Akusala)? When you come to Abhidhamma, you have to follow what is the fact. You cannot use diplomacy. If it is Akusala, we must say it is Akusala. So the commentator here says that it is unwholesome. The craving or desire to become an Arahant is unwholesome because it is attachment. So it falls into the unwholesome categoty.
"Should it be pursued or not? It should be pursued." That means it is OK to have such craving. Although it is unwholesome, it is OK.
Then you may be afraid will I get painful results from this craving. "Does it drag one into rebirth or not? It does not drag one into rebirth." It will not take you to rebirth as an animal or human being. That means it never can take you to any rebirth at all. That is why it is pursuable. It is good to have such craving or such desire–desire to practise meditation, desire to do good, desire to become an Arahant.
"Such permissible (SevitabbÈ) craving is abandoned when its object is attained." When you become an Arahant, you get rid of this craving, this desire. So such desire is not bad. So not all craving is bad.
The next one is "Which is the greater evil?". King Milinda asked Venerable NÈgasena, "For whom is the greater demerit: he who does an evil deed knowingly, or he who does an evil deed unknowingly?"
The answer is quite unexpected. The answer is: "His is the greater demerit, sire, who does an evil deed unknowingly."
Can you accept it?
Then king Milinda said, "Well then, Venerable NÈgasena, do we doubly punish the royal son of ours or chief minister who does an evil deed unknowingly?"
In the secular law you do not give severe punishment to those who unknowingly break the law.
Venerable NÈgasena's argument is: "What do you think about this? If one (man) should unknowingly take hold of a red-hot ball of iron, aglow, aflame, ablaze, and another should take hold of it knowingly, which would be more severely burnt?"
If you don't you will be burnt; you will take hold of it firmly; then you will be burned more. If you know it will burn and you have to or you want to take, you will be very careful not to be burnt too much. In that case one who does an evil deed unknowingly gets greater demerit than one who does it knowing.
King Milinda answered, "He who took hold of it unknowingly, revered sir, would be the more severely burnt."
Venerable NÈgasena said "Even so, sire, the greater demerit is his who does an evil deed unknowingly."
The king said, "You are dextrous.
But sometimes you break a law, a rule or a precept unknowingly. You may not know the precept and break it. In that case it may not be too bad. Here knowingly breaking, when you break the rule knowingly, then you have disrespect for the person or disrespect for the person or disrespect for the law or the person who laid down these rules. Suppose I break a rule or monks. Rules of monks were laid down by the Buddha. If I break the rule of the monks, I not only break the rules, but I also have disrespect for the Budddha. In that case knowingly breaking the rule.
Should be more demerit, more Akusala than unknowingly breaking the rule.
But the answer given by Venerable Nagasena here is that you know that it is Akusala (unwholesome). You cannot avoid it, you cannot help it, so when you do it in order not to get greater demerit, you do it with care. And so there is less demerit for you. Breaking a rule knowingly or unknowingly I think is different. If a monk breaks a Vinaya rule knowingly, I think his demerit may be greater because he is not only breaking the rule itself, but be is showing disrespect to the Buddha.
Causes of Being somanassa-sahagata, etc.
"Causes of Being Somanassa Sahagata” and so on. I will go through it rather quickly. You will not find these in the manual. What makes a consciousness accompanied by Somanassa DiÔÔhigata and so on? What makes you have the feeling of Somanassa, or the feeling of Domanassa, or Ditthi? The Commentaries gave these reasons. I think some of them may be useful to psychologists or psychiatrists.
What induces a Somanassa feeling? A desirable object. When you see a desirable object, a pleasant object, you are happy. A desirable object is a condition for a pleasant or pleasurable feeling to arise.
Then having Somanassa relinking–that means sometimes we meet a person who is almost always happy or who is in the habit of being happy. That means he is reborn with that Somanassa feeling. His relinking Asankharika or rebirth consciousness must be accompained by Somanassa feeling. Those who have Somanassa relinking (That means those who take rebirth with Somanassa feeling) tend to have Somanassa feeling most of their life.
Number three is shallow nature. If you are a joyful person, you are of a shallow nature according to this. That is because those who have a deep nature do not love so much. Once I visited a place in Northern California . I was talking to a man there. I was smiling and laughing. Then the man who went with me asked him, "Have you ever met a Buddhist monk? He said, "No." Then my friend said, "You are now talking to a Buddhist monk." Then the man said, "Is he a Buddhist monk? I don't think Buddhist monks laugh." I may be of shallow nature.
Why does one have a wrong view, tend to possess a wrong view? A person who is reborn again and again with wrong view tends to become a receptacle for, a place for wrong view. So he tends to take wrong view.
The other is association with people who have wrong view. That is very true. You associate with someone and you become like that person.
Asa~khÈrika is when consciousness is unprompted. Having Asa~khÈrika relinking. When you take rebirth, your rebirth consciousness must have been unprompted. The relinking consciousness is a resultant consciousness. It your rebirth consciousness is unprompted, you tend to have unprompted consciousness during the life.
Then good health–when you are in good health, you don't have to be instigated or encouraged by other persons to do something because you are healthy and you just do it.
No bothering about heat or cold–you don't care whether it is hot or cold. Such a person does things spontaneously. If you are sensitive to cold and the weather is cold, then you have to be encouraged or prompted by yourself or other persons to do something. If you don't care about heat or cold, then you do things spontaneously, with unprompted consciousness.
Belief in and anticipation of fruits of diligence–if you believe that if you do something you will get something, then you will do it without being instigated by others.
Adeptness in one's work–when you are familiar with your work, when you are familiar with doing something, then you will do it spontaneously. There is no prompting.
Suitable climate and food–That is true. If you have a good climate that is true. When the climate is good, our minds are bright and happy. We tend to do things spontaneously. And if we have good food, also we have good feeling so we do things without being prompted. Good food and suitable climate–there may be other reasons also, but these are the ones given in the ancient books.
What about being Sasa~khÈrika? It is the opposite of the above.
And then UpekkhÈ Sahagata, neutral feeling–the first one is neutral object. Objects that are not desirable or undesirable are neutral objects. When you meet neutral objects then you have neutral feeling.
The second one is UpekkhÈ relinking. Your rebirth consciousness must have been accompanied by UpekkhÈ.
The third one is that you have deep nature. You always think deeply and so you don't get pleasure quite often. You have this UpekkhÈ feeling.
Causes of Being Domanassa-sahagata and PaÔigha-sampayutta
Domanassa Sahagata and Patigha Sampayutta–the reasons are for both. Undesirable object - when the object is undesirable, you tend to get angry. If you don't like something, you get angry. The undesirable object is one reason a Citta may be accompanied by displeasurable feeling.
And then having any one of the nine grounds of illwill, nine grounds of grudge, nine grounds of Dosa. There are nine reasons for Dosa to arise. They are: " He has done harm to me," Thinking that way, you get angry with that person. "He is doing harm to me," or "He is going to do harm to me," if you think in that way, you are going to get angry with that person. And the "He has done harm to someone dear to me." And also "He is doing harm to someone dear to me," and "He will do harm to someone dear to me. The last ones are in regard to a person you dislike. Sometimes we don't want something good to happen to those whom we hate. So here "He has conferred a benefit on someone I dislike or hate." "He is conferring or he will confer a benefit on someone I dislike." In thinking that way we get Dosa or Domanassa. These are called nine grounds of illwill or nine grounds of grudge. They are mentioned in the Anguttara NikÈra and also in the Abhidhamma.
These is one more, but I don't find it in the Commentaries. It is called groundless anger, anger without reason, without valid reason. When it is too hot, you are angry. When it is too cold, you are angry. It is something like that. You may hit against something and then you are angry with that thing. Then you kick it. This is called groundless angry. You should not be angry with these things, but still people get angry.
Pleasurable feeling, displeasurable feeling, wrong view and so on arise for these reasons. When we know the reasons these things arise, then we can do something to change ourselves.
What to do with the Chart
What I want you to do with this chart or with the sheet is to try and memorize these twelve. Memorize in English because PÈÄi may be too difficult for you at this point. Do not leave the PÈÄi altogether alone because we will using PÈÄi words again and again. Once you know the PÈÄi words you will find the taste of it. Later on you will want to use PÈÄi words only because when you use PÈÄi words there is no chance of being misunderstood or of misrepresenting something. When we use English translations, sometimes the translations are not accurate and they may lead to misunderstanding. Even when I use English translations, I will refer back to PÈÄi words. The PÈÄi words will be defined and then we can use PÈÄi words always.
Put the colors in the circles and try to memorize these twelve. That is the first column. One by one and column by column you will memorize. In about one month you will get the whole chart of these dots. It is like the chemistry periodic table. I deliberately give you just the dots and circles with no description, no names or whatever. If you write something here, you will depend on that.
First look at it and say these first eight Cittas are accompanied by what ? Lobha. These two? Dosa. I used the color green here. The last two? They are accompanied by Moha.
Among the eight Lobham|la Cittas four are accompanied by joy or pleasure. The other four have indifferent feeling. Among these the first two are associated with wrong view. The second two are not associated with wrong view. Again the four accompanied by indifferent feeling the first two are associated with wrong view. The second two are not associated with wrong view.
In the manual the word 'disassociated' is used. I'm not sure about that word. What does the word 'dissociated' mean? Is there a difference between unassociated and dissociated? First they are together and then you take one away. That is not the meaning required here. I prefer to use unassociated or non-associated. So these two are not associated with DiÔÔhi, with wrong view.
The next two are accompanied by what feeling? Anger, displeasure. And these two are accompanied by indifference.
The first Citta is with pleasure, with wrong view and unprompted. The second Citta is with pleasure, with wrong view and prompted. The third Citta is with pleasure, without wrong view and unprompted. The fourth Citta is with pleasure, without wrong view and prompted. The fifth Citta is with indifference, with wrong view and unprompted. The sixth Citta is with indifference, with wrong view and prompted. The seventh Citta is with indifference, without wrong view and unprompted. The eighth Citta is with indifference, without wrong view and prompted.
The ninth Citta is Dosa, displeasure, with illwill, unprompted. The tenth Citta is with displeasure, with illwill and prompted.
Then these two–the first one is with indifference and with doubt. There is no difference of prompted or unprompted. They are out of prompted and unprompted. The last one is with difference and with restlessness.
You practise this way at home. You can cover the description here and just look at the circles and say with pleasure, with wrong view. Then if you don't remember, you can remove the cover and look at the answer. This way you can memorize these twelve before next week.
SÈdhu! SÈdhu! SÈdhu!
I think it is good to keep these cards with you always. Then when you are in a line or in a traffic jam, you can take it out and study it. We will be using this chart up to the end of the book. We always refer to this chart. Try to be very familiar with this chart.
[Tape #4]
Ahetuka Cittas
Today we will study Ahetuka Cittas. There are eighteen Ahetuka cittas. First we will consider the word ‘ahetuka’. You know the word ‘hetu’. ‘Hetu’ means root. There are six roots–three unwholesome roots and three good roots. I don’t say “wholesome roots”, I say “good roots”. because they are wholesome and also they are resultants and they are functional. They belong to beautiful cetasikas. So there are six roots–three bad or evil roots and three good roots, or three unwholesome and three good roots. In the books it says “bright roots”.
Now these cittas arise with none of these six roots, so they are not accompanied by any one of the six roots. That is why they are called “rootless consciousness”. Rootless means having no concomitant roots; but since they are results of past kamma, they are results of roots in the past. But when they arise no roots accompany them. Therefore they are called ‘ahetuka’.
Sometimes ‘hetu’ is translated as cause, but here if we say “no-cause consciousness”, it would be wrong. So no-root consciousness or rootless consciousness. So rootless means no roots accompany these types of consciousness.
They are divided into three groups. The first group is akusala vipÈka cittas; there are how many? Seven. The second group is ahetuka kusala vipÈka cittas, how many? Eight, and the third group, ahetuka kiriya cittas, how many? Three. So all together 7 + 8 + 3, we get 18. Now the first group, akusala vipÈka cittas. Now the word ‘vipÈka’ also. VipÈka means something which has ripened, which becomes mature, so it means result. But this sord is restricted to cittas and cetasikas only. Now there are material properties
which are caused by kamma, so which are the results of kamma, but material properties are not called vipÈka, only resultant cittas and cetasikas are called vipÈka. So you must understand the meaning of this term. It is expalined that here vipÈka means identical it must be identical with its cause. Since these cittas are the results of kamma by kamma is what? It belongs to mind, mental factors, kamma is one of the mental factors. So it must be mental, it must take an object so that the resultant is identical with the cause. And that identical resultant is say citta and cetasikas and not material properties. Now when you grow a grain of paddy, so grow paddy, first you get the the plant, yoy get the sprout and the palnt, but until there are grains on the plant you do not say it has ripened, so only when you get grains on the plant you say the plant has ripened. So the plant, the leaves are also the result of the seed, but they are not called paddy, only the last one which has ripened is called paddy or grain. In the same way, here, although material properties are caused by or are the results of the kamma in the past they are not called vipÈka, because they are not identical with the cause which belongs to mental factors and which takes an object. So whenever we say vipÈka please understand we mean only cittas and cetasikas and not material properties.
There are altogether seven akusala vipÈka, now akusala vipÈka means vipÈka of akusala, result of akusala. Akusala here may mean akusala consciousness, but actually the real cause is kamma or volition concomitant with akusala consciouaness, but the sake of simplicity we will just say these are the causes of akusala citta, to be exact these are the results of akusala volition, akusala kamma. So akusal vipÈka citta, akusala qualifies vipÈka and not citta. And there are said to be how many? Seven of these resultant consciousnessesof akusala.
Before we study these seven cittas, we must understand what happens when we see something. Once we understand seeing, we can also understand hearing, smelling and so on. And that seeing, although it seems very simple is actually very complex experience, and many tiny moments of consciousness are involved in what we call seeing. Say we see something and we think we see it right away without having to spend much time. But if we can blow that picture up a million times or a billion times, then we see that there are many thought moments before we can say we see something. In the Commentaries the mango simile is given, and that is a very good simile to understand the thought process, here thought process of seeing. So it is said that there is a man with his head covered and he went to sleep at the foot of a tree, mango tree, with mangoes on it. Then a ripe mango fell down, loosened from the stalk fell to the ground grazing his ears, that means, maby near his ears. Then he was waakened by that sound, so he woke up. And then he opened his eyes and looked at the mango, and then he stretched out his hand and took the mango in his hand. After taking the fruit he squeezed it, and then he smelt is and he knew it was ripe. Next he ate it enjoying it, so he ate it and then after eating he swallowed the small particles with the saliva down. And then he went to sleep again. So if you remember this simile you know the thought process of what we call seeing, or we may call it psychology of seeing.
Now there are thought moments always going on and on in our lives. There is a kind of series of thought moments which we call bhava~ga, it is translated as life-continuum. They are something like non conscious consciousness or unconscious consciousness. I do not use the word subconsciousness, it may mix with subconsciousness in modern psychology. So unconscious thought moments. These unconscious thought moments are going on all through our lives when there are no vivid objects presented to us. Then when an object comes into the avenue of the let us say here when a visible object comes into the avenue of the eye, then we say that that visible object strikes at the eye, impinges upon the eye, that is, comes into view. So when the visible object comes into the view the flow of bhava~ga is interrupted. First it is shaken, and then it ceases, it stops. So after the stopping of bhava~ga there arises one consciousness which is called paÒcadvÈrÈvajjana, that we will find among the three ahetuka kiriya cittas. So paÒcadvÈrÈvajjana means five sense-door adverting, that means, when the object is presented to the five senses, we call five senses sense doors, so the objects are presented to the five senses, the bhava~ga ceases, and then this consciousness arises taking that as an object, and also it turns the flow of consciousness towards the object. That is why it is called paÒcadvÈrÈvajjana; paÒca means five, dvÈra means sense door, Èvajjana means turning, so it turns the mind towards the object, or it turns the mind towards consciousness moments, so that is one very brief thought moment. After that there is the real seeing consciousness, and seeing means just seeing, not understanding it, not knowing it is good or it is bad or even not a mango actually. That consciousness is called in PÈÄi cakkhu-viÒÒÈÓa, eye-consciousness. I’ll explain its meaning later. That is like the man opening his eyes and looking at the mango, now he sees the mango. After that another thought moment arises which is called sampaÔicchana, receiving, accepting, receiving the object, accepting the object, that is like the man stretching his hand and taking hold of the fruit. And then comes the moment called santÊraÓa, investigating
[Tape #4]
CHAPTER 1
AHETUKA CITTAS
Definition of the Word ‘Ahetuka’
Today we will study Ahetuka Cittas. There are eighteen Ahetuka Cittas. First we will consider the word 'Ahetuka'. You know the word 'Hetu'. Hetu means root. there are six roots— three unwholesome and three good roots. I don't say "wholesome roots". I say "good roots" because they are wholesome, they are resultant and they are functional. They belong to beautiful Cetasikas. There are six roots. Three are bad or evil roots. Three are good roots. In the book it says "bright roots".
These Cittas arise with none of these six roots. They are not accompanied by anyone of these six roots. That is why they are called rootless consciousness. Rootless means on concomitant roots. Since they are the results of past Kamma, they are the results of roots in the past. But when they arise no roots accompany them. Therefore they are called Ahetuka.
Sometimes Hetu is translated as cause. But here if we said "no cause consciousness", it would be wrong. No root consciousness or rootless consciousness is correct. Rootless means no roots accompany these types of consciousness.
Classification of Ahetuka Cittas
They are divided into three groups. The first group is Ahetuka Akusala Vipaka. There are how many? Seven. The second group is Ahetuka Kusala Vipaka. How many? Eight. The third group is Ahetuka Kiriya Cittas. How many? Three. Altogether seven plus eight plus three, so we get eighteen.
The first group is Ahetuka Akusala Vipaka Cittas. The word 'Vipaka' means something which has ripened, something which has become mature. So it means result. This word is restricted to Cittas and Cetasikas only. There are material properties that are caused by Kamma, which are the results of Kamma. But material properties are not called Vipaka. Only resultant Cittas and Cetasikas are called Vipaka. You must understand the meaning of this term.
It is explained that Vipaka here must be identical with its cause, since these Cittas are the result of Kamma. Kamma is what? It belongs to mind or mental factors. kamma is one of the mental factors. So it must be mental and it must take an object so that resultant is identical with the cause. An identical resultant is Cittas and Cetasikas, and not material properties.
When you grow a grain of paddy- so you grow paddy. First you grow a plant from a seed. You sprout the plan. Until there are grains on the plant, you do not say it has ripened. When you get grains on the plant, you do not say it has ripened. When you get grains on the plant, you say the plant has ripened. The leaves on the plant are also the result of the seed. It is called paddy. Only the last one which has ripened is called paddy or grain. In the same way even though material properties are caused by or are the result of Kamma in the past, they are not called Vipaka because they are not identical with the cause which belongs to mental factors and which takes an object. Whenever we say 'Vipaka', please understand we mean only Cittas and Cetasikas, not material properties.
There are altogether seven Akusala Vipaka. Now Akusala Vipaka means Vipaka of Akusala, resultants of Akusala. Akusala here may mean Akusala consciousness, but actually the real cause is Kamma or volition concomitant with Akusala consciousness. For the sake of simplicity, we will just say these are the results of Akusala Cittas. To be exact, we say these are the results of Akusala volition, of Akusala kamma. So Akusala qualifies Vipaka and not Cittas.
A Thought Process in Brief
There are said to be seven resultants of Akusala. Before we study these seven Cittas, we must understand what happens when we see something. If we understand seeing, then we can understand hearing, smelling and so on. Seeing, although it seems very simple, is actually a very complex experience. Many tiny moments of consciousness are involved in what we call seeing. We see something. We think we see it right away without having to spend much time. But if we can blow that picture up a million times or a billion times, we will see that there are many thought moments before we can see something.
In the Commentaries the simile of a mango is given. That is a very good simile to understand the thought process. Here it is the thought process of seeing. It is said that there is a man with his head covered. He went to sleep at the foot of a mango tree with mangos on it. Then a ripe mango fell down- loosened form the stalk fell to the ground grazing his ear. That means near his ear. Then he was awakened by that sound. He woke up. Then he opened his eyes and looked at the mango. Then he stretched out his hand and took the mango in his hand. After taking the fruit in his hand, he squeezed it. Then he smelled the fruit and knew it was ripe. Next he ate it, enjoying it. So he ate it. After eating it, he swallowed the small particles with the sliver. Then he went to sleep again. If you remember this simile, you know the thought process of seeing or we may call it the psychology of seeing.
There are though moments always going on and on in our lives. There is a kind of series of thought moments which we call Bhavanga. it is translated a life continuum. They are something like non-conscious consciousness, unconscious consciousness. I do not want to use the word 'subconscious'. It may be mixed with the subconscious of modern psychology. So unconscious thought moments is better. These unconscious thought moments are going all through our lives when they are no vivid objects presented to us.
When a visible object comes into the avenue of the eye, then we say that visible object strikes at the eye, impinges on the eye. That means it comes into view. When the visible object comes into the view, Bhavanga is interrupted. It is shaken. Then it stops or ceases.
After the stopping of Bhavanga, there arises a consciousness which is called Pancadvaravajjana. That consciousness we will find among the three Ahetuka Kiriya Cittas. Pancadvaravajjana means five-sense-door adverting. That means when an object is presented to the five senses (we call the five senses sense-doors) the Bhavangas cease and this consciousness arises taking that object as an object. And also it turns the flow of consciousness to the object. That is why it is called Pancadvaravajjana. Panca means five. Dvara means sense door. Avajjana means turning. It turns the mind toward the object. It turns the mind toward conscious moments. That is one very brief thought moment.
After that, there is real seeing consciousness. Seeing means just seeing- not understanding it, not knowing it is good or bad, not even knowing it is a mango actually. That consciousness in Pali is called Cakkhu Vinnana, eye consciousness. I'll explain its meaning later. That is like the man opening his eyes and seeing the mango. Now he sees the mango.
After that, another thought moment arises which is called Sampaticchana, receiving, accepting the object. That is like the man stretching out his hand and taking hold of the fruit. Then comes the moment of Santirana, investigation. In the simile, he squeezes the fruit to find out whether it is ripe or not. That is called investigating consciousness. The mind investigates the object already accepted by Sampaticchana. After that he smelled it. That means he smells and decides that it is a mango and that it is ripe. In the same way there is the moment called Votthabbana. Votthabbana means determining. At this moment, the mind determines that this is the object.
After determining comes Javana. The literal meaning of Javana is to have force, but the meaning we are to understand here is to have the full enjoyment of the object. Only at this Javana moment do we fully experience the object. There are actually usually seven moments of Javana. The other ones are just one each. We experience Cakkhu Vinnana once. We experience Sampaticchana once, Santirana once, Votthabbana once. For Javanas, there are seven moments. So seven moments of Javana arise usually.
After that, there is what is called Tadarammana. Tadarammana means let us say after-taste. It takes the same object as the Javanas. There are two moments of Tadarammana.
And then Bhavanga arises again. This is a rough picture of what seeing is. After this thought process you just have seen a visible object. You do not have or you have not come to the decision that this is a mango. You need some more kinds of thought processes. You will study thought processes in the fourth chapter of this manual. Do not worry if you do not understand clearly here. This is the simile of the mango illustrating the seeing thought process. If you understand seeing thought process, then hearing thought process and others are very easy to understand. This is how a thought process arises and disappears.
Akusala-vipÈka Cittas:
Eye-consciousness, etc.
Now we will study the individual types of consciousness. Number one is Upekkha Sahagata and then Cakkhu Vinnana. It is accompanied by indifferent feeling or neutral feeling. It is called Cakkhu Vinnana. Cakkhu means eye and Vinnana means consciousness. I told you that Vinnana is a synonym for Citta. So Citta, Vinnana, Mano- they are all synonyms. Cakkhu Vinnana means eye consciousness. Eye consciousness means consciousness which depends on the eye to arise. If you have no eye, you will have no seeing consciousness. Seeing consciousness means consciousness depends on the eye to arise. Eye consciousness means consciousness that depends on the eye to arise. The eye really means the sensitivity in the eye, not the whole eyeball. There is a place where the image strikes, the retina in modern terminology. The image strikes there. Then the nerves send the message to the brain and so on. That eye consciousness is accompanied by Upekkha feeling, indifferent feeling or neutral feeling.
The next one is Upekkha Sahagata Sota Vinnana. Sota means ear. So this is ear consciousness. Again the meaning is consciousness that depends on the ear to arise. If you are deaf, if you have no sensitivity in the ear, hearing consciousness will not arise. Sota Vinnana or ear consciousness means consciousness that depends on the ear to arise. It is accompanied by indifferent feeling.
The next one is Ghana Vinnana. I want you to pay attention to my pronunciation so you can read Pali. Ghana
The next one is Jivha Vinnana. You can guess the meaning of Jivha. It is tongue. Tongue consciousness- that means consciousness that depends on the tongue to arise. Jivha Vinnana is also accompanied by Upekkha.
Then the fifth one is Dukkha Sahagata. The fifth one is accompanied by pain, Dukkha. It is called Kaya Vinnana. Kaya means body. So this is consciousness that depends upon the body, the whole body. This consciousness is accompanied by pain, Dukkha.
These seven types of consciousness are the resultants of Akusala. What kind of results does Akusala give? Painful results. Since these are the results of Akusala, the objects we see, we hear and so on are undesirable objects. If you see something ugly, if you see something you don't like, there is this type of consciousness. If you hear a sound which you don't like, which too loud for your ears, you have this type of consciousness. Dukkha Sahagata Kaya Vinnana, bodily feeling- you hit yourself and have pain there. When there is pain in the physical body, you experience that pain with this type of consciousness. This type of consciousness is accompanied by painful feeling, not by Upekkha, indifferent feeling.
The next one is Upekkha Sahagata Sampaticchana. Sampaticchana means accepting or receiving. It is also accompanied by indifferent feeling, Upekkha. Sampaticchana is accepting or receiving consciousness. Here receiving consciousness means the consciousness which receives the object presented by the preceding sense-door consciousness (eye, ear, nose and so on).
The last one is Upekkha Sahagata Santirana. Santirana means investigating. So it is called investigating consciousness. It is the consciousness that investigates the object already received by receiving consciousness. It is also accompanied by indifferent feeling.
The object of all these seven types of consciousness is always undesirable. If the objects are desirable, they are results of Kusala. There are seven types of Akusala Vipaka Cittas. Akusala Vipaka Cittas mean unwholesome resultant consciousness. In the English translation, unwholesome should connect up with resultant only, not with consciousness, not unwholesome consciousness. It is resultant consciousness which is the result of preceding unwholesome consciousness.
There are conditions for these five consciousness to arise. It is good to understand these conditions. In order for seeing consciousness to arise, there needs to be four conditions. There must be a visual organ. That means we must have eyes. There must be a visible object. There must be something to see. If there is nothing to see, then seeing consciousness will not arise. There must be light. If it is in the dark, we cannot see. We need light in order to see. Then the last one is attention. Sometimes we are not attentive and we don't see. Attention is also important. Attention really means turning the mind to the object. If the mind is not toward the object, we don't experience that object. There needs to be these four conditions for seeing consciousness to arise. What are the four? The eye, the thing to be seen, light and attention.
For the hearing consciousness to arise, what do we need? Auditory organs or ears. Then there must be some sound. If there is no sound, we do not hear. Then there must be space. If you close your ear, you will not hear the noise. So you need space. And then there must be attention.
For smelling consciousness there must be and olfactory organ. That means you must have a nose. There must be smell. If the smell is not carried by air to you, by wind to you, you will not experience that smell. So you need air or wind. And then you need attention. These are the four conditions for smelling consciousness to arise.
Then gustatory organ—I mean that is when you eat something, tongue consciousness. There must be the tongue. There must be the taste in the food. We call it taste. There must be water. Water means moisture or liquid. If you put dry food on your mouth, then you will not taste it. If your tongue is dry and you put a dry piece of food in your mouth on the tongue, you will not get the taste. In order to get the taste you need liquid or saliva. Otherwise you will not taste anything. Here it is called water, water in the mouth. And also you need attention.
The last one is what? Tactile organ. That means the body. This is the whole of the body except on the hair and the long nails where we don't feel anything. So it resides on the whole body. There must be something to be touched, some tactile object. Then there must be the earth. Earth means solidity of that object. When we say element of earth, element of water, element of fire, element of wind, we do not mean the physical earth and so on, but the quality inherent in these things. The quality inherent in the earth is softness or hardness or solidity. There must be this earth quality in order to experience touch. There also must be attention. You touch something and you really have the experience of that hardness or softness.
These are the conditions required for these five to arise. They will apply to the five in the Ahetuka Kusala vipÈka Cittas also.
Ahetuka KusalavipÈka Cittas:
Eye-consciousness, etc.
Let's go to that group. The second is called Ahetuka Kusala Vipaka Cittas. Here we have to quality Kusala Vipaka with Ahetuka, I think you understand it. There are Kusala Vipaka Cittas that are with Hetus. We will study them later. Among the sensuous sphere consciousness, form sphere consciousness and formless sphere consciousness there are Kusala Vipaka. They are the resultants of Kusala. In order to differentiate these types of consciousness from those the word 'Ahetuka' is put in front of the words 'Kusala Vipaka'. But with regard to Akusala Vipaka, we don't have to say they are Ahetuka because Akusala Vipaka are always Ahetuka. There is no Akusala Vipaka which is with Hetus, which is accompanied by Hetus. So we don't have to say Ahetuka because they are always Ahetuka. If we don't say Ahetuka with Kusala, it may include the Kusala Vipaka which are with roots. That is why the word 'Ahetuka' must be used here.
Ahetuka Kusala Vipaka means Vipaka without Hetus. There are eight types of consciousness here. The first four are the same let us say. What is the different? The object. Here the object is desirable, a good object. You see something beautiful. You hear a sound that is beautiful for you. You smell a good smell, the smell of a perfume or something like that. Here since they are the resultants of Kusala, they must be good, they must be desirable. Eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, and tongue consciousness are the same.
Now let us go to number five, body consciousness. Body consciousness here is accompanied by Sukha. Sukha means- it is difficult to get a good translation for this word 'Sukha'. We will just use happiness or here pleasure. But we touches a thing which is soft, this kind of sensation arises. It is called Sukha. If you hit against a rock, there is pain. That is Dukkha. If your body or hand touches something which is soft, pleasing to the touch, then you have this Sukha. That consciousness is accompanied by Sukha, pleasure. It is Kaya Vinnana, body consciousness.
Up until now how many types of feeling have we met? Somanassa, Upekkha, Domanassa, and now today we meet two more, Dukkha and Sukha. How many feelings are there? Five. We can say there are three feelings or there are five feelings. These three and five will be treated in this manual in the third chapter. So there are five kinds of feelings. Somanassa, Domanassa and Upekkha are mental feelings. Dukkha and Sukha are also mental, but they are connected with the body.
You are happy by yourself. That is Somanassa. You have a pleasant touch and you are happy. That is Sukha. You are sorry. That is Domanassa. You hit yourself against something and have pain. That is Dukkha. Dukkha and Sukha have to do with the physical body. When you are just happy with a good feeling in the body, there is Sukha. So we have Sukha Sahagata Kaya Vinnana.
The sixth one is the same. It is Upekkha Sahagata Sampaticchana, receiving consciousness.
Then number seven is Somanassa Sahagata Santirana. Santirana consciousness here is of two kinds. The first one is accompanied by Somanassa. The second one is accompanied by Upekkha. There are two Santirana here. Therefore there are eight Ahetuka Kusala Vipaka, not seven.
You may want to ask many questions. Let me explain why eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness and tongue consciousness are accompanied by indifferent feeling, regardless to the quality of the object. Whether the object is desirable or undesirable, there is always Upekkha. Why? Look at this picture. Please understand that eye sensitivity through tongue sensitivity - these material properties are called dependent material properties. They depend on the four great elements. When they arise, they arise together with the element of earth, element of water, element of fire and element of air. These four are called Mahabhutas. They are something like hard formations. The others are called soft. Maybe they are soft. Eye sensitivity and so on are called soft because they are dependent on the four great primaries for their arising. The same is true for visible object, sound, smell and taste.
Those material properties also depend on the four great elements. They are like balls of cotton. These are balls of cotton (pictured on handout). This is the anvil. The anvil is like the four great elements, hard. The cotton is soft. What about touch? What we call touch is actually a combination of the three great elements. Three of the four great elements are touch. They are the element of earth, the element of fire and the element of air—not the element of water. When we say it is nothing but a combination of these three. Are they hard or soft? Is touch hard or soft? Hard. When we see something, it is like striking a ball of cotton with another ball of cotton- no effect. There is no strong impact. So there is always indifferent feeling. This is eye sensitivity. This is visible object. So visible object comes and strikes at the eye sensitivity. There is not much impact. That is why there is only indifferent feeling. There is no Somanassa, no Domanassa or whatever.
When there is touch or body sensitivity, there is impact. So it is strong. When it is desirable, there is Sukha. When it is undesirable, there is Dukkha. That is why body consciousness is accompanied by either Sukha or Dukkha depending on the quality of the object. Seeing and the others are like putting the ball of cotton on the anvil and striking it with another ball of cotton. Touching is like putting a ball of cotton on the anvil and striking it with another hard thing. That is why eye, ear, nose and tongue consciousness are all accompanied by Upekkha. Body consciousness is either accompanied by pain or pleasure depending on the quality of the object.
Another problem here is why are there two Santiranas in the eight Ahetuka Kusala Vipaka. There is only one Santirana among the resultants of Akusala. Among the resultants of Ahetuka Kusala there are two Santiranas- one accompanied by Somanassa, pleasurable feeling and another accompanied by Upekkha, neutral feeling. Why? When we say desirable object, we are using a general term. There are two kinds of desirable objects- ordinarily desirable object and very desirable object. Some objects are very desirable for us. Some are just ordinary desirable. There are two kinds of objects ordinarily desirable and very desirable or especially desirable objects. When the object is very desirable, then the Santirana is accompanied by Somanassa. But when the object is not very desirable but just ordinary desirable, then Santirana is accompanied by Upekkha, indifferent feeling. Because there are two kinks of desirable objects, corresponding to these two kinds of desirable objects, there are two kinds of investigative consciousness among the eight wholesome rootless resultant consciousness.
The problem is not yet ended:
Could there be very undesirable and ordinary undesirable objects?
So should there be two Santiranas among the Akusala Vipaka?
Should there be one Santirana accompanied by Domanassa and one by Upekkha?
Among the Ahetuka Kusala Vipaka Cittas, we say because there are the two kinds of desirable objects, there are two kinds of Santirana- one accompanied by Somanassa and one accompanied by Upekkha.
Similarly should there be ordinary undesirable and very undesirable?
I think so. Sometimes you hate some object very much. So why? I don't know. Go back to Akusala Cittas. There are two Domanassa Cittas. I said something there. Do you remember what?
Domanassa feeling and Dosa always arise together. They will not arise separately. When there is Domanassa, there is Dosa also. If there were very undesirable and ordinary undesirable objects, Domanassa and Dosa would arise for both. Let's say, there is a very undesirable object, there must be Domanassa feeling. If Domanassa were to arise, Dosa would also arise. Dosa and Domanassa are different. Domanassa is a feeling. Dosa is one mental factor. They are different. When there is Domanassa, there will always be Dosa. Dosa is definitely of the nature of Akusala. It is never Kusala. It is never Vipaka. We might allow Domanassa to arise here. If we allow Domanassa to arise, we must allow Dosa also. Dosa will not arise here because Dosa is Akusala and not Vipaka. They are different in their nature, in their genus. Since Dosa cannot arise, there can be no Domanassa. There is only one Santirana, Upekkha Santirana among the seven Akusala Vipaka Cittas.
Ahetuka Kiriya Cittas
The next group, the last one is Ahetuka Kiriya Cittas. You know Ahetuka. Kiriya is translated as functional. That means it just does its function of arising and disappearing or taking the object- just that. It has no Kammic power. It is not a result of Kamma also. That is why they are called Kiriya. Another translation of the word 'Kiriya' is inoperative. They arise and disappear without leaving any Kammic force. They are not Kamma themselves and they are not the results of any Kamma. They are neutral. They are called Kiriya. We will meet many Kiriya consciousness as we go along.
How many Cittas are there? Three. Upekkha Sahagata Pancadvaravajjana, so five-sense-door-adverting consciousness is the first one. You have seen Pancadvaravajjana in the simile of the mango. This is the consciousness which arises after the flow of Bhavanga has ceased. It arises when the object impinges on the five sense doors. Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body—we call sense doors. They are the doors through which consciousness arises. This type of consciousness turns the flow of consciousness towards the five kinds of objects. That is why it is called Pancadvaravajjana. It changes consciousness from the flow of Bhavanga to, let us say, active consciousness. We may call Bhavanga inactive consciousness also. Other types of consciousness we may call active. So from this moment on the flow of consciousness becomes active. It changes the flow of consciousness into active. That is why it is called Pancadvaravajjana. The word 'Avajjana' has two meanings given in the Commentaries. One is reflecting and the other is turning towards, turning towards the object.
Since it is Pancadvaravajjana, it will arise only in connection with the five senses, the five sense objects. If you thinks of something in your mind, a different type of consciousness will do that function. That is the second one, Manodvaravajjana.
Manodvaravajja is the mind door, not the eye, ear, nose, tongue or body, but your mind. The Bhavanga mind is called Manodvara here. When you think of something in your mind, when you remember something, when you are happy or sorry, there is this thought process of Manodvara. At the beginning of the mind door thought process this consciousness arises. It turns the mind to the mind object. It is also called Avajjana. Since it arises in mind door, it is called Manodvaravajjana.
It has another function. That is determining. Votthobbana in the simile after the word 'Santirana' there is the word 'Votthabbana'. This consciousness Manadvaravajjana performs two functions. When it arises through mind doors, it does the function of determining. When it arises through mind door (That means not seeing, not hearing and so on, just thinking in your mind.), then it does the function of turning the mind toward the object. So it has two functions. It is called Manodvaravajjana. These two are accompanied by Upekkha, indifferent feeling. Regardless of the quality of the object, they are Upekkha.
The third one is Somanassa Sahagata Hasituppada. You know Somanassa is pleasurable feeling. Hasituppada is a compound word- Hasita and Uppada. Hasita means smiling, smile. Uppada means here producing, making it happen. Hasituppada means consciousness that produces a smile, that causes smiling. This consciousness is called Hasituppada.
Since one smiles with good feeling, it is always accompanied by Somanassa, pleasurable feeling. It is said in the books that this kind of consciousness is peculiar to Arahants only. We smile with other types of consciousness, not with this type. It you become a Buddha or a Pacceka Buddha or an Arahant, you will smile with this type of consciousness. So this consciousness is for Arahants only. By the word 'Arahant' we mean Buddha also. Buddhas are called Arahants. Hasituppada is for Buddhas, Pacceka Buddha and Arahants only. It is smile producing consciousness.
In connection with Hasituppada you will find in Venerable Narada's Manual of Abhidhamma and also in The Compendium of Philosophy the six kinds of laughter are mentioned. I think the Compendium of Philosophy is the first book that mentions these six in the English language. Here the author said, "There are six classes of laughter recognized in Buddhist works. Now I want to make a qualification here."
Actually these six kinds of laughter are not from Buddhist works. Originally they are from Sanskrit works. These six are mentioned in Sanskrit works of rhetoric- how to write beautiful prose and so on. When the Buddhist monks wrote some treatises on rhetoric, they just copied that form the Sanskrit. We find these six mentioned in our books, but originally they are from Sanskrit sources. I want you to understand that. These six kinds of laughter are not mentioned in the Commentaries. In Buddhaghosa's Commentaries or in the later Commentaries they are not mentioned. They come from treatises on rhetoric.
It is interesting to understand these six. The first one is a smile manifesting itself in expression and on countenance. That means just a little, a very faint smile. Your lips may show the smile, but you do not show the teeth yet. It is a very gentle kind of smile. That is the first kind of smile. The second kind of smile is a smile consisting in the slight movement of the lips. It is enough to reveal the tips of the teeth. If you show the tips of the teeth while you smile, you have the second type of smiling or laughter. The third is laughter giving a slight sound. You make a little sound. The fourth one is laughter accompanied by the movement of the head, shoulders and arms. The laughter is more animated. The fifth one is laughter accompanied by shedding of tears. Sometimes you laugh so much that you shed tears. The sixth kind is an outburst of laughter accompanied by forward and backward movements of the entire body from head to foot. You may fall down while laughing. There are these sex kinds of laughter mentioned in those books. The author of this book, The Compendium of Philosophy, was a lay Burmese person. His name is Shwe Zan Aung. So he might not know that these six kinds of laughter are originally from works of rhetoric. So he said, "in Buddhist works". But they are not necessarily from Buddhist works. Actually they come from Sanskrit sources.
Of these the first two classes are indulged in by cultured persons. If you want to be thought of as a cultured person, don't laugh too much. The next two are included in by the average man and the last two by lower classes of beings. These are the six kinds of laughter mentioned in the books. I think it is interesting to note these six.
When the Commentaries described the Buddha as smiling, they said Buddha smiled showing the tips of his teeth. So Buddha might smile with one of the first of his two. Sometimes the Buddha smiled, Ananda was behind the Buddha. Whenever the Buddha smiled, Ananda knew and he would ask, "Why have you smiled" or "What is the reason for your smiling?" How did Ananda who was behind the Buddha know that He had smiled? It is said that when Buddha smiled he showed the tips of his teeth. From his teeth, white rays were emitted. Buddha emitted six rays sometimes. From the teeth and the eyes, the white rays were emitted. When the Buddha smiled, the rays went out and so Ananda knew from these rays that Buddha had smiled. Then he would ask, "Bhante, what is the cause of your smiling? Or something like that.
All Eighteen Ahetuka Cittas
We now have all eighteen Ahetuka Cittas. The first seven are called Akusala Vipaka. They are the result of Akusala. The second group, eight of them, are called Ahetuka Kusala Vipaka. The last three are called Ahetuka Kiriya Cittas. Kiriya Citta is translated as functional consciousness.
The Chart
Now you may look at the dots. Can you identify them? First we will go in order. So Akusala Vipaka seven- here are the Ahetuka Vipaka seven. And then Ahetuka Kusala Vipaka eight- right. Ahetuka Kiriya three- right. Then eye consciousness is which one? It is the first of the seven. It is accompanied by what feeling? Upekkha. And then ear consciousness is accompanied by what feeling? Upekkha. Nose consciousness? Upekkha. Tongue consciousness? Upekkha. Body consciousness? Dukkha, pain. And then receiving consciousness? Upekkha. Investigating consciousness? Upekkha.
Now let us go to the next column. Eye consciousness? Upekkha. Ear consciousness? Upekkha. Nose consciousness? Upekkha. Tongue consciousness? Upekkha. Body consciousness? Sukha. Receiving consciousness? Upekkha. The first investigating consciousness? Somanassa, pleasure. The second investigating consciousness? Upekkha.
Let's go to the third column. What is the first one? What is the name of that Citta? Five- sense-door adverting or Pancadvaravajjana in Pali. What feeling accompanies it? Upekkha. The second Citta is mind door adverting, Manodvaravajjana in Pali. What feeling? Upekkha. Then the last one is accompanied by Somanassa. What is the name of this Citta? Hasituppada in Pali or smile producing.
There are two eye consciousness, two ear, two nose, two tongue and two body consciousness. They will be referred to as on page 41 "The first five types of resultant consciousness in both classes, the unwholesome resultants and the wholesome resultants, are those that are based on the sensitive matter (Pasada) of the eye, ear, nose, tongue and body. These ten Cittas are collectively designated the 'two sets of fivefold sense consciousness' (Dvipancavinnana)." We will be referring to them many times. Which do you prefer the English or the Pali? If you refer English, you will have five words. If you refer Pali, there is only one word, one compound word. Dvi means two. Panca means five. So it means something like twin five consciousness—'Dvipacavinnana'. When we say 'Dvipancavinnana' we are to understand that these ten types of consciousness are meant. In the second chapter we will be referring to them this way. So please note that name.
Now we have eighteen types of rootless consciousness. How many of them are accompanied by Somanassa? Two. What are the two, what are the names of the two Cittas? Investigating and smile producing. How many are accompanied by pain? Only one. What is that? Body consciousness of Akusala Vipaka. How many are accompanied by pleasure (Sukha)? One, the body consciousness of Kusala Vipaka. How many are accompanied by Upekkha? Fourteen— two eye consciousness, two ear consciousness, two nose consciousness, two tongue consciousness, two receiving consciousness, two investigating consciousness, one five-sense-door adverting and one mind-door adverting. So altogether we have eighteen types of rootless consciousness.
Let's exercise once again. How many are accompanied by Somanassa? Two. How many are accompanied by Sukha? One. How many are accompanied by Dukkha? One. How many are accompanied by Upekkha? Fourteen.
Twelve Akusala Cittas plus eighteen Cittas are how many? Thirty. These thirty are referred to as Asobhana in Burma Burma
It is strange that smile producing consciousness is included in non-beautiful Cittas. It is just a name, just a designation. So we get altogether thirty. Do you want to do some more exercise? Look at all thirty dots. If you look at the chart, it will be very easy. How many are accompanied by Somanassa? Six. How many are accompanied by Upekkha? Twenty. How many by Sukha? One. How many by Dukkha? One. How many Domanassa? Two. You have to exercise like that. If you have spare time, it is good to have a group of two or three people asking each other these questions.
These is a chart in the manual on page 43- kind, feeling, Citta. It is something to help you get acquainted with the Cittas. I think it is better to look at the chart (on the handout). Memorize these eighteen Cittas. You do it one column per day and in three days you will have all three columns. When you have this chart in mind, it is very easy to talk about.
For example, it is said that Arahants laugh or smile with five types of consciousness. Arahants smile with four Cittas from the sense-sphere consciousness and one from Hasituppada. With this chart it is very easy to identify with which types of consciousness Arahants laugh or smile. Ordinary persons laugh or smile with how many types of consciousness? Eight. Ordinary people laugh or smile with eight Cittas and Arahants and Buddhas with five Cittas.
What about Sotapannas? Sotapannas are those who have eradicated wrong view altogether. So there will be no Cittas accompanied by wrong view for them. With how many Cittas will they laugh? Six- two from Akusala without wrong view and the four Kamavacara Kusala Sobhana Cittas. This is just an exercise.
Do you want to ask questions?
1. Student: When you begin talking this evening, you were talking about sense-door consciousness of eye, ear, nose, tongue and body. You were talking about Upekkha and Dukkha. You were saying that all these sense doors were Upekkha except the body door. I was curious about bright flashes of light or loud noises which would seem to be painful to the eyes or to the ears respectively. At least in the terms of feeling there seems to be aversion there. Is that a subsequent mental state?
Sayadaw: That is right. It is a subsequent mental state. At the exact moment of hearing, it is accompanied by different feeling. Your reaction to that hearing- you react with fear or you react with moments come and go very fast, we think that the moment we hear the sound, we are afraid or we are angry. But they come later or subsequently.
2. Student: You mentioned that there are seven moments where there is full enjoyment of the object followed by two moments that perceive the consciousness. If you enjoy it, you must be conscious of it.
Sayadaw: Enjoy here means experience. When you are angry, there will be these seven moments. When you are sad, there are seven moments. When you are happy, there are seven moments. When you are doing Kusala, there are seven moments. When you are doing Akusala, there are seven moments. So enjoy here means the full experience of the object.
3. Student: When you were mentioning the Vedana— Somanassa, Domanassa and Upekkha— you said they were just mental, right?
Sayadaw: Yes.
4. Student: Then Dukkha and Sukha are bodily or mental?
Sayadaw: Let's say they are mental through body.
Student: How does Somanassa differ from the mental aspect of Sukha?
Sayadaw: Somanassa doesn't need a bodily contact. You have it only in your mind. Sukha and Dukkha need bodily contact.
Student: It is initiated through the body.
Sayadaw: Now let us say that feeling or Vedana in Abhidhamma is mental. It is never physical. When we use the word 'Feeling', when we talk we mean something here in the body.
Student: Sensation?
Sayadaw: Yes, sensation. So sensation or pain is a physical thing. Maybe physical properties have gone wrong and you experience pain. When you experience that pain, there is body consciousness. That body consciousness is accompanied by pain or displeasurable feeling. Sukha and Dukkha are actually mental. They are based on or they depend on the physical sensation. So they are different from pure mantel feeling.
5. Student: Can Sukha produce Somanassa?
Sayadaw: Oh yes. Somanassa may follow Sukha.
Student: So it doesn't matter if we have Kusala or Akusala Vipaka Cittas regarding the first four if we stop right there and nothing follows that? If you encounter the desirable object or undesirable object with Upekkha, then it makes no difference?
Sayadaw: Right.
6. Student: The difference comes after.
Sayadaw: No. The difference is their being the result of Kusala and Akusala. The difference is the quality of the object they take. Both are accompanied by indifferent feeling. One is the result of Kusala. Let us say you experience a desirable object. The other is the result of Akusala. You experience an undesirable object.
7. Student: What I am trying to say is that when you have that experience most are Upekkha. If nothing happens after that, the effect is-
Sayadaw: No. They themselves are results. So they do not give any results. They are something like what you throw down and then it just stays there. They have no Kammic force because they are the results of Kammic force. It is said in the books that the Vipaka Cittas are weak. They are not strong or aggressive as Kusala or Akusala.
8. Student: Regarding previous lecture when you have Somanassa Sahagata Ditthigata Sampayutta- I wondered if you can reverse the different combinations? Like can you have Ditthi Sahagata Somanassa Sampayutta?
Sayadaw: In meaning and essence Sahagata and Sampayutta mean the same thing although the words are different. In other contexts Sahagata and Sampayutta are different. But here they are synonyms. For example, Sahagata issued in connection with mind and matter. Mind and matter arise at the same time. We call them Sahagata because they arise together. They are not Sampayutta. Sahagata and Sampayutta are different in Patthana.
Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!
[Tape #5]
Chapter 1(E)
KÈmÈvacara Sobhana Cittas
Definition of the Word “KÈmÈvacara’
Today we study KÈmÈvacara Sobhana Cittas. There are 24 such Cittas. First let us look at the word KÈmÈvacara. KÈmÈvacara means that which mostly moves about or mostly roams, or mostly arises in the eleven sensuous realms or of the sense-sphere. There are eleven realms that are called KÈmÈvacara realms–four woeful states, human world and six celestial worlds. They are called KÈmÈ. The types of consciousness which mostly arise in that realm, in the being of that realm, is called KÈmÈvacara. For short we call them sense-sphere consciousness, consciousness that arises in the sense-sphere. Sense-sphere means the eleven sensuous realms.
Sobhana
That we have he word 'Sobhana'. Sobhana means beautiful. Here beautiful means accompanied by the three good roots. There are six roots three good roots and three bad roots. These are called Sobhana because they are accompanied by good roots. That means non-Greed, non-hatred and non-delusion. In other word non-greed means genorosity, non-hatred means loving kindness and non-delusion means wisdom. Those Citta that are accompanied by any of these three roots are called Sobhana.
Sobhana is wider than Kusala because resultant and functional consciousness are also called Sobhana Cittas. They are also accompanied by two or three good roots. These Cittas are called Sobhana because they are accompanied Sobhana (beautiful) roots. They are called KÈmÈvacara because they arise mostly in the eleven sensuous realms. It does not mean that they do not arise in the form-sphere or Brahma worlds or in the formless sphere. Some of them arise in the Brahma worlds or in the formless spheres. Some of them arise in the Brahma worlds, but their place or domain of frequent arising is the eleven sensuous realms. So they are called KÈmÈvacara Cittas. When we combine these two we get KÈmÈvacara Sobhana Cittas.
Up until now we have met Asobhana Cittas, non-beautiful Cittas. That means they are not accompanied by any of the three beautiful roots.
Among the 24 KÈmÈvacara Sobhana Cittas there are eight KÈmÈvacara Kusala Cittas. KÈmÈvacara Kusala Cittas divided into three groups. One group is Kusala Cittas. The second group is VipÈka Cittas. The third group is Kiriya Cittas.
The Meaning of the Word ‘Kusala’
Now the word 'Kusala'–in the Commentary to the Abhidhamma four meanings are given for the words 'Kusala'. It is stated that three are suitable here Kusala means healthy, absence of disease. Sometimes Kusala is used in this sense. When a person want to greet someone this word might be used. When we greet someone we do not say, "Good morning" or "good afternoon", but "are you well". When we Burmese meet each other also we don't say "good morning" or "good evening" but "are you well". In PÈÄi you may ask "are you Kusala". So Kusala means healthy, are you well. That is one meaning.
The second meaning is blameless or faultless. So Kusala means not to be blamed by the Nobel person, faultless, no fault.
The third meaning is skillful. When we say a person is Kusala in doing that thing. When a person is said to be skillful in let us say playing a guitar, we say he is Kusala in playing a guitar. Kusala means skillful.
The fourth meaning is productive of happy results, productive of desirable results. These are the four meanings of the word Kusala. In the PÈÄi language all four meanings of the word 'Kusala' are used. We have to understand the meaning of the word according to the context.
The Commentaries said the among them the first, healthy, the second, blameless, and the fourth, productive of happy results - these are suitable here. Many people nowadays translate Kusala as skillful. Sometimes I also use skillful. But translating Kusala as skillful is not in accordance with the Commentaries. I think we should avoid translating Kusala as skillful from now on.
Bhikkhu Bodhi is skillful. He wrote about Kusala and Akusala on page 31. "Such consciousness is called unwholesome, because it is mentally unhealthy, morally blameworthy and productive of painful results. "That is for Akusala". Wholesome consciousness (Kusala Citta) is consciousness that is accompanied by the wholesome roots non-greet or generosity, non-hatred or loving-kindness, and non-delusion or wisdom. Such consciousness is mentally healthy, morally blameless, and productive of pleasant results. "So he gave only the three meanings approved by the Commentaries. We also should avoid using the word 'skillful' for the word Kusala.
The word 'skillful' according to the Commentary is out of place here. The word ''skillful' can have a bad connotation also. You can skillfully kill a man and get away with it. Skillful can mean cunning and crafty. It is not a good word for Kusala Citta or Kusala Kamma. Morally healthy, blameless and productive of good of pleasant or deisrable results–that is called Kusala.
When explaining these words the Commentaries have the habits of doing acrobatics of etymology. They may cut the words in this way or in that way. Then they tell us the meaning of those. Although they may not be so useful, I think I have to tell you how they explain the word Kusasla.
The Meaning of the Word ‘Kusala’
Kusala is a word compound of 'Ku' and 'Sala' or 'Kusa' and 'La'. When we divided it into 'Ku' and 'Sala' 'Ku' means Akusala, evil because they are despicable. 'Sala' means shaking or destroying. So Kusala means something that shakes or that destroys bad things, that destroys despicable mental states. Those are called Kusala. That is one meaning of the word Kusala. In this meaning the word is divided into 'Ku' and 'Sala'. 'Ku' means despicable or contemptible. That means Akusala. 'Sala' means to shake. To shake means to destroy. So those mental states that shake or destroy the despicable mental states are called Kusala.
The second meaning is based on the word being divided as 'Kusa' and 'La'. Here 'Kusa' is said to mean Akusala. 'La' means to cut. So those states that cut the 'Kusa' which are Akusala are called Kusala. In this meaning 'Kusa' means Akusala, evil. Because they lie in the minds of beings in a despicable manner they are called 'Kusa'. Those that cut that chop off these 'Kusas' are called Kusala.
The third meaning is also based on the division as 'Kusa' and 'La'. In this case 'Kusa' means wisdom because wisdom can make an end of despicable mental states, Akusala. So wisdom is here called 'Kusa'. 'La' means to take, to cause to arise. Kusala means those mental states that are taken by (That means that are produced by). That arise along with 'Kusa'', wisdom. Again the division of the word here is 'Kusa' and 'La'.
Yet there is another meaning based again on the division of 'Kusa' and 'La'. Here 'Kusa' means a kind of grass, like saw-grass. This grass is sharp at both edges. If you do not handle the saw-grass carefully, you may cut your hand. Here these Kusala states cut like saw-grass. Saw-grass can cut your hand in two places. On each edge you can be cut. In the same way the Kusala state can cut the unwholesome states in two places – those that have arisen and those have not yet arisen.
If you are familiar with the supreme efforts among the Bodhipakkhiya, among the factors of enlightenment, there are two kinds of supreme effort with regard to Akusala and two kinds of supreme effort with regard to Kusala. The effort to get rid of Akusala that has already arisen and the effort to avoid Akusala that has not yet arisen – in these two ways the Kusala cuts the Akusala. Wholesome states are called Kusala because they cut like the saw-grass. They cut Akusala in two places like the saw-grass cuts the hand in two places. These meanings are based on etymology, first dividing the word one way, and then dividing the word in another way.
We must note here that Kusala is that which is healthy, that which is blameless and is that which produces pleasant or good results. Those are called Kusala Cittas. You may understand Akusala when you make the meanings the opposite. On page 31 in the Comprehensive Manual you read those.
Eight KÈmÈvacara Kusala Cittas
Let us go to the eight types of consciousness. These eight types of consciousness are not difficult to memorize, not difficult to remember if you remember the eight Lobhamula Cittas. You just have to make substitutions. There is Somanassa Sahagata (with pleasure), with wrong view, Unprompted or prompted. So here substitute knowledge for wrong view. The first Citta is with pleasure, with knowledge, unprompted. The first Citta is accompanied by pleasurable feeling, Somanassa Vedana. It is accompanied by ©ÈÓa. ©ÈÓa means knowledge, understanding, wisdom. ©ÈÓa here means understanding the true nature of things, understanding things as they are and also understanding that there is Kamma, that there is the result of Kamma, that there is the result of being respectful to one's parents, there is result of disrespect to one's parents and so on. That is also called ©ÈÓa or understanding. That means right understanding. Right understanding is the understanding that there is Kamma and there is the result of Kamma. AsankhÈrika-sometimes you may do something without being prompted and some things you may do being prompted. So there are two types of consciousness with knowledge. One is unprompted and the other is prompted.
Number three and four are again accompanied by pleasurable feeling. Here there is no ©aÓa, no understanding, no knowledge. Sometimes we do merit without thinking much of it, carelessly perhaps. In that case there may be no ©aÓa. Sometimes we give something and we don't think about it. We just give it. Then ©aÓa may not be with that action. In such a case there is ©aÓavipayutta, wholesome consciousness without knowledge. Also here such consciousness may be Asa~khÈrika or Sasa~khÈrika, unprompted or prompted. Altogether there are four types of consciousness accompanied by Somanassa, pleasurable feeling.
If you understand the first four, you understand the other four. Just substitute undifferent feeling for pleasurable feeling. Just substitute UpekkhÈ for Somanassa. Accompanied by indifference, with knowledge, unprompted the fifth Citta arises. Accompanied by indifference with knowledge, prompted the sixth Citta arises. Accompanied by indifference, without knowledge, unprompted the seventh Citta arises. Accompanied by indifference, without knowledge and prompted the eighth Citta arises. Altogether there are eight KÈmÈvacara Cittas.
When do these Cittas arise? On page 48 "Someone joyfully performs a generous deed, understanding that it is a wholesome deed (or understanding that there is Kamma and there is the result of Kamma) spontaneously without prompting". That is the first Citta.
"Someone performs the same good deed, with understanding, after deliberation or prompting by another". That is the second Citta.
"Someone joyfully performs a generous deed, without prompting, but without understanding that this is a wholesome deed". That is the third Citta.
"Someone joyfully performs a generous deed, without understanding, after deliberation or prompting by another". That is the fourth type of consciousness.
Then number 5-8–"These types of consciousness should be understood in the same way as the preceding four, but with neutral feeling instead of joyful feeling".
These eight types of consciousness are called wholesome or meritorious because they inhibit the defilements and produce good results. When this consciousness arises in our minds, there are no unwholesome mental states in our minds. Therefore they are said to inhibit the unwholesome mental states or defilements. And they produce s good results.
"They arise in worldlings ( Puthujjanas )and trainees (Sekkhas)". These Kusala Cittas arise in worldlings ( Puthujjanas ) - that means unenlightened persons. And also they arise in trainees ( Sekkhas ). Who are those trainees? Read on. "Noble Disciples at the three lower stages of Stream-enterer, Once-returner and Non-returner". There are four stages of englightenment–Stream-enterer, Once- returner, Non-returner and Arahant. Trainees mean those who have attained any one of the three lower stages. They are called trainees. It is strange. They are enghlightened persons, but they are called trainees. They are called Sekkhas because they are still learning. They still have something to do to get rid of mental defilements altogether. So they are called trainees. These eight types of consciousness arise in unenlightened persons and in these three types of enlightened persons. They do not arise in the Arahants. The same types of consciousnees arise in Arahants but they are not called Kusala. We will come to that later.
Whenever we perform some kind of meritorious deed whether by body, speech or mind there arises one of these eight types of consciousness. You are learning Abhidhamma and I am teaching Abhidhamma. What type of consciousness would it be? Are you happy or are you not? So if you are happy, it would be the first ones with knowledge. Do you have to prompt yourself to come here? It could be prompted or unprompted. One of these types of consciousness arises at the moments of learning and teaching.
"These Cittas do not arise in Arahants, whose actions are without Kammic potency". As Kusala they do not arise in Arahants, Pacceka Buddhas and Buddhas.
Sahetuka KÈmÈvacara VipÈka Cittas
Now the second group is Sahetuka KÈmÈvacara VipÈka Cittas. It is not plain KÈmÈvacara VipÈka Cittas but Sahetuka. Why? Because among the eighteen rootless consciousness there are Vipaka Cittas. They are KÈmÈvacara and Vipaka, but they are without roots. In order to differentiate from the Ahetuka Cittas we have to use the word 'Sahetuka'. If we don't use the word 'Sahetuka', KÈmÈvacara VipÈka may mean these eight Cittas or the eight Cittas among the eighteen rootless consciousness. If we want to specifically mean these eight we have to use the word 'Sahetuka'. So we say Sahetuka KÈmÈvacara VipÈka.
You know the word 'KÈmÈvacara' and 'VipÈka'. VipÈka means result, resultant consciousness. There are eight kinds of Sahetuka KÈmÈvacara VipÈka consciousness. These are the results of the eight KÈmÈvacara Kusala Cittas.
These arise in the sensuous realms only. The KÈmÈvacara Kusala Cittas may arise in the minds of Brahmas. They may arise in form-sphere realms and in formless-sphere realms. But these eight never arise in other realms. By other realms I mean the form-realms or formless-realms. They appear only in the KÈmÈvacara, sensuous realms because they are the result of the eight Kusala Cittas. These Sahetuka KÈmÈvacara VipÈka arise only in the sensuous realms, but the KÈmÈvacara Kusala Cittas can arise both in sensuous realms and in other realms. That is the difference.
Student: Is it because there is Kammic in the sense-sphere realm and not in the other realms?
Sayadaw: No, They themselves are resultant consciousness, They have no Kammic power. They cannot give results. They are the result of the eight KÈmÈvacara Kusala Cittas. They arise in KÈmÈvacara realms only, in the sensuous sphere only and not in the R|pÈvacara and Ar|pÈvacara realms.
Sahetuka KÈmÈvacara Kiriya Cittas
The next group is Sahetuke KÈmÈvacara Kiriya Cittas. Here also we have to use the word 'Sahetuka' because there are Ahetuka Kiriya Cittas. How many Ahetuka Kriya Cittas are there? Three-five–sense-door adverting, mind-door adverting and smile producing. If we want to specify these Cittas only, we say "Sahetuke Kamavacara Kiriya Cittas. If we do not say "Sahetuka", then it can those three also. These are with roots. Roots means the three Sobhana roots, the three beautiful roots.
They are the same as the KÈmÈvacara Kusala eight Cittas. Where do they arise? They arise in Buddhas, Pacekka Buddhas and Arahants only. Actually these eight Kiriya Cittas are identical with the eight Kusala Cittas. An Arahant does a meritorious deed; for example, he practises charity or practises SÊla. With this action perhaps consciousness with pleasurable feeling and with ©ÈÓa will arise. The Arahant's Citta lacks Kammic power, the Kammic power to give results. So his Citta is called Kiriya, functional. It functions as a Citta and then it disappears. It does not leave any potential to give results. That is the difference between Kusala consciousnee and Kiriya consciousness. Why do they not have this potential or why don't they have the ability to give results? Becaues the Buddhas and Arahants have destroyed Moha (ignorance) and TaÓhÈ (carving). Buddhas and Arahants have no ignorance to cover their eyeas of wisdom. They have no attachement. So there is no attachment to results and so on. Therir acts become just acts. Their acts become just consciousness arising and disappearing. Their Cittas just do this simple function without any power to give results. That is why their Cittas are called Kiriya Cittas. Kiriya literally translated means just doing. Doing means arising then disappearing. "They merely arise, accomplish some function, and then fall away without residue.
Twenty-four KÈmÈvacara Sobhana Cittas
Now we get altogether 24 KÈmÈvacara Sobhana Cittas. The circles at the beginning of lines I want you to put in the colors, colors from the charts. I want you to know the colors. The first four are red color. The second four are blue color. So the first four are accompanied by pleasurable feeling. The other four are accompanied by UpekkhÈ, indifferent feeling.
Why are there eight KÈmÈvacara Kusala Cittas, eight Sahetuka KÈmÈvacara VipÈka Cittas and eight Sahetuka KÈmÈvacara Kiriya Cittas? Why are there eight instead of one-because consciousness as the awareness of the object is just one? This consciousness here becomes eight depending on which feeling arise with it, whether or not it is accompanied by knowledge, and whether it arises being prompted or not. These three things, let us call them differentiating factors. In this book dichotomy is used. It is a big word. With regard to feeling there are two (Somanassa and UpekkhÈ). The Kusala Citta becomes two. And these two can be with knowledge or without knowledge, so they become four. These four may be prompted or unprompted, so they became eight. So two multiplied by two multiplied by two, we get eight types of consciousness. Just one consciousness becomes eight types of consciousness. Just one consciousness becomes eight types of consciousness depending on these differentiating factors.
In the Akusala Cittas we have the same thing. There we have feeling, wrong view instead of knowledge, prompted and unprompted.
So there are three differentiating factors. Because of these three there are eight KÈmÈvacara Kusala Cittas, eight KÈmÈvacara VipÈka Cittas and eight KÈmÈvacara Kiriya Cittas.
On page 51 there is something to make you more familiar with all these types of consciousness. "All types of consciousness experienced in the sense-sphere total 54". Those types of consciousness experienced in the arise mostly in sense-sphere realms are 54. Can you count those 54? 12 Akusala Cittas, 18 Ahetuka Cittas, and 24 KÈmÈvacara Sobhana Cittas. Althogether there are 54. These 54 Cittas arise mostly in being of the eleven sensuous realms.
These KÈmÈvacara Kusala, VipÈka and Kiriya Cittas are called MahÈ-Kusala, MahÈvipÈka and MahÈkiriya. Nobody knows for certain why they are called 'MahÈ'. One author gives one explanation and another author gives another explanation. But at least we must understand that they are called MahÈkusala, MahÈvipÈka and MahÈkiriya. So please note this. Some say that because there are 24 and therefore they are greater in number they are called MahÈ or great or big.
By way of kind means by way of their nature, or by way of genus-that means wholesome, unwholesome and resultant. Among the 54 how many are wholesome or Kusala? Eight are wholesome. How many are wholesome? Twelve. How many are resultants? Seven plus eight plus eight. So 23 are resultants. There are seven unwholesome resultants. There are eight rootless wholesome resultants and there are eight wholesome resultants with roots. Here they are called great or Maha. How many Kiriya or functional Cittas are there? Three from Ahetuka Cittas and eight from the KÈmÈvacara Sobhana. So there are eleven functional Cittas. Altogether we get 54.
Let's say it again. How many Kusala? Eight. How many Akusala? Twelve. How many resultant? 23. how many Kiriya? Eleven. So we get altogether 54 types of KÈmÈvacara consciousness. This is counting by way of kind, by way of genus.
Now by way of feeling–how many are accompanied by Somanassa feeling, how many by UpekkhÈ, how many by Domanassa, how many by Dukkha, how many by Sukha? Alright. How many are accompanied by Somanassa VedanÈ, pleasurable feeling? 18 are accompanied by pleasurable feeling, Somanassa feeling. How many are accompanied by neutral or indifferent feeling? 32 types of consciousness are accompanied by neutral feeling, indifferent feeling. Here it is said there are two with displeasure. Which are the two? The two green dots (two Dosam|la Cittas). Then there is one with pleasure. That means Sukha. That is the red cross (Sukha Sahagata KÈya ViÒÒÈÓa). And there is one with pain. That is the green cross ( Dukkha Sahagata Kaya Vinnana). According to feeling we divide the 54 sense sphere consciousness this way. How many are with Somanassa? 18. You know which ones to pick up. You pick up the red ones. How many are with indifferent feeling? 32. You pick up blue ones. How many are with displeasure? Two, the green ones. How many with bodily pleasure? Only one. How many with pain? One.
What is next? By way of association of knowledge and views. Which are associated, which are not associated, which are neither associated nor not associated? Associated means associated with wrong view and also associated with knowledge. How many does it say here? 16. Can you pick them out from the chart? With wrong view and with knowledge you must pick up. With wrong view four and with knowledge twelve. How many are disassociated, not associated? 16. Those that are not associated nor disassociated are 22. They are not associated, nor are they not associated.
By way of prompting–which are the prompted and which are the unpromped? 17 are unprompted. 17 are unprompted. 20 are neither; they are the rootless and the deluded. Those are not said to be prompted or unprompted. In this way we try to be familiar with the 54 types of consciousness.
When we first learned these things we had to do it at night without lights. We have to memorize it. We couldn't look at anything. First we memorize the PÈÄi. Then reciting the PÈÄi passages, we try to find out which one is prompted and which one is unprompted and so on. " The traditional monastic way of teaching Abhidhamma urges students not only to reflect on these lists but to know them well by heart. " You are not monks. It's ok.
"They are very important when one studies the mental factors comprased in these types of Cittas, as expounded in the next chapter and in the Abhidhamma Pitaka. " Even if you cannot take them by heart, you should be able to look at the chart and say which is which because when we come to the second chapter and say a particular Cetasika arises with so many Cittas, you will have to find the Cittas here. For example intitial application, Vitakka arises with 55 Cittas. You have to find out the 55 Cittas from this list. If you are not familiar with this list either by memory or by having the chart with you. If you cannot find them, you will be confused. Once confused the next step will be confused and you will lose interest. At least be familiar with this chart. Keep this chart always with you.
The causes for being ©ÈÓasampayutta
I think we can go a little further into R|pÈvacara types of consciousness. Wait a minute. Please look at the notes I gave you the other day on the sheet with the mango simile–the causes for being ©ÈÓasampayutta. There are causes for knowledge to arise. To some people consciousness with knowledge arises more frequently than to other people. Why? Some people have consciousness associated with knowledge more often. This note explains that. The first reason is kamma done in the past, which is conducive to possessing wisdom (©ÈÓa). That means sometimes when you do a meritorious deed you make a wish, "May I be a wise person; may I have wisdom in the future." If you do ameritorioius deed with this kind of aspiration, then in your future lives your Kusala consciousness will be mostly accompanied by knowledge. And also if you help spread the teachers or if you make donations for spreading the Dhamma, or if you do teaching, that is also Kamma which is conducive to possessing wisdom in the future. Because of such Kamma in the past you may have more frequently Cittas accompanied by Knowledge.
The next cause is rebirth in R|pÈvacara realm, rebirth as Brahmas. That world is free of illwill. It is said that Brahmas have no anger, no illwill. Anger is one mental state which weakens understanding or knowledge. If you want to be a wise person, if you want have knowledge, you have to control your anger. Don't get angry too often. If you get angry too often, it makes your knowledge weak. So you will not get knowledge much. In the Brahmaloka there is no illwill, no anger. Also the conditions are much better in their realms than in the human realm. And so these Brahams tend to get consciousness accompanied by knowledge more often than other beings.
Number there is maturith of the mental faculties. There are what we call mental faclties–confidence, right effort, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom – when these faculties become mature, you tend to get consciousness accompanied by knowledge.
When do they become mature? Look at the ten decades in the life of a man. A life of a human being is divided into ten decades, taking that a man would live for 100 years. One may not live so long, but it is the possible lifespan of people at the time of the Buddha and I think it still is now. The lifespan of a human being is divided into ten segments, ten decades. The first is called tender decade. That means you are weak because it is from birth to ten years of age. You are just a child, so you are weak. The second is sport decade. That means joy or happiness. You have fun during these years, teenage years from 11-20. Number three is the decade of beauty. Your beauty blooms during that time. So from 20-30 is the best time for people to become beautiful. The fourth decade is strength. From 30-40 people gain more strength. You become stronger. Now from 40-50 is the decade of wisdom. It is said that this is the time when your faculty of wisdom matures. Whatever you think, you get good answers and you have this kind of penetrating knowledge. This is the decade of wisdom from 40-50. How about you? Have you come into that age range or not yet? If you are 'not yet' it is good because you have hope–I will because more mature and have more wisdom when I get to be 40-50. Number six is decline. Oh, that's not good. 50-60 is a decline in bodily strength as well as mental strength. You tend to forget many things. And you become weak. The seventh decade is stooping. You are stooping like this. You have become an old man now. Number eight is not only stooping, but you are bent. You may have seen some people really bent. Number nine us Mom|ha, senile decade. During that decade you don't remember much. You don't know what you are doing, like doteage. Number ten you lie on the bed ready to die. These are the ten decades of a human being. Cause number three–the maturity of mental faculties–refers to the fifth decade, the decade of wisdom. From 40-50 is the best time nor just to learn, but to teach, to write a book and so on.
Number four is distance from mental defilements due to meditation. If you want to be knowledgable, if you want to be intelligent, let mental defilements be away from your mind. Keep them away by meditation. You can destroy them by meditation. If you cannot totally destroy them by meditation, still you can keep them away from your mind. It is important. If you want to get more consciousness accompanied by knowledge, practise meditation. Then mental defilements won't come to you for some time if you practise meditation both VipassanÈ and tranquility.
The last one is rebirth with three wholesome roots. We have just studied eight VipÈka Cittas. These eight VipÈka Cittas function as rebirth consciousness for human being for those born in the celestial realms. These eight VipÈka Cittas function as relinking or rebirth consciousness. Rebirth with three wholesome roots means your rebirth consciousness is number 1,2,5, or 6, you are reborn with three wholesome roots. If you are reborn with one of these four VipÈka Cittas, you tend to get more consciousness accompanied by knowledge, accompanied by wisdom. But that's already the result of Kamma. You cannot do anything about it. These are the causes for a consciousness to be accompanied by knowledge or not to be accompanied by knowledge.
[Still Tape #5]
R|pÈvacara Cittas
Next is R|pÈvacara. We may call R|pÈvacara Cittas higher states of consciousness. They are not experienced by those who do not practise mediation. They are not experienced by ordinary persons. I don't mean Puthujjanas, but ordinary persons. These R|pÈvacara Cittas arise mostly in the R|pÈvacara realms, from-sphere realms. There are fifteen from-sphere realms where these types of consciousness arise frequently. As usual we are to understand that these types of consciousness do not just arise in these realms only because they in human and celestial realms as well. But their main domain for their arising is the fifteen R|pÈvacara realms.
JhÈna
These Cittas are called JhÈna Cittas. JhÈna is a difficult word to translate. Some people translate it as ecstasy. Some translate it as meditation. And some translate it as absorption. None of them can really mean the same thing as the word 'JhÈna'. It is better to use the word 'JhÈna' when referring to these types of consciousness than to use the English translation because we cannot have an adequate translation of this word. If we use English words only, it is open to misunderstanding. It is better to use the word 'JhÈna'.
The word 'JhÈna' is a PÈiÄ word. Its Sanskrit equivalent is Dhyana. You may have met that word in your readings. In Sanskrit it is called Dhyana and in PÈÄi we have JhÈna.
There will be first, second, third fourth and fifth JhÈna conscoiusness. The word 'JhÈna' is derived from the PÈÄi root 'Jhe' meaning to contemplate and to burn up. Most words in PÈÄi and Sanskrit are derived from what are called roots. You also have roots in English–Latin roots, Greek roots. In PÈÄi and Sanskrit many words are derived from roots. This PÈÄi word 'JhÈna' is said to be derived from the root 'Jhe'. Jhe has the meaning of to contemplate and to burn up. Contemplate means to look closely. So the root 'Jhe' has two meaning in PÈÄi. Both meanings are applied here to this type of consciousness.
"Thus the JhÈnas are so called because they closely contemplate the object". When you get the JhÈnas, your mind is stuck to the object. You are closely observing the object. " And because they burn up the adverse states opposed to concentratiion. " There are these opposite states called mental hindrances. These JhÈnas are said to burn these mental hindrances. That means they don't let these mental hindrances arise.
So when you are in JhÈna these mental hindrances cannot arise. Therefore they are said to burn up mental hindrances which are adverse states opposed to concentration.
NÊvaraÓas
These five mental hindrances are called NÊvaraÓa in PÈÄi. They are on the sheet. You need to learn these five mental hindrances as we will refer to them again later. What are these five mental hindrances? Sensual desire. That means desire for sense
objects, not necessarily sensuous object. You want to see something. You want to hear something. You are attached to something you have heard. You are attached to something you have seen. That is sensual desire.
The second one is illwill. Illwill means harted, anger, depression, worry, anxiety. All these are included in illwill.
The third one is actually two, sloth and torpor. Sloth is one thing. Torpor is another. They are taken as one mental hindrance here. These are all mental factors. We will meet them in the second chapter.
The next one is also a combination of two, restlessness and worry. I took it from the Comprehensive Manual–the word ' worry' is used there. I prefer the word 'remorse' rather than 'worry'. Although they are two mental states, they are said to be one mental hindrance here.
The last one is doubt. It is doubt about the Buddha, Dhamma, Sa~gha and so on.
These are called five mental hindrances because they hinder concentration, they hinder JhÈna. They are obstacles to concentration and JhÈna. Therefore they are called hindrances. The JhÈna consciousness or rather the JhÈna factors inhibit these mental hindrances. We will come to that later.
What happens when a JhÈna consciousness arises or what must we do to have JhÈna consciousness? In order to get JhÈna consciousness we must practise what is called Samatha meditation, tranquility meditation. There are forty subjects of tranquility meditation. Some subjects cannot help us to get JhÈnas. Many others do help us to get JhÈnas. The most popular are the KasiÓas. KasiÓas are disks of earth, disks of water, of fire, of air and also of color–blue, yellow, red and white.
In order to develop JhÈna you practise KasiÓa meditation. Let us just say KasiÓa meditation. You may practise other meditations too. When you practise KasiÓa meditation you make a disk for yourself, a disk about nine or ten inches in diameter. If you want make an earth KasiÓa, you find some clay and put it in a frame on a cloth or something. Then you look at that disk many times for many hours. You put that disk in front of you–not too close and not too far, in just the right position. If it is too high, you will get pain in your neck and also if it is too low. It must be placed just right. Then you have to concentrate totally on that disk. You do not pay attention to anything elsi. You try to put your mind totally on the KasiÓa.
The word KasiÓa means total or whole. That means your mind should be on the whole of the KasiÓa. Then you must memorize it actually. You look at that disk. Let us say it is an earth KasiÓa. You look at the earth KasiÓa. Then you say, "earth, earth, earth" thousand and thousand of times. Then you try to memorize it. You close your eyes and see if you can see it with your eyes closed. If you can, then you close your eyes and look at that image. If it disappears, you open your eyes again memorize it. This way you open your eyes and close them, open your eyes and them and memorize the image.
When you can see the image with your eyes closed, you are said to have gotten the grasped sign. In the book it is called the learning sign. I don't like the word 'learning sign'. The PÈÄi word 'Uggaha' here means to pick up or to hold on to or to grasp. That means you have grasped this sign. You've got this sign in your mind. When you get this sign, you can see this image with your eyes closed.
That image is actually a concept. It is not reality anymore because when you look at the KasiÓa it is reality, but when you have the image in your mind, it has become a concept. After getting that concept, after getting that sign, you may dispose of the KasiÓa object.
Then you may practise anywhere at that time because the object is in your mind. You try to practise again concentrating on that image again and again. The hindrances will become less and less. They will be inhibited. They will be supressed. It is like the dirt in the water settling down, these hindrances will settle down and your mind will become clearer and clearer. As your mind becomes clearer and clearer, the image also becomes clearer.
The first image you get which is called the grasped sign appears to you as it is. If there are some deffects in the disk, you will see those deffects in your mind. When you make the disk, you may leave some impressions of your fingers or whatever or it may not be very smooth. In the first stage of the grasped sign you will see the sign with those deffects. But as your mind becomes clearer and clearer the disk also becomes clearer and clearer. Those deffects will disappear. The sign will appear in your mind as a polished mirror. That sign is called counterpart sign or we may say identical sign. After you get counterpart sign you practise meditation on that sign-just seeing it in your mind and saying, "earth, earth, earth". Now your has become clear and the mental hindrances have settled down.
At one time the JhÈna consciousness will arise in your mind. When the JhÈna consciousness arises your mind is on that counterpart sign. You have formally grasped that counterpart sign. That type of consciousness is called JhÈna consciousness. It is not KÈmÈvacara consciousness. It is R|pÈvacara consciousness. That's why we can call it a higher consciousness.
Five R|pÈvacara Kusala Cittas: Five JhÈna Cittas
That type of consciousness or JhÈna consciousness can be of five kinds. We have five JhÈna consciousness. They are described in this manual by their respective JhÈna factors.
The first JhÈna is accompanied by Vitakka, VicÈra, PÊti, Sukha and EkaggatÈ, five JhÈna factors. The second JhÈna is accompanied by four JhÈna factors. The third JhÈna is accompanied by three JhÈna factors. The fourth is accompanied by two JhÈna factors. And the fifth is accompanied by two JhÈna factors. There are said to be five JhÈnas, each succeeding one higher or better than the preceding one. The lowest is the first JhÈna on up to the highest, the fifth JhÈna.
In the texts JhÈnas are not described by all these factors. They are described in another way. I will give you those texts next time.
Here in Abhidhamma and in this manual the JhÈna are described with respect to the factors that they arise with. JhÈna is accompanied by five JhÈna factors.
We have to understand three things clearly when we talk about JhÈna and also when we talk about Magga later–JhÈna, JhÈna factor and JhÈna consciousness, these three. We have to know what we mean by JhÈna, JhÈna factor and JhÈna consciousness. We must clearly understand these terms. JhÈna means the combination of these factors–five factors, or four, or three, or two or two. The group of these factors ( 5, 4, 3, 2, 2 ) is alled a JhÈna. JhÈna is a compound noun like group or association. The group of five factors etc. is called JhÈna. One of these factors is called a JhÈna factor. The type of consciousness which is accompanied by these factors is called JhÈna consciousness. We must understand these three terms clearly–JhÈna, JhÈna factor and JhÈna consciousness.
Again what is JhÈna? A group of factors, a group of JhÈna factors. What is JhÈna factor? It is the individual factors. What is JhÈna consciousness? It is consciousness accompanied by these five.
You are members of an association. When you come together, you are an association. Each one of you is a member. So each one of you is like a JhÈna factor. Your combined association is JhÈna. It is something like that. So there is JhÈna, JhÈna factor and JhÈna consciousness.
Sometimes we are not practise in using the word 'JhÈna'. So sometimes we may just call consciousness JhÈna, but actually technically speaking JhÈna means the combination of the factors or mental states. And JhÈna consciousness means consciousness accompanied by JhÈna.
The first JhÈna is accompanied by Vitakka, VicÈra, PÊti, Sukha and EkaggatÈ. Sahida means together with. The first JhÈna is accompanied by these five factors. We will have occasion again to study these factors in the second chapter because they are mental factors. They are Cetasikas. We will do it next time.
Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!
[End of Tape #5]
[Tape #6]
Chapter 1
RUPAVACARA CITTAS
Today we will study the Rupavacara Cittas, form-sphere consciousness. I told you how Jhana is attained and what to practice, and also what the difference is between Jhana, Jhana factor and Jhana consciousness. Among the ten Kasinas, I think color Kasina is easier to make. So if you want to try Kasina meditation, you can try one of the color Kasinas. This is a white Kasina. You can make something like this if you want to practice Kasina meditation. Do not put blue, red or yellow around it because there are four colors- blue, red, yellow and white. This is a white Kasina. It should look something like this. It should not be smaller than this. If it is smaller, it is difficult to keep your mind there.
Five JhÈna Factors
The practice of Kasina meditation or some other meditation which leads to the attainment of Jhana, a yogi, a meditator reaches Jhana consciousness. These Jhana consciousness are accompanied by mental factors. Among them five are called factors of Jhana, Jhana factors. The first Jhana is accompanied by five Jhana factors. Those factors are Vitakka, Vicara, Piti, Sukha and Ekaggata. I want you to know them in Pali. On the English side, I put the Pali words because they take less space. They are all mental factors, so we will be studying these again in the second chapter.
What is Vitakka? It is translated as initial application. That means initial application of mind to the object. In the discourses, the word ‘Vitakka’ is used to mean thought. In Abhidhamma, it does not mean just thought, but a mental factor that mounts the mind onto the object, that takes the mind to the object, that directs the mind to the object. That mental factor is called Vitakka in Abhidhamma as a technical term. In the Suttas you may find Vitakka used for thought, like in Vitakkasanthana Sutta, How to Dispel Distracting Thoughts. Vitakka is a mental factor that takes the mind, that takes consciousness, that takes Citta to the object. Without Vitakka it is difficult for the Citta to take the object. Many Cittas need Vitakka to take them to the object. But there are some that do not need Vitakka. That will come later.
Vicara means investigating or pondering upon or something like that. Here Vicara does not mean that. Again it is a technical term in Abhidhamma. Vicara is a mental factor which is here translated as sustained application. First Vitakka takes the consciousness to the object. Then Vicara keeps it there. So Vitakka and Vicara are two different mental factors which are concerned with taking the mind to the object and keeping it there. But it may seem that Vitakka comes first and then Vicara follows it. But in actual occurrence they arise at the same time. Here with this Jhana consciousness they arise at the same time.
The difference given between Vitakka and Vicara is given in the manual on page 57. “The Commentaries offer various similes to highlight the difference these two Jhana factors. Vitakka is like a bird's spreading out its wings to fly, Vicara is like the bird's gliding through the air with outstretched wings." Vitakka is like the bird trying to get into the sky. Vicara is the bird flying through the air with the outspread wings. If we take a modern simile, I think we can take an airplane. Takeoff is Vitakka. When the plane reaches cruise level, that is Vicara.
“Vitakka is like a bee's diving toward a flower, Vicara is like the bee's buzzing above the flower." It is the same thing. Here the bee buzzing above the flower is like Vicara. “Vitakka is like the hand that holds a tarnished metal dish, Vicara is like the hand that wipes the dish." If there is something that is dirty and you want to clean it, you hold it with one hand and with the other hand holding a cleaning brush you rub it or clean it. Vitakka is like the hand that holds the dish. Vicara is like the hand that rubs the dish. How many similes do you have now? Three - the bird, the bee, and the hand taking hod and the other hand rubbing the dish.
One of the other similes given in the Commentaries is when a potter makes pots, he turns round the wheel and makes the pot. When the wheel is turning, he will take told of the clay with one hand and then with the other hand he will shape it or mold it into a pot. Vitakka is like taking hold with one hand and Vicara is like shaping with the other. Also when you want to make a circle on the ground, you put a spike in the middle of the ground and attach a rope. At the end of that rope, you put another spike outside. Vitakka is like the spike in the center. Vicara is like the spike outside. There are many similes given in the Commentaries to understand the difference between Vitakka and Vicara.
The third Jhana factor is Piti. We have to reach the Pali form of this word. Translating it into English is never satisfactory. It is translated as zest in the this book. Others translate it as joy, rapture, happiness, pleasurable interest. There are many translations for this one word 'Piti'. It is always good to retain the Pali word even if you know the English translations. For example if we use the word 'joy' for Piti, we should put the Pali word 'Piti' in parentheses. Then people will not misunderstand. Piti is derived from the verb 'Pi' meaning to refresh. When you have Piti, you are refreshed. It is a pleasurable interest in the object. In the manual it says, The term is often translated as rapture, a rendering which fits its role as a Jhana factor but may not be wide enough to cover all its nuances." It is better to retain the Pali.
Five Kinds of PÊti
There are five kinds of Piti given in the Commentaries. They are also given in the manual. I want you to read them. The commentators distinguish five grades of Piti that arise when developing concentration. Number one is minor Piti that arise when developing concentration. Number one is minor Piti, number two momentary Piti, number three showering Piti, number four uplifting Piti and number five pervading Piti. There are five kinds of Piti.
Minor Piti is able to the hairs on the body. Sometimes when you have Piti, you may feel goose-flesh. The hairs stand on end. That is minor Piti, the lowest level of Piti.
The next one is momentary Piti. It is like flashes of lightning. Once in awhile you feel that Piti in your body and in you mind.
The next one is showering Piti. It breaks over the body again and again like waves on the seashore. Momentary Piti may come just once in awhile. This showering Piti may come more often like waves on the seashore.
The fourth one is uplifting Piti that may cause the body to levitate. In the Commentaries two stories are given. One is the story of a monk who by the power of Piti was able to fly through the air in order to reach a pagoda. The other story is about a woman who was pregnant. There was a pagoda festival. She wanted to go to the pagoda festival. But her parents said it was not wise for her to go as she was pregnant. They left her there at home. She could see the festival going on at a distance. She could also hear the chanting of the monks at the pagoda. She was so joyous at seeing and hearing these things that she got this uplifting kind of Piti. She just flew through the air. And so she reached the pagoda before her parents, and was listening to the monks preaching. When her parents saw her, they asked her how she came. Then she answered that she came through the air. “No, you cannot. Only the Arahants can fly through the air.", they said. She then said, “I don't know. I was thinking of the pagoda festival going on, and then the next thing I knew I flew through the air and alighted on the platform of the pagoda." The uplifting Piti can cause the body to move or go up in the air. Even though it is not easy to experience uplifting Piti that will levitate your body, you may have experienced Piti that can lift your body on this side or that side. Sometimes when you practice meditation and have Piti, your body may move slightly.
The next one is called pervading Piti. It pervades the whole body as an inundation fills a cavern. In our countries, we use the simile of cotton put in the oil. Surgical cotton can absorb oil or water very easily. We put the cotton in the oil or water and it is absorbed by the cotton like that. This kind of Piti is felt all through the body. So it is pervading Piti or like a flood filling a cave. All these five kinds of Piti are experienced by meditators at one time or another during their practice of meditation. In the Jhanas, the fifth Piti is experienced. A person who is in the state of Jhana experiences this pervading Piti.
The next is Sukha. Sukha is translated as happiness. Sukha here means Somanassa, not the Sukha in Ahetuka Cittas. Here Sukha means Somanassa. Somanassa means Vedana. So it is a feeling. This Sukha is born of detachment from sensual pleasures. In order to get Jhana, you have to avoid sensual pleasures. This Sukha is born of detachment from sensual pleasures. It is, therefore, explained as Niramisasukha. That means unworldly or spiritual happiness.
We must understand the difference between Piti and Sukha. They are very much alike. They arise at the same time. So their difference is difficult to understand. The Commentaries have the similes to help us. “Piti and Sukha are closely connected, they are distinguished in that Piti is a connotative factor belonging to the aggregate of mental formations (Sankharakkhandha). "Piti is not a feeling. Although we think Piti is feeling, actually it is not feeling. It belongs to Sankhara aggregate of. “Sukha is a feeling belonging to the aggregate of feeling (Vedanakkhadha). Please note this difference. Piti belongs to Sankhara aggregate and Sukha belongs to Vedana aggregate. That is one difference.
“Piti is compared to the delight a weary traveler would experience when coming across an oasis, Sukha to his pleasure after bathing and drinking." That is why Piti is designated as pleasurable interest. Pleasurable interest is aroused when he sees or he hears about something.
Here a man is travelling on a journey or maybe in a forest, and he is tired and maybe thirsty. He may meet another person who will tell him there is an oasis or a forest with a pond. First he hears from the man, and then later he may hear the birds or maybe other people that have been there as he approaches that place. All these times, he is experiencing Piti. Then he reaches the place. He bathes in the pond. He may eat something there. He may rest in the shade of a tree. At that moment, he is experiencing Sukha. So Piti and Sukha are different. Piti is before enjoying. Sukha is enjoying. Before enjoying, you just see or hear about something- that is Piti. When you actually enjoy it, there is Sukha because you enjoy it. That is the difference between Piti and Sukha although mostly they arise at the same moment, at the same time with the same type of consciousness.
The last one is called Ekaggata. Eka means one. Agga means portion. Ekagga means having only one part, having only one portion. That means having only one object. So Ekaggata means the state of having one object. It is also a mental factor. In other places, it is also called Samadhi. When we say Samadhi, we mean Ekaggata.
These five factors are highly developed when they reach the state of Jhana. These five factors and other mental factors arise with Kamavacara Cittas also. With the first Akusala Citta, for example, Vitakka and Vicara arise, but there they are not developed. They are not strong. But here they are strong. They are well developed, so they can keep the mind on the Kasina object, on the meditation object.
These five need to be functioning properly, functioning equally, one not exceeding the other. When they are functioning properly, in harmony, then the mind becomes firm and steady on the object. Then Jhana may arise. If Vitakka does not take the mind to the object, Vicara cannot sustain the mind on the object. There can be no Piti, Sukha and Ekaggata. These five support each other. These are the five Jhana factors that accompany the first Jhana consciousness. So Jhana means the combination of these five factors. Jhana factors mean each one of them— Vitakka, Vicara, and so on. Jhana consciousness means consciousness accompanied by these five factors. So we have first Jhana consciousness.
Two Kinds of JhÈna
Now we come to Jhana. I told you something about Jhana last week. But there is some more to understand about Jhana. So please look at today's sheet with the title “Two kinds of Jhana". It is very important that you understand this, "Jhana is twofold:
(1) That which examines closely the object." The meaning of the word 'Jhana' is to observe closely, to examine closely, to meditate closely. Here we use examine closely. That is the meaning of the word 'Jhana'. “That which examine closely the object"—that is one kind of Jhana. In Pali it is called Arammanupanijjhana.
(2) And that which examines closely the characteristics (Lakkhanupanijjhana)". The Pali word 'Lakkhana' is translated as mark or characteristic. So it is that which closely examines the mark or characteristic. In Pali that is Lakkhanupanijjhana.
There are two kinds of Jhana. There is Jhana of Arammana and Jhana of Lakkhana. What are the Arammanas here? Arammana here means the objects of meditation. It is the objects of Samatha meditation like Kasina disks, parts of the body, corpses and so on.
The Eight Attainments (4 Rupavacara and 4 Arupavacara Jhanas) are called Arammanupanijjhana, (that means the first one) because they observe closely or examine closely the mental object of earth Kasina etc.—not the Kasina itself but the mental object of the Kasina in your mind. The Jhana consciousness takes the mental object. They are called Arammanupanijjhana because they closely examine these Arammanas. That means they are intensely taking that object.
Vipassana, Magga and Phala are called Lakkhanupanijjhana. That id important. Whenever we find the word 'Jhana' we think it only means Rupavacara and Arupavacara. Sometimes Vipassana can be called Jhana. Magga means path. It can be called Jhana and Phala. Fruition can also be called Jhana. There can be a confusion if we don't know which Jhana is meant in a certain context.
Vipassana is called Lakkhanupanijjhana. Now here the Lakkhana, the characteristic is closely examined. Vipassana is so called because it closely examines the characteristics of impermanence and so on. That means impermanence, suffering and no soul. These three are called characteristics. They are common characteristics of all conditioned phenomena. When you practice Vipassana meditation, you will see these characteristics in whatever object you take at that moment. Vipassana can be called Jhana because it examines closely these three characteristics. Magga is so called— we have not come to Magga yet. It belongs to supramundane consciousness. Magga is so called because the work done by Vipassana comes to be accompanied, comes to an end through Magga. When Magga is attained, when Magga is reached, your Vipassana is finished. Magga is actually the outcome of Vipassana practice. But Magga is not a Vipaka. Vipasasna work comes to an end or reaches a culmination when Magga is reached, when Magga is attained. So Magga is also called Lakkhanupanijjhana. Magga does not take Lakkhana as object however, Magga takes Nibbana as object. Still Magga is called Lakkhanupanijjhana, a contemplation on Lakkhana, simply because the task of Vipassana which is to closely examine the three characteristics come to an end, come to accomplished. So Magga is also called Lakkhanupanijjhana.
Phala, the Vipaka of Magga, the resultant of Magga, is so called because it examines the truth of cessation which is the characteristic of the truth. Nibbana is called the Truth of Cessation here. The Truth of Cessation, Nibbana is taken by Phala as object. Nibbana has the characteristic of truth. So Phala is also called Lakkhanupanijjhana. Here Lakkhana means the characteristic of Nibbana, truth. But when Lakkhana refers to Vipassana, it means the three characteristics—impermanence, suffering and no soul. With regard to Phala being called Lakkhanupanijjhana, then Lakkhana means the characteristic of Nibbana, not impermanence and so on. There is this difference. According to this description, Jhana can mean four Rupavacara Jhanas, four Arupavacara Jhanas and the Vipassana, Magga and Phala. Jhana does not just mean Rupavacara Jhana and Arupavacara Jhana everywhere.
There is a verse in the Dhammapada:
“You yourselves must make the effort; Tathagatas are only proclaimers.
Those who have entered the path and examine closely by Jhanas
will get free from the bond of Mara".
Here the word 'Jhana' is used. Actually the Pali word 'Jhayino' is used. That means those who experience Jhana. Those who practice Jhana, who experience Jhana, get free from the bonds of Mara. That means they will become enlightened, they will become Arahants. If we take Jhana to mean just Rupavacara Jhana or Arupavacara Jhana, it doesn't make sense here because you have to practice Vipassana meditation in order to become enlightened. That is why the Commentary said there are two kinks of Jhana. “Tathagatas are merely those who proclaim. Hence those who have stepped on the path in accordance with what they (the Tathagatas) proclaimed and examine closely by two kinds of Jhanas" when the Commentary says two kinds Jhana we must understand they are referring to Arammanupanijjhana and Lakkhanupanaijjhana. In this verse, we must understand that this person practices both Samatha and Vipassana meditation. If you do not understand this, you will be confused here. You may think why are they saying Jhana to mean Vipassana or something like that. So there are two kinds of Jhana. But here in the manual and in the Abhidhamma Jhana will only mean Rupavacara and Arupavacara.
This is Pathamajjhana, first Jhana consciousness. It is called first because it is attained first and also it comes first when Buddha taught. Second Jhana- attainment of Jhanas is something like you go to school and you get examinations or grades and go higher and higher. First you want to finish high school. Finishing high school is good for you at that time. After you have finished high school, you don't think it is great. You want to go to a university. Then you go to a university and get a Bachelor's Degree. After getting a Bachelor's Degree, you think that is not so good. You want a higher degree, a Master's Degree. After getting a Master's Degree, you want to go further for a Doctorate. In the same way, a person who has attained first Jhana may not be satisfied with just first Jhana. He may want to attain the higher Jhana.
What must he do in order to attain the higher Jhana? First he must make himself very familiar with the first Jhana. That means he must be able to get into it the moment he wants. He must be able to be in that Jhana for as long as he wishes- a minute or maybe a day. He must have that mastery over this Jhana. He must practice first Jhana again and again until he gains mastery over it. After gaining mastery over it, he enters into the Jhana and reviews the Jhana factors. When he reviews the Jhana factors, he begins to find fault with Vitakka.
In the Visuddhimagga, four Jhanas are given. So it takes Vitakka and Vicara together. Vitakka is gross. Vitakka appears to him as gross. Vicara and other appear to him as peaceful. When he sees that Vitakka is gross, he feels that his first Jhana is closer to the hindrances. He loses attachment for Vitakka. He wants to get rid of Vitakka. With that desire to rid of Vitakka he practices again on the meditation object saying, “earth, earth, earth". When he gets the second Jhana according to his wish and as a result of his will power, Vitakka is left behind. Vitakka no longer arises with the second Jhana. There are only four Jhana factors. The higher Jhanas are attained by eliminating the grosser Jhana factors. We call them 'gross' or 'subtle', but actually these Jhana factors are very highly developed. It appears gross to the person with Jhana because it is nearer to the mental hindrances. Also since it takes the mind to the object, it is conducive to agitation. So long as there is Vitakka, there is danger to fall back to the mental hindrances and to lose the Jhana. So the meditator finds fault with Vitakka and loses interest in Vitakka. Then he thinks Vicara and others are better. He tries to retain those factors. When the Jhana arises as a result of his meditation, Vitakka does not arise; only four factors arise- Vicara, Piti, Sukha and Ekaggata.
After getting second Jhana, he finds fault with Vicara also. Vicara is a good friend of Vitakka. These two are agitating factors. So long as these two are present, there is always danger. So now he wants to get rid of Vicara. He practices meditation again and as a result of his meditation, when the next Jhana consciousness arises, there is no Vicara. There is only Piti, Sukha and Ekaggata. That is the third Jhana.
Piti in Jhana is very refined. Still he finds fault with it. Piti also has a tendency towards agitation. When you are elated, when you have Piti, you something like that. It makes the mind something like shaky. The meditator finds fault with Piti. Sukha is better. Sukha is more peaceful. He practices meditation again. When the next Jhana consciousness arises, there is no Piti. Now there is only Sukha and Ekaggata. It is a very refined Sukha and Ekaggata.
But still Sukaha is close to Piti. Piti is close to Vicara. Vicara is close to Vitakka. Vitakka is close to mental hindrances. Ekaggata is very stable and very peaceful. He loses interest in Sukha also. He practices meditation. When the next Jhana consciousness arises, that consciousness is accompanied by Upekkha, not Sukah, not Somanassa. He finds fault with Somanassa. Nowadays we are going after Somanassa. We want to be happy. Whatever we do, wherever we go, whatever situation we are in, we want to be happy. We think much of happiness because we have not experienced the very high form of happiness. This person who has attained the fourth Jhana even finds fault with happiness. Happiness is also a little agitated. The meditator think, “If happiness is there, the mind can be shaken. I will eliminate it and instead get Upekkha." When the fifth Jhana arises, it is accompanied by Upekkha. How many factors accompany it? Two Jhana factors. First Jhana is accompanied by how many factors? Five. Second Jhana? Four. Third Jhana? Three. Fourth Jhana? Two Sukha and Ekaggata. Fifth Jhana? Two—Upekkha and Ekaggata. The factors are eliminated one by one. For forth and fifth Jhana there are two factors, but they are different. In fourth Jhana, there is Sukha and Ekaggata. In fifth Jhana, there is Upekkha and Ekaggata.
There are the types of consciousness experienced by Puthujjanas and Sekhas (Those who are enlightened but are not yet Arahants). If a person gets one of these five Jhana and he dies with these Jhana intact (That means he is able to enter into that Jhana easily.), then he will be reborn in the world of Brahmans. In the 31 planes of existence the first eleven are sense-sphere. Then there are 16 which are called form-Brahma. Above them are four which are called formless or immaterial Brahama. If a person gets the first Jhana here and he dies with the Jhana intact, he will be reborn in the Rupavacara form Brahmas. At the rebirth as a Braham the first rebirth consciousness arising there is the resultant of this first Jhana. First Jhana gives the first Jhana resultant. The second Jhana gives the second Jhana resultant and so on.
R|pÈvacara VipÈka Cittas
The Rupavacara Cittas give identical results, unlike the Kamavacara Kusala Sobhana Cittas may give identical and non-identical results. You will find out more about that in the fifth chapter. These five Rupavacara Kusala and also the four Arupavacara Kusala give identical results. If a person gets the first Jhana here and dies with that Jhana intact, rebirth consciousness as a Brahma will be the first Jhana resultant consciousness. The same is true if a person gets the second Jhana and so on. Just as there are five wholesome form-sphere consciousness, so there are five resultant form-sphere consciousness. Each resultant form-sphere consciousness has the same number of mental factors as does its counterpart in the wholesome form-sphere consciousness. So first Jhana Rupavacara Kusala has the mental factors Vitakka, Vicara, Piti, Sukha and Ekaggata. Similarly first Jhana Rupavacara Vipaka has the mental factors Vitakka, Vicara, Piti, Sukha and Ekaggata. These five resultant consciousness arise only in the words of Brahmans. They do not arise in the sense-sphere. These five resultant consciousness, therefore, will not arise in human beings. They arise only in the minds of Brahmas.
R|pÈvacara Kiriya Cittas
The next five are the Rupavacara Kiriya Cittas. What is Kiriya? Just happening, just doing. Kiriya Cittas can arise only in Arahants. When a person, after becoming an Arahants, practices Kasina meditation, he may get first Jhana. That Jhana will be first Rupavacara Kiriya. It will be the same for second, third, fourth and fifth. The Kiriya Cittas are for Arahants only. That means Buddhas, Pacceka Buddhas and Arahants only. Altogether we have 15 Rupavacara Cittas, 15 form-sphere Cittas- five wholesome, five resultant and five functional. The five wholesome can arise in the sense-sphere and in the form-sphere. The five resultant ones can arise only in form-sphere. The third can arise in the sense-sphere and also in the form-sphere. The third five are experienced by Arahants only.
In the texts and in the Dhammasangani also, when the Buddha described Jhanas, he used different descriptions. I want you to be familiar with that too. Please turn to “Description of Jhana in the Texts". In the manual, we are studying, Jhanas are described by way of their factors. When Buddha described Jhana in the texts- in the discourses as well as Abhidhamma- He described in another way. Not all the factors are mentioned in the description.
JhÈnas in the Texts
So there the first Jhana: “Quite secluded from sense pleasures, quite secluded from unwholesome states, a monk attains and dwells in the first Jhana, which is accompanied by initial application (One Jhana factor), accompanied by sustained application (another Jhana factor), is born of seclusion, is with rapture (Piti) and happiness (Sukha) or is with rapture and happiness which are born of seclusion." So here how many Jhana factors do you find? Vitakka, Vicara, Piti and Sukha. No Ekaggata is mentioned here. But we must understand that without Ekaggata there can be on Jhana.
Second Jhana: “With the non-appearance of initial application and sustained application."—here the meditator has eliminated two Jhana factors at the same time. “With the non-appearance of initial application and sustained application, he attains and dwells in the second Jhana, which is internal, clarifying, makes singleness of mind grow, is without initial application and sustained application, is born of consciousness and is with rapture and happiness." Here Piti and Sukha are mentioned. Vitakka and Vicara are mentioned as being eliminated.
Let's look at the third Jhana. “With the disgusting of rapture (as well as disappearance of initial application and sustained application) he dwells in equanimity (Upekkha) is mindful and clearly comprehending, and he experiences happiness (Sukha) with his body and mind, he attains and dwells in the third Jhana, on account of which the noble ones announce, "He is with equanimity, is mindful, and dwells in happiness" How many Jhana factors do you find here?
Some say one. Some say two. Some say three. Do you find Sukha? Yes. No you do not find rapture. Rapture is mentioned, but it is eliminated. Equanimity and happiness. That's all. Equanimity here does not mean indifferent feeling. It is another mental factor. It will be mentioned in the second chapter. The word 'Upekkha" is used for indifferent feeling as well as that mental factor. That mental factor is translated as equanimity because it does not fall on either side. It stays in the middle. In Pali it is called Tatramajjhattata. Here equanimity does not mean the feeling Upekkkha. It is another kind of Upekkha. We find only one factor here.
Fourth Jhana: “With the abandoning of pleasure and pain and with the pervious disappearance of joy and grief, he attains and dwells in the fourth Jhana, which is neither accompanied by pain nor pleasure, and is with purity of mindfulness caused by equanimity." Here also equanimity is Tatramajjhattata. Here no Jhana factor is mentioned. This is how Buddha described both in discourses and in Abhidhamma.
In the discourses, almost always four Jhanas are mentioned, not five. In Abhidhamma four Jhanas as well as five Jhanas are mentioned because Abhidhamma deals with what is there and has to be complete. In Abhidhamma, there is the fourfold method (That means four Jhanas are mentioned.) and the five Jhanas are mentioned. In the discourses, only four Jhanas are mentioned. You may read about Jhanas in many discourses and you will only find four of them. For example, the second discourse in the Diganikaya only four are mentioned there.
Please turn to page 58, the bottom paragraph in the manual. “Although the Suttas do not mention the fivefold analysis of Jhana in explicit terms, they provide an implicit basis for this analysis in the Buddha's distinction between three kinds of concentration." In some Suttas Buddha mentioned three kinds of concentration. That means three kinds of Jhana. “They are concentration accompanied by both initial application and sustained application; concentration without initial application but with sustained application; and concentration with neither initial application nor sustained application." So both have mentioned three kinds of Samadhi, three kinds of concentration. The first is obviously the first Jhana in both systems. There is no problem here where the concentration is accompanied by both Vitakka and Vicara. The third means without initial application and sustained application. What Jhanas are without initial application and sustained application? Third, fourth and fifth Jhana. In the fourfold method, it is second, third and fourth. We will come to that later.
“The second, however, is nowhere clarified within the Suttas themselves". In the Suttas, only four are mentioned. In the Suttas, there is nothing which meets the description here, that is “concentration without initial application but with sustained application." So although five Jhanas are not mentioned explicitly in the Suttas, but in some Suttas the Buddha implicitly mentioned five Jhanas. If we do not take Jhanas to be five, the second kind of concentration will be meaningless. Because, in the fourfold method, the first is with Vitakka, Vicara and the second, and third and fourth are without Vitakka and Vicara. So there is Jhana with Vitakka and Vicara and there is Jhana without Vitakka and Vicara. But there is no Jhana without Vitakka but with Vicara. That is if we take it that there are four Jhana only. So although Buddha did not mention five Jhanas one by one in the Suttas, according to that division of concentration into three kinds there must be what is called the second Jhana in the fivefold method.
Fourfold and Fivefold Methods
Please turn to the page where the fourfold and fivefold method of Jhana is shown. There are two methods- the fivefold method and the fourfold method. Fivefold method has five Jhanas. Fourfold method has four Jhanas. We are studying the manual, so we are familiar with the fivefold method that is used in the manual. In that method, the first Jhana has five factors- Vitakka, Vicara, Piti, Sukha and Ekaggata. Second Jhana has Vicara, Piti, Sukha and Ekaggata. Third Jhana has Piti, Sukha and Ekaggata. Forth Jhana has Sukha and Ekaggata. Fifth Jhana has Upekkha and Ekaggata.
In the fourfold method, the second Jhana of the fivefold method of is lost because in the fourfold method Vitakka and Vicara are eliminated at one stroke, not one by one. When Vitakka and Vicara are eliminated one by one, there come to be five Jhanas. There are individuals whose Samadhi, whose concentration and whose wisdom are so strong that they are able to eliminate two factors at one time. For them there are only four Jhanas. Their second Jhana is without Vitakka and Vicara. Their second Jhana corresponds to the third Jhana in the fivefold method. Then their third Jhana corresponds to the fifth Jhana in the fivefold method. So there are these two methods— the fourfold method and the fivefold method. If you understand the fivefold method, you can easily understand the fourfold method. In the Suttas the fourfold method is always met divided concentration into three, he said, “There is concentration without Vitakka but with Vicara". According to fourfold method that cannot be found. There is a blank in the column for the fourfold method because it must have Vicara but not Vitakka. That is the second Jhana in fivefold method. We can say the Buddha taught both fourfold method and fivefold method even in the discourses or even in the Suttas.
The higher Rupavacara Cittas are said to be those that are attained be eliminating Jhana factors. We will talk about the difference between Rupavacara Cittas and Arupavacara Cittas later. The Arupavacara Cittas are not like that. In order to get the higher Jhanas in Rupavacara Cittas, one has to eliminate what are called the gross factors one by one or two at a time in the case of Vitakka and Vicara.
The object remains the same for the Rupavacara Jhanas. If a person gets first Jhana with the earth Kasina, then his second Jhana will also take the earth Kasina. So if he gets five Jhanas, the objects will be the same for all of them. What is different is the Jhana factors. In the Rupavacara Jhanas the difference between them is the number of Jhana factors. In the formless Jhanas the objects will be different.
When a person is in the state of Jhana, he is very peaceful and he is in real happiness. In one Sutta in the Majjhima Nikaya, the Buddha explained that “On such an occasion he does not strive for his own affliction, or for another's affliction, or for the affliction of both." When a person is in Jhana, he does not do anything to harm himself, or to harm another, or to harm both him and another. “On that occasion he feels only feeling that is free from affliction." His only feeling is that of Sukha or Somanassa. “Fortification in the case of feeling has freedom from affliction as its highest aspect." That means freedom from affliction is the best kind of feeling. That is Sukha. As you know, Upekkha is higher than Sukha.
Please read the manual. There mention is made of whether the Jhana Cittas are prompted or unprompted and so on. I don't want to dwell on this because nobody is sure. One author says one thing. Another author says another thing. We don't know whom to side with. It is better ignored. It will not effect our understanding of the Jhanas. I want to ignore it. If you want to read about their being prompted or unprompted, you can read the manual.
Do you have questions?
1. Student: Inaudible.
Sayadaw: Whenever the Buddha described a monk progressing along the spiritual path, He always mentioned Jhanas. That is why some people take it to mean that we must first practice Jhana before we practice Vipassana. That is not true. Jhana is for strong concentration and for some psychic powers. If one has Jhana, then one can move to Vipassana very easily because he has practiced concentration. So he gets good concentration. When he switches to Vipassana, he can take the object easily without being distracted because he has experience of keeping his mind on the object. When we practice Vipassana first as we do here, you have to develop this type of concentration because our minds go out here and there very often. If we can get the Jhana first, it would be easier to move to Vipassana. Getting Jhana may take a long time. That is why people are not interested in getting Jhana before practicing Vipassana. The path and Fruition can be obtained without the Jhanas. There are people who are called dry Vipassana practitioners of Samatha. That means those who practice Vipassana only. The others are called practitioners of Samatha. That means they practice both Samatha and Vipassana. There is one discourse in the Anguttara Nikaya where it is explained that you can practice Samatha first and then Vipassana, or that you can practice Vipassana and that in Vipassana there is a kind of Samatha.
2. Student: Inaudible.
Sayaday: Kasinas are taken as objects mostly for psychic powers. There is a difference in the results obtained from the different kinds of Kasinas. For example, after getting the Abhinna (Supernormal power), if you want to fly through the air, you have to make yourself lighter. You have to get Jhana with air Kasina or fire Kasina as an object. If you want to emit smoke, then you have to enter fire Kasina and so on. In that case, there is difference in result from Kasina meditation and others.
3. Student: What do you mean when you say “ If a person dies with his Jhana intact?"
Sayadaw: Intact just means he is able to enter into Jhana. Sometimes a person gets Jhana at one time in his life. Then he may give it up. He may not do it any more. Then he is not able to get into Jhana at the moment. Such a person is called one who has lost his Jhana.
4. Student: Inaudible.
Sayadaw: Think we should call it Buddhist practice because the Buddha mentioned Jhanas again and again. Many people think that Jhanas are Hindu because they have Suttas in Hindu practices. But there are people who even say that Buddha did not teach Jhanas. These are added on later by monks or under the influence of Vedic practices. I cannot agree with that. You have read the description of first, second Jhana and so on. I don't think there is such a detailed explanation of Jhanas in the Vedic Suttas. There is mention of Jhana there, but not as systematic or as detailed as in the Buddhist description of Jhanas. I have some doubts whether the developments is the Buddhist literature or Suttas are in the Hindu books. When the Bodhisatta went to Alara and Udaka, He got instruction for the third and the fourth Arupavacara Jhanas. Many people describe those teachers as Vedic teachers. But now here in our books it is mentioned that they are Vedic teachers. They are just teachers. We do not really know if they belonged to Vedic religion or some other practice, some other faith, we are not sure. It is not safe to say they are Vedic teachers. They may or may not have been.
5. Student: Inaudible.
Sayadaw: The difference between Samatha and Vipassana as regards objects is most kinds of Samatha meditation take concept as object. Vipassana takes reality as object. The objects are different. If a person attains the first Jhana here taking the Kasina as object, he cannot take that Kasina as the object of Vipassana meditation. He can take the factors of Jhana or the Jhana consciousness itself as the object of Vipassana. That is the difference. There is maybe a difference of technique or something like that.
6. Student: I seem to remember there was a legend about the Buddha as a child watching his father plow the fields and attaining Jhanas. Could comment about that?
Sayadaw: It is said in our books that when the child was left alone, he sat up. he prenticed breathing meditation, Anapanasati meditation. He attained the first Jhana then. Then he gave it up and he had no recollection of it until he was practicing austerities in the forest. After spending more than six years mortifying his body, he could not make any progress. Then He reviewed his practice and he found it to be wrong. At that time, he remembered that incident. When I was a child and when my father was in the plowing ceremony, I got into that practice and felt very peaceful at that time. That must be the correct way. Then he decided to practice meditation again. But he was so emaciated, so weak that he had to take food again first. It was at that time that first disciples left him in disgust.
7. Student: Inaudible.
Sayadaw: In Samatha meditation, when the frightening times appear to the miditator, he may not do what to do about them. He may lose that ability of mind or even go insane or something like that. In Vipassana, we are instructed on how to deal with these objects. That means we just pay attention to these objects. We are able to treat them with mindfulness. So they do not have bad effects in our minds. In Samatha, there is no such teaching. You just keep on the object and be mindful of it, just that. When these frightening times appear to him, he doesn't what to do.
Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!
May we share merits. The Buddha said the greatest gift is this Dhamma gift. That is giving and accepting Dhamma is a great gift. Let us all share merits. Please repeat after me.
May all being share this merit,
Which we have thus acquired
For the acquisition of all kinds of happiness.
May beings inhabiting space and earth,
Deities and others of might power,
Share this merit of ours.
May they long protect the teachings!
Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu [End of Tape #6]
[Tape #7]
We still have some more things to learn about the JhÈna factors. There are five JhÈna factors. They are Vitakka, VicÈra, PÊti, Sukha and EkaggatÈ. The question is why are these five only called factors of JhÈna or members of JhÈna. When a JhÈna consciousness arises, first JhÈnathat is, these 35 Cetasikas arise along with that consciousness. Why are those five only called JhÈna factors and not the others? There is contact, attention and so on and they are not called JhÈna factors. The answer is because they alone have the ability to contemplate or to examine the object closely and also because they are the direct opposites of the five mental hindrances. For these two reasons only these five are called JhÈna factors.
Vitakka takes the mind onto the object, puts the mind onto the object. VicÈra keeps the mind anchored there. PÊti refreshes the mind. Sukha intensifies it. Supported by these four Cetasikas-taking the mind to the object, keeping it there, refreshing and intensifying it- EkaggatÈ, the one-pointedness of mind puts the mind on the object evenly and undistractedly. EkaggatÈ can do this function properly only when it is supported by the other four - Vitakka, VicÈra, PÊti and Sukha. When EkaggatÈ puts the mind on the object, it puts it on evenly. That means it makes the mental faculties work in harmony, one not exceeding the other. Also when it puts the mind on the object, it does not allow it to be distracted to other objects. It is actually EkaggatÈ which is most important among these five factors. It cannot do its function properly if it is not supported by the other four. These five possess the ability to observe the object closely or to examine the object closely. That is why they alone are called JhÈna factors and not the other Cetasikas that go along with JhÈna consciousness. This is one question .
The other question stems from the second reason given … these five factors of JhÈna are the direct opposites of the five mental hindrances. Which is the direct opposite of which mental hindrance? It is given on the sheet. The first part is factors in JhÈna and the second is opposites of JhÈnafactors. Please look at the sheet. On the sheet you will see opposites of JhÈna factors - JhÈna factors and corresponding hindrances they inhibit.
Vitakka is the opposite of Thina and Middha (sloth and torpor). Vitakka takes you to the object. When there is Vitakka, there is a kind of mental activity. Vitakka has
something of the nature like shaking. When there is Vitakka, Thina and Middha cannot overwhelm the mind. That is why sometimes we say," I cannot go to sleep because I have a lot of Vitakka." As long as there is Vitakka, Thina and Middha are inhibited. They are the direct opposites of Vitakka.
VicÈra is the direct opposite of VicikicchÈ (doubt). VicÈra is examining the object or keeping the mind anchored onto the object. So it is like PaÒÒÈ. Since it is like PaÒÒÈ, it is the opposite of doubt.
PÊti is the opposite of ByÈpÈda. That is very obvious. When there is PÊti, you don't have illwill.
Sukha is the opposite of Uddhacca and Kukkucca (restlessness and remorse). Restlessness here means restlessness of mind. When the mind is restless, maybe the body is also restless. Restlessness and remorse are the direct opposites of Sukha. When you are happy—happy here means peaceful—when you are peaceful there is no restlessness and no remorse. These two are something like making the mind agitated. Sukha is peaceful, so it is the opposite of Uddhacca and Kukkucca.
EkaggatÈ (one-pointedness of mind) is the direct opposite of KÈmacchanda (sensual desire). When we have sensual desire, our minds are taken to different objects. We are attached to these things. Our minds go round. EkaggatÈ does not let the mind go here and there. It keeps the mind stable and on one object. So it is the opposite of sensual desire. I think this information is good for us. If we want to develop EkaggatÈ (EkaggatÈ is SamÈdhi.), we should have little sensual desire. So long as we have sensual desire, we cannot hope to get SamÈdhi or concentration because our minds will always be attached or attracted to different objects. If the mind is always going to different objects, the mind cannot get rest. The mind cannot be still. And so we cannot get concentration. We should keep it in mind and try to have the least sense desire as is possible, so we may develop concentration.
UpekkhÈ has the nature of peacefulness. Actually UpekkhÈ is more peaceful than Sukha. UpekkhÈ is said to be similar to Sukha. So it is the direct opposite of Uddhacca and Kukkucca (restlessness and remorse).
Because these five (UpekkhÈ and Sukha are considered as one.) are the opposite of the five mental hindrances, they alone are called constituents of JhÈna or members of JhÈna or JhÈna factors. There are two reasons given for their being called JhÈna factors. One is that they alone possess the ability to examine or contemplate the object closely. And also they alone are the direct opposites of the five mental hindrances. So long as there are mental hindrances in our minds we cannot hope to get concentration, let alone JhÈna. The mental hindrances are inhibited by these JhÈna factors.
[Still Tape #7]
ArupÈvacara Cittas
Now we go to the next section, Ar|pÈvacara Cittas. We just finished R|pÈvacara Cittas. Today we will look at Ar|pÈvacara Cittas. There are twelve Ar|pÈvacara Cittas. They are divided into Kusala (wholesome), VipÈka (resultant) and Kiriya (functional). Each division has four Cittas. So altogether there are twelve Ar|pÈvacara Cittas, twelve formless sphere consciousness.
The Meaning of the Word ‘Ar|pÈvacara’
What is the meaning of Ar|pÈvacara? That which mostly moves about or roams in the four formless realms. That which is of the formless sphere. Now you know there are twenty realms of Brahmas, twenty realms of higher celestial beings. Sixteen are said to be of form sphere and four belong to formless sphere. The four formless sphere are those where there is only mind. There is no form or material body there. They are formless or materialess or mind-only beings. When a being is reborn there, only the mind, only Cittas and Cetasikas arise there, no materiality whatsoever—no body, no eyes, no ears, and so on.
In Order to get Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas
Ar|pÈvacara Kusala Cittas
In order to be reborn in those formless realms one has to get one of these four Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas. How does one go about getting the Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas? In order to get Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas one must already have the five R|pÈvacara JhÈnas. One must be able to enter them. One must be able to enter into them. One must be very familiar with these five R|pÈvacaraJhÈnas. Based on the five R|pÈvacara JhÈnas especially the fifth, the Yogi will go on to the Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas.
These JhÈnas are mundane. Therefore they can be attained even when there are no Buddhas. They can be attained by people who are not Buddhists. Many Hindus, many people who are not Buddhists according to our books get these JhÈnas.
There are people who find fault with the physical body. They think that we suffer because we have this physical body. Because we have this physical body we have lots of ailments, diseases, aches, pains and so on. Also depending on this physical body we quarrel with each other because we hurt each other and so on. They think that we have a lot of suffering because we have this physical body. If we can be without this physical body, we would be very happy. So they find fault with the physical body and material things. They try to eliminate or get rid of these physical things or the physical body.
In order to get rid of the physical body or physical things, first what they have to do is take a physical thing as an object of mediattion. Then they practise meditation. First a person must have mastery in using the five R|pÈvacara JhÈnas. The meditator enters fifth Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna and then he emerges from that JhÈna. The what he does is to concentrate on the space left by the removal of the KasiÓa counterpart sign. When you practise KasiÓa meditation, first you look at the disk. You try to memorize it. Then you get the image in your mind. The first image is called the grasped sign. Then you dwell on the sign again and again and it becomes refined. When it becomes refined, it is clear of blemishes and so on. It is called a counterpart sign. These signs are actually not ultimate reality. They are concepts because they are only in your memory, in your mind. A person who dislikes matter or material things also dislikes something that resembles matter or material things. The real KasiÓa disk is matter, a real thing. The counterpart sign is not a material thing, but a concept, a conceptual object. But still it resembles a material object. So that person takes that concept.
The simile given in the Visuddhi Magga and also in the AÔÔhÈsÈlinÊ is of a person who is afraid of ghosts will be afraid of something which resembles a ghost. He may see a tree stump at night and think that it is a ghost. So he will be afraid of it. Sometimes a person is afraid of snakes. When he sees a rope or crack in the ground, he may think it is a snake. Then he is afraid of it. In the same way a person has a dislike or is disgusted with matter. He doesn't like the physical body. When he doesn't like the physical body, he also doesn't like something that resembles the physical body or a physical thing - that is this counterpart sign which is a concept. So he tries to remove this concept from his mind. In order to remove it first he must get this sign into his mind. He has to concentrate on this mental image, this counterpart sign. Then he stops paying attention to that sign. Instead he pays attention to the space occupied by that sign or covered by that sign. When he stops paying attention to that sign itself, that sign disappears. In its place there remains just an empty space. That empty space is called space obtained by the removal of KasiÓa sign. When a person removes the KasiÓasign, he does not remove it as one removes a mat or as one removes a cake from a pan. He simply does not pay attention to that object, to that sign. When he doesn't pay attention to it, it disappears from his mind. In its place there remains an empty space. The empty space becomes the object of his meditation. He dwells on or contemplates on that space saying, " infinite space, infinite space, infinite space."
He can expand that space in his mind, mentally expand it as much as he likes. He may expand this space to the size of the whole world cycle. He may expand this space to about the size of a football field or about the size of a mat. So after that he dwells on it saying, "infinite space, infinite space, infinite space." That space is called infinite or limitless. That space is left when the KasiÓa sign is removed. So it would seem there must be some limit to it. But he must contemplate on it as "infinite space, infinite space or limitless space, limitless space." Here limitless means not that it has no boundaries or whatever. Since it is a concept, since it is not an ultimate reality, it has no beginning. So it has no end. That is why it is called limitless or boundless or infinite. It is infinite in the sense that it has no arising and no disappearing. Concepts have no arising and no disappearing. They appear in our minds so we cannot say that they arise at this time and that they disappear at another time. Since that space obtained by the removal of the KasiÓa is a conceptual object, it has no beginning and no end. So it is said to be infinite. It has no beginning or end. He contemplates on that object again and again. When he pays attention to that object, when he contemplates on that object, his hindrances become opressed and subdued. His mind becomes steady again. He takes the object again and again. Eventually the first Ar|pÈvacara consciousness arises.
When the first Ar|pÈvacara consciousness arises, he is said to have gained the first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna. That first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna takes that conceptual image, that space as an object. That is why it is called in PÈÄi ŒkÈsÈnaÒcÈyatana. I'm afraid you will have to memorize these names. The translations are longer than the PÈÄi names. ŒkÈsa means the sky or space. ŒnaÒca here means no end, having no end or endless. Œyatana we will come to that later. So it is called ŒkÈsÈnaÒcayatana. The meaning is JhÈna having infinite space as object.
In the translation in the Path of Purification and in this book the word 'base' is used. I think it is not so good. "Wholesome consciousness pertaining to the base of infinite space" is used. You must understand the word 'Œyatana' here. The word is ŒkÈsÈnaÒcayatana. The word 'Œyatana' is translated as the word 'base', but here base means __???____ or simply the object. It means simply the object. This consciousness has infinite space as object. Instead of using base I think we should use object. Base can mean some other thing.
This is the first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness. With this Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness how many JhÈna factors arise? Only two-UpekkhÈ and EkaggatÈ. The Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas have the same two JhÈna factors that fifth R|pÈvacara JhÈna has and the same number of JhÈna factors.
After getting the ŒkÈsÈnaÒcÈyatana JhÈna, he wants to go to the second JhÈna, ViÒÒÈÓaÒcÈyatana. He thinks that ŒkÈsÈnaÒcÈyatana is near to material things. It is not so subtle, not so lofty as the second JhÈna, ViÒÒÈÓaÒcÈyatana. By thinking in that way he loses interest in ŒkÈsÈnaÒcÈyatana. He becomes dispassionate toward that consciousness. He wants the higher consciousness. In order to get the second Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna he must take the first Ar|pÈvacara consciousness as the object of his meditation. After entering the first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna he emerges from that JhÈna. Then he takes that JhÈna consciousness as his object of meditation, saying, "infinite consciousness, infinite consciousness." Here infinite means this consciousness takes the object which is infinite. Therefore it is called infinite consciousness. Also when he contemplates on that consciousness, he must take it as a whole, not just parts of it. There should be no limit to that object. That is why he contemplates on that consciousness as "infinite consciousness, infinite consciousness." It is consciousness that takes infinite space as object and also should be contemplated infinitely. So he contemplates as "consciousness, consciousness or infinite consciousness, infinite consciousness." 'Then the mental hindrances are subdued. His mind becomes concentrated. Then the second Ar|pÈvacara consciousness arises in him.
That second Ar|pÈvacara consciousness is called ViÒÒÈÓaÒcÈyatana. ViÒÒÈÓa means consciousness. ŒnaÒca means infinite. ViÒÒÈÓa here means the first Ar|pÈvacara consciousness, not consciousness in general but that particular consciousness which is the first Ar|pÈvacara consciousness. He takes the first Arp|pÈvacara consciousness as object. When the second Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna arises, that second Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness takes the first Ar|pÈvacara consciousness as object. That is why the second Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna is called ViÒÒÈÓaÒcÈyatana. ViÒÒÈÓa here means first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness. Œyatana here just means an object, abase but in the sense of object.
Again he thinks ViÒÒÈÓaÒcÈyatana is close to ŒkÈsÈnaÒcÈyatana, which is close to material objects. ŒkiÒcaÒÒÈyatana is better than this. Then he tries to get ŒkiÒcaÒÒÈyatana, the third Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness. This time he takes as object the absence of or the nothingness of the first Ar|pÈvacara consciousness. when he gets the second Ar|pÈvacara consciousness, the first Ar|pÈvacara consciousness, the first Ar|pÈvacara consciousness has already disappeared. He takes that disappearance, that nothingness, that absence of first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness as an object of his meditation. When he practises meditation he says, "There is nothing whatsoever, there is nothing whatsoever. " In PÈÄi it is " Natthi KiÒci, natthi kiÒci." He practises that way. Nothingness is a concept. It is not ultimate reality. Ultimate reality is consciousness. What he contemplates on is not the first Ar|pÈvacara consciousness, but on the absence of the first Ar|pÈvacara consciousness. It is no longer there. That void, that nothingness he takes as an object of meditation.
For example, let us say there is a pot. It is covered with something. If the cover has been removed, he sees the nothing there. It is like that. There are many people assembled here. A person may come and see that people are here. Then he may go somewhere else. After the class is over, he will come back. Then he will see nobody here. He just sees empty space. It is something like that. This person sees the absence of the first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness. That is the consciousness of nothingness. That concept of nothingness he takes as object. He practises meditation contemplating as "nothing , nothing, nothing." Then the mental defilements subside. The mind becomes concentrated again. Then as a result of his practice of meditation the third Ar|pÈvacara consciousness arises. That third Ar|pÈvacara consciousness is called ŒkiÒcaÒÒÈyatana. KiÒca means something. A here means not. So not something, that is absence. Œyatana here is the same, object. The third Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna takes what as object? Nothingness of the first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness. That is ŒkiÒcaÒÒÈyatana.
Again he wants to go to a higher level of JhÈna. When he practises meditation in order to reach the fourth Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna, he takes the third Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness as object. He enters into the third Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna and then emerges from that Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna. He takes the consciousness of that third Ar|pÈvcara JhÈna as his object of meditation. He contemplates on that consciousness saying to himself, "This is peaceful, this is good." This is peaceful, this is good because it can even take nothingness as object. It would be very difficult to take void or nothingness as an object. The third Ar|pÈvacara consciousness is so advanced and so subtle, it can take even nothingness as an object. It is very peaceful, it is very good. It is very lofty. He contemplates in this way on the third Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness. Again his mind becomes concentrated. The hindrances are subdued. Then the fourth Ar|pÈvacara Consciousness arises in him.
He reaches the fourth Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna. That fourth Ar|pÈvcara JhÈna is called NevasaÒÒÈnÈsaÒÒÈyatana. It is a long name. All the Ar|pÈvacara Cittas have long names and the English translations are even longer. The fourth Ar|pÈvacra JhÈna is called NevasaÒÒÈnÈsaÒÒÈyatana. Neva means not. SaÒÒÈ means perception. SaÒÒÈ is one of the Cetasikas. NÈsaÒÒÈ means not ŒsaÒÒÈ. Please read the translation. "JhÈna with its concomitants which is neither with perception, nor with non-perception (absence of perception) and which is a base." Here Œyatana does not mean an object. Please note that carefully. In the preceding three names Œyatana means an object. In this fourth name Œyatana does not mean ‘an object’. Œyatana means a base. There are twelve bases taught in Abhidhamma. You will study them in the seventh chapter. This JhÈna is neither with SaÒÒÈ nor with ŒsaÒÒÈ. It is a base. That is why it is called NevasaÒÒÈnÈsaÒÒÈyatana. Consciousness is one of the bases. Mental factors are one of the bases. There is eye base, ear base, nose base, tongue base, body base and then visible object base, sound base, smell base, taste base and touch base. The two remaining ones are mind base or consciousness base and other sutble matter. Here Œyatana means that base. It is a base. It has no perception and no non-perception.
Here perception does not mean perception only. Perception stands for all mental things, all Cetasikas. We may as well call it 'NevavedanÈnÈvedanÈ' or 'NevaphassanÈphassa' and so on. We could call it that if we wanted to. SaÒÒÈ is used here. SaÒÒÈ does not stand for a specific Cetasika only. Here SaÒÒÈ stands for all mental states, all mental factors, all Cetasikas. Actually it means mental activity.
When a person reaches this JhÈna, the mental activity in this JhÈna has become so subtle, so refined that it is difficult to call it mental activity. It is so subtle. It is almost nothing. Although it is so subtle and there is almost nothing, there is still the function of SaÒÒÈ, the function of mental activity. So it is neither SaÒÒÈ nor non-SaÒÒÈ. That is why it is called NevasaÒÒÈnÈsaÒÒÈ. There is very subtle something like a trace of mental activity there. It is so subtle that it is almost nothing. When you ask him "Is there SaÒÒÈ?", he may say yes or no. That is why it is called NevasaÒÒÈnÈsaÒÒÈ.
There is a simile to explain this., Do you remember that simile? [beginning of tape 7] NevasaÒÒÈnÈsaÒÒÈyatana - there is no SaÒÒÈ ; there is no non-SaÒÒÈ. A monk and a voice went on a journey. The novice went in front of the monk. Some distance ahead the novice saw some water there on the road. So he reported to the monk, "There is water." When the monk heard there was water, he said, "Give me my bath robe. I want to take bath. "Then the novice said, "Bhante there is no water." First he said there is water because there is enough water to wet the sandals. Then he said there is no water because there is not enough water for taking a bath. In the same way there is SaÒÒÈ and there is no SaÒÒÈ. But there is a very subtle form of SaÒÒÈ here. So it is called NevasaÒÒÈnÈsaÒÒÈyatana. It cannot be called SaÒÒÈ and it cannot be called ŒsaÒÒÈ. So it is called NevasaÒÒÈnÈsaÒÒÈ.
There is another simile. There is a little residue of oil in the bowl of a monk. So the monk says, "There is oil in the bowl." Then another monk says, "Give me that oil. I want to use it for putting it on my nose." Then the other monk says, "There is no oil in the bowl." There is not enough oil to use as some kind of medicine for the nose, but there is some oil in the bowl. So he said," There is oil and there is no oil." In the same way there is SaÒÒÈ and there is no SaÒÒÈ.
It is explained in the Commentaries here that SaÒÒÈ is so subtle that it cannot do its function fully. There are two kinds of functions of SaÒÒÈ. One is just perceiving the object, that is making mark of the object. The other function is to serve as an object of VipassanÈ meditation so that the Yogi can get dispassion toward the object. That is more important. That is what is called the full function of SaÒÒÈ. When you practise VipassanÈmeditation and if you have all these JhÈnas you can take those JhÈnas as the object of VipassanÈ meditation. You can contemplate on them and try to see them as impermanent and so on. But Sanna and any mental state here is so sutble that it cannot serve as the object of VipassanÈmeditation. That means you cannot practise VipassanÈ meditation for this JhÈna. If you take SaÒÒÈ as an object in other JhÈnas in your VipassanÈ meditation, you will really see it as impermanent and so on. You will get dispassionate towards it. But here it is very difficult. It is almost impossible to take SaÒÒÈ as object here. Even the Venerable SÈriputta cannot take this SaÒÒÈ as an object of meditation. But if you have the experience of contemplating on these mental factors when you practise VipassanÈ, like Venerable Sariputta you may be able to take them as object, but not one by one, but you take the whole. That means the whole JhÈna and its concomitants. You can take the whole of them and contemplate on them as impermanent and so on. But even the Venrable SÈiputta cannot take the concomitants one by one and look at them with VipassanÈ meditation individually as impermanent and so on. SaÒÒÈ is so subtle in this JhÈna that it cannot serve as object for VipassanÈ meditation. So it is said to not have the full function of SaÒÒÈ. It is almost nil. It is almost absent. But there is still a very subtle SaÒÒÈremaining. If there is no SaÒÒÈ, there can be no mental activity at all. So there is a very subtle SaÒÒÈ still remaining. That SaÒÒÈ is called the residue of the conditioned thing. That means SaÒÒÈ is refined again and again. It becomes so refined in this JhÈna that there is doubt that it is there, but it is still there. This JhÈna is called NevasaÒÒÈnÈsaÒÒÈyatana.
Œyatana here means base, not object. It is a base for NevasaÒÒÈnÈsaÒÒÈ. Or it can be translated as JhÈna with its concomitants having a base of perception that is neither perception nor non-perception. This is the way of explaining it depending on grammatical explanation of the word. Whatever it is - it just means it is a base; it is a JhÈna which cannot be said to have SaÒÒÈ or non-SaÒÒÈ. Mental activity is there but it is so subtle that it is almost non-existent. That is what is ment by NevasaÒÒÈnÈsaÒÒÈyatana.
When a person meditates to reach the fourth Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna, he takes the third Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna as object. Then how does he meditate, saying what? "It is peaceful ; it is peaceful. It is good; it is good." If he contemplates on it as it is peaceful, it is good, how can he transcend it? If you say, "this is peaceful, this is good", you like it. You are attached to it. You don't want to let it go. It is good. How can he transcend that object? The simile given is that a king may go out on an elephant and he may see some craftsmen. For example he might see an ivory craftsman doing ivory work. This person may be making a beautiful and delicate object with ivory. When the king sees them, he praises them. He says, "How talented and how skillful you are that you can make such beautiful objects of art. "But although he praises those ivory carvers, he does not want himself to become an ivory carver. He praises them but he would not want to leave his kingship and become an ivory carver himself. So although this person practises on the third Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna contemplating on it as "It is good ; it is good. It is peaceful; it is peaceful.", he doesn't want it for himself. He is just contemplating on the fact that it is peaceful, it is good. Although he contemplates on it as peaceful and good, he does not want it. That is why he is able to transcend that object.
The second Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna takes the consciousness of the first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna as object. The fourth Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna takes the third Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness as object. I said that although they take them as object, they do not want them. If they want them, they will not transcend them as objects. They will not get the second Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna or the fourth Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna. How do you explain that?
There are a lot of similes given in the Commentaries. You are serving a king. That king may be cruel or do something you dislike. So although you dislike the king, you have to serve him because you have no other livelihood. Since you have no other livelihood, you have to put up with the king and still serve him and still attend to him. In the same way although the Yogi does not like it and does not want the first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna and the third Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna, he has to take them as object because there is no other object to take. That is why he is able to transcend these objects and reach the higher stages of JhÈna.
These are the four Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness. The first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna is called ŒkÈsÈnaÒcÈyatana. The second is called ViÒÒÈnaÒcÈyatana. The third is called AkiÒcaÒÒÈyatana.The fourth is called NevasaÒÒÈnÈsaÒÒÈyatana. I don't know how to say in English. Just to remind you I put just infinite space, infinite consciousness, absence of consciousness, and neither perception nor non-perception.
You see that in order to get the Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas you have to overcome or you have to surmount the object. Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas are different from R|pÈvacara JhÈnas. Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas have to surmount the object. That means they have to do something like eliminate the object in order to get the higher JhÈna. They are not like R|pÈvacara JhÈnas. Do you see the difference between R|pÈvacara JhÈnas and Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas? In R|pÈvacara JhÈnas in order to get a higher JhÈna want do you have to do? You do not do away with the object. You do away with the JhÈna factor. So you eliminate one factor after another and get the higher JhÈna. But in Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna there are only two factors. You cannot eliminate them. Here you get the Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna by surmounting or by eliminating the object. That is the difference. R|pÈvacara JhÈnas are factor eliminating JhÈnas. Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas are object surmounting JhÈnas. That is the difference. Later we will find the objects that they take and the objects that they surmount.
Ar|apÈvacara VipÈka Cittas
Let's go back to VipÈka now. The VipÈka Citts are identical with the wholesome Cittas. So they have the same names. ŒkÈsÈnaÒcÈyatana and so on. If you get the first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna (ŒkÈsÈnaÒcÈyatana), and you die with that JhÈna consciousness intact, you will be reborn in the realm of ŒkÈsÈnaÒcÈyatana Brahmas. There you will have no physical body, just Citta and Cetasikas functioning there. The first Citta that will arise there will be the first Ar|pÈvacara VipÈka Citta. If you get second Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna here, then when you are reborn in second Ar|pÈvacara realm, your first consciousness there will be the ViÒÒÈnaÒcÈyatana VipÈka consciousness. The same is true for the third and the fourth Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas. The four Ar|pÈvacara VipÈka Cittas, the four formless sphere consciousness arise only in the Ar|pÈvacara realm. They will not arise in human beings, in Devas or even in R|pÈvacara Brahmas. They will arise only in Ar|pÈvacara realm.
Ar|pÈvacara Kiriya Cittas
Then Ar|pÈvacara Kiriya (functional) Cittas you know. They belong to Arahants only. After becoming an Arahant you practise meditation on Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas, then your JhÈnas will be Kiriya. You will have the same indentical JhÈnas - ŒkÈsÈnaÒcÈyatana,ViÒÒÈÓaÒcÈyatana, ŒkiÒcaÒÒÈyatana and NevasaÒÒÈnÈsaÒÒÈyatana.
Twelve Ar|pÈvacara Cittas
Altogether there are twelve Ar|pÈvacara Cittas - four Kusala, four VipÈka, and four Kiriya. What feeling are they associated with? UpekkhÈ only because there are only two JhÈna factors associated with these twelve Cittas. They are UpekkhÈ and EkaggatÈ. That is why they are said to belong to the fifth JhÈna. Sometimes we will say there are 23 fifth JhÈna Cittas. That means three fifth JhÈnaCittas and twelve Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna Cittas. Later you will learn that there are eight among the Lokuttara Cittas. So all Ar|paÈvacara Cittas are accompanied by UpekkhÈ Please look at the chart. All the Ar|pÈvacara Cittas are colored blue. That means they are all UpekkhÈ. They are also all ©ÈÓasampayutta. You cannot get JhÈnas without knowledge or understanding. They are all accompanied by knowledge or understanding.
There are two sets of objects to understand concerning these Ar|pÈvacara Cittas. You can see on the sheet as well as in the book. Let's look at the sheet on page 10 of the handouts at the bottom. There are two kinds of objects here - objects taken and objects surmounted. (That means objects abandoned.)
The first JhÈna takes infinite space which was left after the removal of the KasiÓa sign. So the first JhÈna takes infinite space as object. Second JhÈna takes first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness as object. The third Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna takes the absence of the first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna as object. The fourth Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna takes the consciousness of the third Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna as object. These are the objects that they take.
There are four objects that the four Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas must surmount. The first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna must surmount the counterpart sign. So long as one is attached to that counterpart sign, one can not get the first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna. The first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna must surmount that counterpart sign. Which is the mental image of the KisiÓa object. The second Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna must surmount or transcend infinite space. The third Ar|pÈvacra JhÈna must surmount or transcend the first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness. The fourth Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna must transcend the absence of the first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness. First they take these things as objects an then they surmount or transcend them. They have to take these things as the objects of their meditation. When their meditation is successful and they get the JhÈna, these objects are no longer there. These objects are surmounted. So there are two sets of objects with regard to the four Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas. There are objects that they take and objects that they surmount.
Today we come to the end of mudane consciousness, Lokiya Cittas. How many types of mudane consciousness are there? 54 sense sphere consciousness, 15 R|pÈvacara consciousness and 12 Ar|pÈvacara consciousness. How many? There are 81 Lokiya Cittas.
The 15 R|pÈvacara Cittas and the 12 Ar|pÈvacara Cittas are collectively called Mahaggata. Later on if we want to refer to these 27 as a whole we will say 27 Mahaggata Cittas. Mahaggata means to become great, lofty, sublime. So there are 27 Mahaggata Cittas.
Then 54 sense sphere Cittas and 27 Mahaggata Cittas become 81 mudane or Lokiya Cittas.
Some Drills
Let's do some drills. There are how Lokiya Cittas? 81 Cittas. How many are they broadly divided? They are divided into sense sphere consciousness and Mahaggata consciousness. How many are the sense sphere consciousness? 54. How many are Mahaggata? 27. 54 KÈmÈvacara or sense sphere consciousness how are they divided? 12 Akusala, 18 Ahetuka or rootless Citts, 24 beautiful sense sphere consciousness. How are the 15 R|pÈvacara Cittas divided? Let's say first JhÈna, second JhÈna, third JhÈna and so on. There are three first R|pÈvacara JhÈna Cittas. There are three second JhÈna Cittas. There are three third JhÈnaCittas, three fourth JhÈna Cittas and three fifth R|pÈvacara JhÈna Cittas. And Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness there are three first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness or ŒkÈsÈnaÒcÈyatana. There are three second Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas; 1 there are three third Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas; there are three fourth Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas. With regard to the 15 R|pÈvacara Cittsa how many are accompanied by Somanassa? 12—first JhÈna three, second JhÈna three, third JhÈna three and fourth JhÈna three. How many are accompanied by UpekkhÈ? Three, the three fifth JhÈna Cittas. Among 12 Ar|pÈvacara Cittas how many are accompanied by Somanassa? None. How many are accompanied by UpekkhÈ? All 12. Among the 27 Mahaggata Cittas how many are accompanied by Somanassa? 12. How many are accompanied by UpekkhÈ? 15—three fifth JhÈna R|pÈvacara Cittas and 12 Ar|pÈvacara Cittas.
These are called mudane Cittas. That means they belong to the three realms—KÈmÈvacara, R|pÈvacara and Ar|pÈvacara. Later on we will transcend Loka into the Lokuttara Cittas. That will come later. Today we finist the 81 mudane consciousness. Make yourself familiar with the chart and try to remember the names. Names are important. If you don't the name, it is very difficult to indentify.
In the book on page 64 there is a chart. It is the same as the one I give here - Citta, Direct Object, Transcended Object. Number one is base of infinite space, ŒkÈsÈnaÒcÈyatana(The book uses base). Direct object means the object taken. It is concept of space. Then transcended object is concept of kasiÓa, the KasiÓa sign, the conterpart sign.
Number two is base of infinite consciousness, second JhÈna Citta. The direct object is consciousness of infinite space, the first Ar|pÈvacara consciousness. The transcended object is the concept of space or infinite space. They are the same.
And then number three there is the base of nothingness. That means third Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness. The direct object taken is concept of non-existence or nothingness. The transcended object is consciousness of infinite space. That means the first Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna consciousness.
Number four is the base of neither perception nor non-perception. In the fourth Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna the direct object taken is the consciousness of nothingness. That means third Ar|pÈvacara consciousness. The transcended object is the concept of non-existence. That means absence of first Ar|pÈvacara consciousness. Absence is not an ultimate reality. That absence or nothingness is a concept. When we say absence, we must understand that it is a concept. In PÈÄi we say Natthi BhÈva PaÒÒatti. Here it is given as concept of non-existence. That means concept of non-existence of first JhÈna consciousness.
SÈdhu! SÈdhu! SÈdhu!
Student: Inaudible.
Sayadaw: I left it out. One author said and I think that is correct the ________. I told you applied to when there is no Buddha's teachings. What about Arahants or disciples of the Buddha getting Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas if you have no such wrong view about R|pa and so on? Especially those who have attained enlightenment have no wrong views about R|pa or if we get rid of R|pa that we will really be happy. So these Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas are necessary or essential for the attainment of what are called AbhiÒÒÈ, supernormal knowledge like remembering past lives, seeing beings or getting divine eye, and doing some miracles and so on. Those are called AbhiÒÒÈs. Those AbhiÒÒÈs can be obtained only if a person gets all eight or nine JhÈnas. Those disciples of the Buddha including Arahants who try to get these JhÈnas because they want them to be the basis for the attainment of AbhiÒÒÈs. Also I think it is for the attainment of cessation for ŒnÈgamÊs and Arahants. You will understand this later. Attainment of cessation means to be without mental activity altogether for some time. During that time you will be like a statue. Your mental activity is suspended for as long as you wish up to seven days. To get into that attainment of cessation also you need all nine JhÈnas. It is said that it is like NibbÈnaitself when you are in the attainment of cessation. Actually you temporarily go out of being. Your body functions independent of your mind or mental activities. They experience great happiness or peacefulness when consciousness is temporarily suspended. The ŒnÈgamÊs and Arahants want to enjoy that happiness while entering into the attainment of cessation. For them to be able to get into the attainment of cessation they need the eight or nine JhÈnas which includes the four Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas. For the disciples of the Buddha they try to get these JhÈnas so they can be the basis for these higher attainments. It is not with wrong notion that if they are without a physical body they will be really happy. That is a very good question.
Student: Inaudible.
Sayadaw: The Arahants can enter into what is called Phala attainment, fruit attainment. That is similar to attainment of cessation. When in Phala attainment, there is still consciousness. So long as there is consciousness there is arising and disappearing, coming and going. When there is coming and going, appearing and disappearing, that is the sign of Dukkha. Dukkha means being oppressed by arising and disappearing. That is still a kind of suffering although we would all very much like to get that kind of suffering. There is still suffering for the Arahants. In order to get more peacefulness they get into Phala or the attainment of cessation. There for some period they don't feel anything. That is what they call happiness or peacefulness - Sukha.
Student: Inaudible.
Sayadaw: This is Samatha meditation. The practice of R|pÈvacara JhÈnas and Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas will be explained in the ninth chapter also. We will come to these JhÈnas again there. I was going to defer some explanations until we come there, but I cannot withhold this information from you. So I told you some of these things now. I may repeat it when we reach the ninth chapter.
If you can and if you have this book, the Path of Purification for Ar|pÈvacara please read chapter ten.
[Tape #8]
Chapter 1(H)
Lokuttara Cittas
The Meaning of the Word ‘Lokuttara’
We come to Lokuttara Cittas, page 11, Supramundane Consciousness. We already finished 81 mundane types of consiciousness. Today we come to Lokuttara, supramundane types of consciousness. The PÈÄi word 'Lokuttara' is made up of two parts - 'Loka' and 'Uttara'. Loka means the world. The world here means the five aggregates, and ‘Uttara’ means transcending, so ‘Lokuttara’ means transcending the world of five aggregates. That means going beyond the five aggregates. Actually that means going out of this SaÑsÈra, going out of this round of rebirths.
Eight Lokuttara Cittas:
There are eight Lokuttara Cittas. They are divided into four Kusala and four VipÈka, so four wholesome and four resultant. The VipÈka Cittas are called Phala Cittas. These types of consciousness arise when a Yogi attains enlightenment. These types of consciousness are actually enlightenment consciousness.
Four Lokuttara Kusala Cittas
A person practises VipassanÈ Meditation and makes progress from one stage of VipassanÈ to another. When his VipassanÈbecomes mature, then enlightenment occurs. When enlightenment occurs a type of consciousness arises in his mind, a type of consciousness which he has never experienced befored in this life or in the past lives. That consciousness arises and takes NibbÈna as object. That consciousness has the function of destroying the mental defilements. What we call enlightenment is just that - the arising of that consciousness. And that consciousness destroys the mental defilements. That consciousness is called Magga, path consciousness. Immediately following path consciousness are two or three moments of resultant, Phala consciousness. That is according to what really happenes. But here in the list Magga Cittas are grouped separatelly and Phala Cittas are grouped separately. But in actual occurence Phala Cittas always follow Magga Cittas. So Magga Citta arises only once and it disappears. Immediately after Magga Citta there are two or three moments of Phala Cittas. In the supramundane consciousness Phala, VipÈka Cittas, resultant Cittas come immediately after the wholesome Cittas. It is not like in KÈmÈvacara, R|pÈvacara and Ar|pÈvacara. There you may have to wait years for the resultant consciousness to arise because they arise in the next lives. But here he Phala consciousness VipÈka or resultant consciousness arisese immedistely following the Magga Citta. That is why Magga consciousness is called AkÈlika. One of the attributes of the Dhamma is AkÈlika. AkÈlika means having no time. Having no time menas immediately giving results.
When a person reaches the first stage, that stage is called SotÈpatti. Magga consciousness that arises in such a person is called SotÈpatti Magga Citta. Immediately following it are two or three moments of SotÈpatti Phala Citta. Then they disappear. Later on that person can induce the Phala Cittas to arise, but not Magga Citta. Mgga Citta arises only once in the mind of a person. Magga Citta never repeats itself. But Phala Cittas may arise again later, sometimes maybe days without interuption. When a person reaches the first stage of enlightenment, he is called a SotÈpanna.
We have to understand the two individuals, the two persons - the person at the moment of Magga Citta and the person at the arising of phala until the next higher Magga Citta arises. The first person is called a SotÈpattiMagga person. The second person is called a SotÈpattiPhala person. SotÈpatti Phala person and SotÈpanna are the same. The Magga person is the actual one who is attaining enlightenment, Phala person is one who has attained enlightenment. Although Magga and Phala moments are very very brief, almost imperceptable, nonetheless we differentiate these two as different persons. Later on we will have eight Noble persons or eight Enlightened persons. There are only four stages of enlightenment but there are eight enlightened persons. The first one is at the moment of Magga. The second one is from the moment of Phala until the next higher stage.
After becoming a SotÈpanna, he practise meditation again to reach the second stage. So he practises VipassanÈmeditation and the second Magga Citta will arise. Immediately following Magga Citta there will be two or three moments of Phala Cittas , the same. The second stage is called SakadÈgÈmÊ. I will explain the words later. SakadÈgÈmÊ Cittas are called SakadÈgÈmÊ Magga Citta and SakadÈgÈmÊ Phala Cittas. At the moment of SakadÈgÈmÊ Magga that individual is called a Magga person. From the first Phala Citta until the third stage is reached that individual is called a SakadÈgÈmÊ Phala person.
Then the person practises meditation in one sitting or later on. Then the third stage is called AnÈgÈmÊ, Non - returner. That consciousness is called AnÈgÈmÊ Magga Citta. Immediately following AnÈgÈmÊ Magga Citta are two or three moments of AnÈgÈmÊ Phala Cittas. At the moment of Magga Citta he is called an AnÈgÈmÊ Magga person. From the first moment of Phala until he reaches the next stage he is called and AnÈgÈmÊ Phala person.
Then he practises again and reaches the fourth stage whish is Arahantship. Again Arahatta Magga Citta arises and following it are two or three moments of Arahatta Phala Cittas. From the moment of Arahatta Phala Citta he is called and Arahant. At the moment of Magga Citta he is called Arahatta Magga person.
There are four stages of enlightenment. There are two sets of Magga and Phala. At Magga moment we reckon that there is one person and from Phala moment onwards we reckon that individual as another person. There is only one person but we call it two persons. For example there is a person who breaks a record and another person who has broken the record. When he is breaking the ribbon, he is in the process of breaking the record. After that, maybe not even one second, he is called the person who has broken the record. There are two persons. One person is the one who breaks the record and the other person is the one who has broken the record. In the same way there is one person who is at the Magga moment and another person at the Phala moment. So there are eight Noble Persons, two at each stage enlightenment. There are altogether eight Lokuattara Cittas.
Magga, Magga Citta and Magga~ga
Now let us look at the meaning of the words. We must understand the meaning of Magga, Magga Citta and another word Magga~ga. I don't give the word here because it is not in this section of the manual. They are respectively Path, Path consciousness and factors of Path. Magga means the group of eight factors together. You know the eight factors - right understanding, right thought and so on. The eight factors together as a group are called Magga. Each one of them is called factors of Magga. In PÈÄi that is Magga~ga. Like in JhÈna we have JhÈna~ga. Magganga means a part, a limb or a constituent. Magga Citta means a Citta accompanied by these eight factors. So there is Magga, Magga~ga and Magga Citta - Path, factors of Path and Path consciousness.
SotÈpatti Magga
Next is SotÈpatti Magga. Sota here means a stream. Here it is used metaphorically. So stream means the Ariyan Path. That means just the eight factors or what is called the Noble Eightfold Path. These eight factors are here called Sota, a stream. Once you get into that stream you aresure to reach NibbÈna. You will not go back. You are fixed. You are sure to reach NibbÈna. Œpatti means reaching for the first time. Œ means first. Patti means reaching or arriving. So Œpatti means reaching for the first time. Reaching the stream of the Noble Path for the first time is called SotÈpatti because it is the first time the Yogi gets into that stream, into that flow so that he will move on and on towards NibbÈna. After some lives he will attain NibbÈna. That is SotÈpatti. SotÈpattiMagga Citta means both consciousness obtained through reaching the stream of the Noble Path for the first time. That is SotÈpattiMagga Citta. That Citta arises at the first stage of enlightenment.
SakadÈgÈmÊ
The second stage is called SakadÈgÈmÊ, one who comes back once to this human world. Saka means once. ŒgÈmÊ means who cames. So we get 'once - comer ', once returner. Return to what? In the texts and even in the Visuddhi Magga it says this world. ' This world ' is interpretted to mean this human world. There is difference of opinion among the teachers. But the majority take it to mean the human world. SakadÈgÈmÊ is one who comes back to this human world once and then attains NibbÈna. Please note that coming back means coming back to this world, this human world not just coming back to the cycle of birth and death. It is different. That means he will become a SkkadÈgÈmÊ for example as a human being. After this human life he may be reborn as a celestial being, a Deva. Then he will die as a Deva and will be reborn as a human being. He will attain NibbÈna in that life. That is why he is called a once returner. He comes back here once. In order to return he has to be reborn in another world and then he comes back here and attains NibbÈna here.
AnÈgÈmÊ
The third stage is called AnÈgÈÑ. ‘An’ comes from PÈÄi ‘na’ which means not. ŒgÈmÊ means one who comes back. AnÈgÈmÊ menas one who does not come back. Who does not come back means who not come back to this world. Here world is interpretted to mean not the human world but the sensuous world. That means human world and also Devas. This being does not come back to the sensuous world, but may come back to the cycle of rebirth and death. If you say he is not coming back to the cycle of rebirth and death, he would be an Arahant. It is wrong to say that an AÈgÈmÊ does not return to the cycle of rebirth and death. He will still have more rebirths as a Brahma. He will not have rebirths as human being or Deva but will have rebirths as a Brahma. What he does not come back to is this sensuous world. If you become an AnÈgÈmÊ in this life you will be reborn in the world of Brahmas, not in the human world, not in the world of Devas. You will be reborn as a Brajma. Then you may attain NibbÈna in the first realm. Or if not there you may attain NibbÈna in the second, third or fourth realm. And in the fifth realm you will surely attain NibbÈna. An AnÈgÈmÊ is one who does not come back by way of rebirth to this sensuous world, to the world of human beings, or to the world of Devas or lower celestial beings. AnÈgÈmÊ Magga Citta means Path consciousness of one who does not come back to this sensuous world.
Arahatta
Arahatta comes from the word Arahanta. Arahatta is an abstract noun., Arahanta is a common noun. Arahatta means the state of being an Arahant. Arahant is explained to have many meanings. The commentators are very adept in playing with words. They look at the roots, the prefixes and get many meanings for one word. It is difficult to know which is the real original meaning of the word. Arahant - there are many meanings for this. One meaning is that an Arahant is worthy to accept gifts. That means if we make gifts to such a person, we will get abundant results because he is so pure. He is like a field with good soil. Another meaning of Arahant is a person who has killed the mental defilements. Actually it means a person who has killed the enemy. In that case the word comes Ari and Han. Ari means enemy and Han means to kill. So one who kills the enemy is called an Arahant. Here kill means to destroy. Enemy means the mental defilements. It comes down to one who has destroyed who has destroyed who has eradicated all mental defilements. His Magga Citta is called Arahatta Magga Citta.
The word Phala means fruit, fruition, result. There are different kinds of SotÈpannas, SakadÈgÈmÊs and AnÈgÈmÊs. If you are interested you may pick up the Visuddhi Magga and read it. I will not burden you with the details of the different kinds of SotÈpannas, SakadÈgÈmÊsand so on. In the beginning I think it is best to understand what is simple first. Then later on you can go to the complicated things.
With regard to these four stages we must understand what factors what mental defilements are eradicated. We must also understand what are the results of enlightenment and what changes there are after enlightenment.
Please look at the sheet entitled 'Removal of Fetters by different Maggas'. When describing the Noble Persons, the Buddha used the ten fetters. Actually fetters and mental defilements overlap each other. What are in the fetters are also in the mental defilements. There are ten fetters. The first five are called lower fetters. That is because they drag you down to lower states of existence. The other five are called upper fetters.
At the first ftage (that means the first Magga) what are eradicated or what are removed? The first fetter is KÈmarÈga, sense desire. The intensity of that sense desire which is removed is " strong ". Strong means strong enough or bad enough to lead to woeful states. That means at the first Magga KÈmarÈga or sense desire is eradicated but not all of it, just some degree of KÈmarÈga is eradicated. We use the word 'strong' here. Strong means strong enough to drag you to the four woeful states.
Next is PaÔigha. That means illwill, anger or Dosa. PaÔigha that is strong enough to lead to the four woeful state is removes.
The third one is SakkÈya-diÔÔha, self-illusion. That is the wrong belief that there is a self or belief in self. A SotÈpanna eradicates all of that belief. All means total eradication, not just one level or whatever, but all of SakkÈya-diÔÔhi, all of illusion the first Magga eradicates. So it will not arise anymore.
The next one is SÊlabbata-parÈmÈsa, adherence to habits and practises. The usual translation is adherence to rites and rituals. Here adherence to rites and rituals means believing rites and rituals are the way to freedom from suffering. If you believe that way, you have SÊlabbata-parÈmÈsa. Adherence to habits and practices means taking these practices to be the right way for liberation. Actually it is wrong view, DiÔÔhi. This is also eradicated totally by the firt Magga.'
The other one is VicikicchÈ, doubt Buddha, Dhamma, Sa~gha and so on. The first Magga eradicates all doubt.
So the first Magga eradicates self-illusion, adherence to habits and practices, and doubt once and for all. These will never arise in the mind of a SotÈpanna. A SotÈpanna will never have self - illusion, never have a wrong belief about habits practices, and he will never have doubt. Sense desire and illwill he still has. His sense desire and his illwill are not strong enough to lead him to the four woeful states. That is why a SotÈpanna is not bron in the four woelful states. A SotÈpanna will never be reborn in the four woeful states. That is because he has no mental defilements that are strong enough to lead him to these four woeful states. It is said in the Suttas that all Noble Persons beginning with a SotÈpanna keep the five precepts always intact. A SotÈpanna will not break any one of the five precepts. His purity of morals is accomplished at the moment of elightenment. A SotÈpanna will never kill a living being, will never steal, never lie, never dring. It is said that a SotÈpanna, if he does not reach any higher stages until the seventh life, he may be reborn a maximum of seven times. In the seventh life he will surely become an Arahant. He will reach all the higher stages. A SotÈpanna is said to have only seven more rebirths. In the Jewel Sutta the Buddha said, "They do not take an eighth rebirth." At most they will take seven rebirths, that is if they do not reach higher stages in the remaining lives. For example a person may become a SotÈpanna here. Then let us say he is reborn as a Deva. While he is a Deva, he may practise meditation again and he may reach the second stage, the third stage and so on. If so he is no longer a SotÈpanna. He becomes a SakadÈgÈmÊ, AnÈgÈmÊ or Arahant. When we say he has a maximum of seven lives to go, it means if he does not reach any higher stage until the last life.
The second Magga removes sense desire and illwill which are gross. Gross here means not so strong as "strong". The mental defilements remaining are not strong but still somewhat gross. Here we have to understand there are three levels of sense desire and illwill. There is that which is strong enough to lead to the four woeful states, that which is not so strong but still bad, and then a very subtle one. This second Magga does not eradicate totally any more mental defilements. But it makes sense desire and illwill less intense. It makes these fetters weaker. They are already weak after the first stage of enlightenment. After the second stage of enlightenment they are much weaker. Maybe there is just a little sense desire and illwill remaining. The second Magga does not eradicate any more mental defilements, but it attenuates or it makes meagher sense desire and illwill. A SakadÈgÈmÊ still has sense desire and illwill. A SakadÈgÈmÊ is still capable of getting angry, but this anger would be very mild.
When a person reaches the third stage, that Magga eradicates sense desire and illwill. Which are rsubtle, which are remaining. After that there are no more sense desire and illwill. We can say that the third Magga or AnÈgÈmÊ Magga eradicates sense desire and illwill once and for all. So sense desire and illwill will never arise in an AnÈgÈmÊ. Sense desire means desire for sense objects. If a lay person becomes an AnÈgÈmÊcan he continue living as a married person? He cannot live as a married person anymore although he may lead a household life. He is not capable of living a married life. There was a potter by the name of Katthikara during the time of the Buddha Kassapa. He was a lay person. He was also an AnÈgÈmÊ. He led an unmarried life. So after becoming an AnÈgÈmÊ a person cannot live a married life. He may remain a lay person. It is said that by nature an AnÈgÈmÊ always keeps eight precepts. He doesn't have to take eight precepts, but he will keep those eight precepts. The most obvious of these precepts is not eating after the noon hour. An AnÈgÈmÊ will not eat in the afternoon.
Then the fourth Magga is Arahatta Magga. When one becomes an Arahant, what does one remove? The remaining ones. Greed for fine-material - that means attachment to Brahma world, fine-material Brahma world. Ar|pÈrÈga means greed for inmaterial. That means attachment to Ar|pÈvacara realm. MÈna is conceit.
Uddhacca is restlessness. AvijjÈ is ignorance. Five are eradicated by the fourth Magga. When a person becomes an Arahant, these five are all gone. Since the others are eradicated by the three previous Maggas and these five by the fourth Magga, when a person reaches the fourth Magga, he has no fetters at all or no mental defilements at all. An Arahant is totally free from mental defilements. However great a provocation is he will not get angry. However beautiful the object is he will not be attached to it. A person who has reached the fourth stage of enlightenment is totally free from mental defilements.
With regard to mental defilements there are ten. You will find them in the seventh chapter. As to the mental defilements (In PÈÄi we call them Kilesas.) the first Magga totally eradicates wrong view and doubt (DiÔÔhi and VicikicchÈ). The second Magga does not eradicate any more. A SakadÈgÈmÊ just weakens the remaining Kilesas. The third Magga eradicates anger (Dosa). The fourth Magga eradicates the remaining seven mental defilements. An AnÈgÈmÊ has eradicated illwill or Dosa altogether. An AnÈgÈmÊ is incapable of getting angry. He will not be afraid of anything because fear is understood to be under Dosa. It is a passive Dosa. When one reaches the third stage of enlightenment one will not be afraid of anything. He will not be afraid of death. He is like an Arahant in that case.
There are twelve Akusala Cittas. How many of the Akusala Cittas are eradicated by first Magga? First you must understand what mental defilements are eradicated. Wrong view and doubt are eradicated. Which Cittas are accompanied by wrong view? How many Cittas are accompanied by wrong view? Four and one is accompanied by doubt. So a SotÈpanna eradicates five types of consciousness. The four accompanied by DiÔÔhi and the one accompanied by doubt will not arise in him anymore. Five Akusala Cittas will not arise in a SotÈpanna. The once-returner does not eradicate anything. What he does at that stage is to weaken the remaining defilements but he doesn't eradicate any of them.
When a person reaches the third stage, he removes sense desire and illwill altogether. What Cittas does he eradicate? The two accompanied by Dosa. He still has some Lobha. He has not destroyed Lobha altogether. But he has no Dosa, so he eradicates the two Dosam|la Cittas.
Then the Arahant eradicates all the remeining Akusala Cittas. How many? SotÈpannaeradicates five. AnÈgÈmÊ eradicates two. So an Arahant eradicates the remaining five. Which are the remaining five? Those not accompanied by DiÔÔhi from Lobham|la Cittas. How many? Four. And then the one from Moham|la Citta accompanied by Uddhacca (restlessness). So the four types of consciousness accompanied by Looha but not accompanied by wrong view and Moham|laCitta accompanied by restlessness are eradicated by the Arahant. Among twelve Akusala Cittas five are eliminazed at the first stage of attainment. Two are eliminated by the third stage. The five remaining are eradicated by the fourth stage.
No Kiriya in Lokuttara Cittas
We find only eight Lokuttara Cittas, Kusala and VipÈka, but no Kiriya. In the R|pÈvacara there are five Kusala, five VipÈka and five Kiriya. In the Ar|pÈvacara also there are four Kusala, four VipÈka and four Kiriya. Why are there no Kiriya in Lokuttara or supramundane consciousness? The answer is given in the handout.
The first answer is because Magga Citta only arises once. If Magga Citta arose more than one time, it would become a function of Kiriya consciousness. If the Arahatta Magga, the fourth attainment could arise again in an Arahant, it would become a Kiriya Citta. But Magga Citta arises only once in the mind of a person. It never repeats itself. Why? Because Magga Citta arises only once there is no Kiriya Citta in Lokuttara. Magga Citta arises only once because it can accomplish its function by arising once. Its function is to eradicate mental defilements. It can eradicate mental defilements just by one stroke. It does not have to arise again to eradicate mental defilements. So it can do its function by just arising once. Magga Citta does not arise again. That is why there is no Kiriya in Lokuttara Cittas.
For living happily in this life—that means to enjoy the bliss of liberation there are Phala Cittas. That means if a Magga Citta can arise again and again (Magga Citta takes NibbÈna as object), it would be very enjoyable. It is very enjoyable when Magga Citta arises because it takes NibbÈna as object. NibbÈna is the absence of all suffering. So the meditator experiences real Sukha, real happiness when Magga Citta arises. After the arising and disappearing of that Magga Citta if he wants to enjoy that bliss again he enters into Phala Cittas. That job, that responsibility of enjoying the bliss of emancipation is taken by Phala Cittas. Magga Citta does not have to rise again for that purpose. That purpose is taken care of by Phala Cittas. That is why Magga Citta can only once. Since Magga Citta can only arise once, there can be no Kiriya in Lokuttara Cittas.
After becoming Arahants, beings want to enjoy happiness. Their enjoyment of happiness is having a series of consciousness which takes Nibbana as object. When the mind is on NibbÈna, the person feels very peaceful. For that purpose there are Phala Cittas. After becoming an enlightened person, a SotÈpanna, that person can enter into SotÈpanna Phala attainment whenever he likes. During the time he has decided - for example one day, two days, three days—only Phala Cittas will arise uninterruptedly. The limit for human for beings is seven days. That task is taken by the Phala Cittas. So Magga Cittas do not have to rise again. That is why there are no Kiriya Cittas in Lokuttara. There are only eight Lokuttara Cittas. Magga Citta can do its function of eradicating mental defilements by just arising once. If it can do this function by just arising once, there is no use in it arising again. That is why it only arises once. For living happily in this life - that means for the enjoyment of the bliss of emancipation—there is Phala SamÈpatti. So the Magga Citta only arises once. That is why there are no Kiriya Cittas in the supramudane consciousness.
Review of Cittas
We have come to the end of 89 Cittas - 81 mudane Cittas and eight supramudane Cittas. So altogether there are 89 types of consdciousness.
Let's go back to the beginning. How many are Akusala? Twelve. How many are Kusala? KÈmÈvacara Kusala eight, R|pÈvacara Kusala five, Ar|pÈvacara Kusala four and Magga four. Altogether there are 21. So there are twelve Akusala Cittas and 21 Kusala Cittas. How many resultant (VipÈka) Cittas are there? The book says 36. 15 from Ahetuka, eight from KÈmÈvacara Sobhana, five from R|pÈvacara and four from Ar|pÈvacara, and four from Lokuttara. Phala and VipÈka are the same. So altogether there are 36. How many Kiriya Cittas are there? Three from Ahetuka, eight from KÈmÈvacara Sobhana, five from R|pÈvacara and four from Ar|pÈvacara. So we get twenty. So again we have twelve Akusala, 21 Kusala, 36 VipÈka and twenty Kiriya. How many KÈmÈvacara Cittas, how many types of consciousness are there pertaining to the sense sphere? 54. How many are R|pÈvacara? 15. How many are Ar|pÈvacara? 12 How many are Lokuttara? Eight. So we have altogether 89 types of consciousness. We can go through it by feelings also - how many are accompanied by Somanassa feeling, how many by UpekkhÈ feeling, by Sukha, by Dukkha, by Domanassa. When you have the chart it is easy. You look at the chart the pick out the colors. You should make copies of the chart and then color in Kusala, for example or Somanassa feeling. It is very helpful, but it takes time. You need real good concentration. If you make one mistake, you have to do it from the beginning.
Let's go into some detail. The Akusala twelve—those associated with Lobha are eight. Those associated with Dosa are two. Those associated with moha only are two.
Let's go to Ahetuka. The first column is the seven resultants of Akusala.The second column is the eight resultants of Kusala. The third column is three functional Cittas. Altogether there are 18 Cittas. They are called Ahetuka, rootless.
The next group is KÈmÈvacara Sobhana, beautiful sense sphere. There are eight kusala, eight VipÈka and eight Kiriya.
The next group is R|pÈvacara. There are five Kusala, five VipÈka and five kiriya.
The next group is Ar|pÈvacara. There are four kusala, four VipÈka and four kiriya.
How many first JhÈna Cittas are there among the 27 Mahaggata Cittas? Do you remember the word ' Mahaggata ' ? 15 R|pÈvacara and 12 Ar|pÈvacara together are the 27 Mahaggata Cittas. There are three first JhÈna Cittas. There are three second JhÈna Cittas .There are three third JhÈna Cittas. We have three fourth JhÈna Cittas. And we have 15 fifth JhÈna Cittas—three from R|pÈvacara and twelve from Ar|pÈvacara. When we add them all up we get 81 types of consciousness. They are called Lokiya, pertaining to Loka, this world, the world of five aggregates.
When we transcend the world, then we get into Lokuttara Cittas. How many Lokuttara Cittas are there? Eight Lokuttara Cittas. Four are Kusala and four are VipÈka. Lokuttara Kusala Cittas are called Magga Cittas. Lokuttara VipÈka Cittas are called Phala Cittas. What are the four Magga Cittas? Stream-enterer (SotÈpanna), once-returner (SakadÈgÈmÊ), Non-returner (AnÈgÈmÊ), and Arahant. Phala Citta immediately follows the Magga Citta. Phala Citta can arise again and again in that person.
Forty Lokuttara Cittas
We come to the end of the eight Lokuttara consciousness. The eight Lokuttara Cittas can be reckoned as forty. It depends on what kind of Magga Citta arises in a given person. In order to understand it, it is a little complicated. First we have to understand that the JhÈna Cittas and also the Magga Cittas when they arise are accompanied by Cetasikas. Among the Cetasikas there are the eight factors of Path and five factors of JhÈna. when a Magga Citta arises, there are 36 Cetasikas arising together with it. Among them are Vitakka, VicÈra, PÊti, VedanÈand EkaggatÈ. They are present with the Magga Citta. That first we must understand.
There are different kinds of people getting Magga and Phala Cittas. There are those who practise VipassanÈ only. Those people are called dry VipassanÈ practioners. We are dry VipassanÈpractioners. We do not practise JhÈna. We just practise VipassanÈ. A person who practises VipassanÈ only, no JhÈnas, when he attains let's say first Magga, there will be 36 Cetasikas associated with it. Among those Cetasikas will be Vitakka, VicÈra, PÊti, Sukha and EkaggatÈ. So his Magga Citta resembles the first JhÈna of R|pÈvacara. First R|pÈvacara Citta is accompanied by how many factors of JhÈna? Five. With this Magga Citta there are also five JhÈna factors. So by way of JhÈna factors this Magga Citta resembles first R|pÈvacara JhÈna Citta. That Magga Citta is called first JhÈna Magga Citta.
Sometimes a person may have attained JhÈnas but when he practises VipassanÈ meditation he does not make use of those JhÈnas. He simply practises meditation on what are called miscellaneous formations. That means mind and matter. When he gets Magga, his Magga will be accompanied by all five factors. So his Magga will resemble again first JhÈna. In that case there is no difference of opinion because a dry VipassanÈ person when he gets Magga, his Magga will resemble the first JhÈna having all five factors. And a person who has JhÈna but does not use JhÈna as a basis for VipassanÈ and just contemplates on miscellaneous formations and gets Magga, his Magga resembles first JhÈna. Also a person who has JhÈna and then emerges from that JhÈnaand contemplates on miscellaneous formations, when he gets Magga, his Magga will resemble first JhÈna. It will have five factors.
What about a person who contemplates not on miscellaneous formations but on the JhÈnas themselves? JhÈnas can be the objects of VipassanÈ meditation. If you have JhÈna you may first enter into that JhÈna. Then emerging from that JhÈna you may take the JhÈna as an object of VipassanÈ. In that case it is not easy to determine what kind of Magga that person will have. With regard to this there are three opinions. We may call them three schools. There are three teachers who had different opinions about this.
The first teacher said that what is important, what determines the JhÈna level of Magga Citta is the basic JhÈna. Basic JhÈna means the JhÈna which is made the basis of VipassanÈ meditation. That means he enters into JhÈna first. Then he emerges from that JhÈna. He may take that JhÈna or other JhÈnas as object of VipassanÈ. He may also take miscellaneous formations as the object of VipassanÈ. But according to that first teacher what is important is the JhÈna which is made the basis of VipassanÈmeditation. His Magga will resemble that basic JhÈna. If his basic JhÈna is first JhÈna, then his Magga will resemble first JhÈna. If his basic JhÈna is fifth JhÈna, then his Magga will resemble the fifth JhÈna. When his Magga Citta arises, there will be no Vitakka, VicÈra, PÊti or Sukha, just UpekkhÈ and EkaggatÈ. This is one teacher's opinion. According to that teacher what is important, what determines the level of Magga Citta is the JhÈna which is made the basis for VipassanÈ. That means the JhÈna which is entered into first.
There is another teacher who says it is not important which JhÈna is made the basis for VipassanÈ, but the JhÈna which is made the object of VipassanÈ is what is important. A person may enter into first JhÈna. Then he may emerge from that JhÈna. And he may practise VipassanÈ on second JhÈna or third or fourth or fifth JhÈna. What JhÈna will his Magga resemble? Let's say he enters first JhÈna. Then emerges from that JhÈna. Next he practises VipassanÈ on second JhÈna. According to the second teacher his Magga will resemble second JhÈna. According to the first teacher his Magga will resemble first JhanÈ. Now you see the difference of opinion. So the first teacher said the basic JhanÈ is important as a determining factor. The second teacher said the contemplated JhÈna is more important. It is the determining factor. Which do you like?
Now there is a third teacher. He said what is important when the basic JhÈna and the contemplated JhÈna are different–what is important or what determines that person's Magga is that person's wish. That person enters into first JhÈna. Then he emerges from first JhÈna and contemplates on second JhÈna. But if he wishes for first JhÈna, then his Magga will resemble first JhÈna. If he wishes for second JhÈna, the contemplated JhÈna, his Magga will resemble the second JhÈna. His Magga will resemble the basic JhÈna or contemplated JhÈna according to his wish.
Then if he has no particular wish what will happen? The Magga will resemble the higher JhÈna. If he makes first JhÈna as a basis and second JhÈna as the object of contemplation and he has no particular wish, then his Magga will resemble second JhÈna because second JhÈna is higher than first JhÈna.
Now you understand. Please look at the chart. " The way Magga Cittas Resemble JhÈnas". I think I told you that Magga Cittas and Phala Cittas are also called JhÈnas. That is so because they examine closely the characteristics and for Phala Cittas they examine closely the true characteristics of NibbÈna. So the Lokuttara Cittas may also be called JhÈna because they examine closely the characteristics. The culmination of the examination of characteristics is accomplished at Magga.
Another explanation is that they resemble JhÈnas. That is why they are called JhÈnas. We must understand Magga Citta and JhÈna Citta. Magga Citta is not JhÈna Citta. Actually JhÈna Citta is not Magga. Here Magga Citta is called first JhÈna Magga Citta. We are using both–second JhÈna Magga Citta, third JhanÈ Magga Citta and so on. We are combining JhÈna and Magga here. When we combine these two and say first JhÈna Magga Citta, we mean Magga Citta which resembles, which is like the first R|pÈvacara JhÈna. It is not JhÈna. If it were JhÈna, it would have to take a concept as object, like a KasiÓa sign. If it is a Magga Citta, it must take NibbÈna as object. So they are different. If it is a JhÈna it must take a concept and others as object. If it is a Magga Citta, it must take Nibbana as object. If we say first JhÈna Magga Citta, we mean a Magga Citta which resembles the first JhÈna in terms of factors of JhÈna.
Here the first is the basic JhÈna, that is the first column. The second column is the contemplated JhÈna. The third column is the person's wish. The fourth column is the arising Magga. Suppose a person makes the first JhÈna as the basic JhÈna. That means he enters into first JhÈna. Then emerging from that JhÈna, he contemplates on (That means he practises Vipassana on) miscellaneous formations. That means mind and matter. It could be rising and falling, in and out, pain or noise. They are called miscellaneous formations. He has no wish. The arising Magga will resemble first JhÈna. All give of the JhÈna factors will be present with that Magga Citta because the person has no disgust for any of the JhÈna factors.
The second one is no basic JhÈna. He contemplates on the first JhÈna and he has no partricular wish. His Magga will resemble first JhÈna.
The next one is the basic JhÈna is first JhÈna. The contemplated JhÈna is second JhÈna. If a person wishes for first JhÈna (That means the person wishes that his Magga resemble the first JhÈna.) then according to his wish the Magga will resemble first JhÈna.
The next one the basic JhÈna. The contemplated JhÈna is second JhÈna. This time he wants a higher one. So according to his wish the Magga will be a second JhÈna Magga.
Then he makes first JhÈna his basic JhÈna and second JhÈna the contemplated JhÈna. He has no particular wish. What will his Magga resemble? The second JhÈna because the second JhÈna is higher than the first one.
Next he makes second JhÈna his basic JhÈna. First JhÈna is his contemplated JhÈna. There is no particular wish. The resulting Magga resemble second JhÈna.
Then none–the Yogi has no attainment of JhÈna. It is a dry VipassanÈ practioner. He practises VipassanÈ on miscellaneous formations. He cannot have any wish. He has no JhÈna. So his Magga will resemble first JhÈna Magga.
Then there is a Yogi who has the attainment of JhÈnas, but he does not make use of any JhÈnas as a basis for VipassanÈ or as an object of VipassanÈ contemplation. Instead he contemplates on the miscellaneous formations. He has no particular wish. His Magga will resemble the first JhÈna.
What about Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas? Please understand Ar|pÈvacara JhÈnas are fifth JhÈnas. If his basic JhÈna is Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna and his contemplated JhÈna is Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna and he has no particular wish, his Magga will resemble fifth JhÈna.
The next one he makes Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna his basic JhÈna. He contemplates on any R|pÈvacara JhÈna or miscellaneous formations. He has no particular wish. The higher one will prevail.
Then the last one–any R|pÈvacara JhÈna or miscellaneous formation is the basis. The contemplation is on Ar|pÈvacara JhÈna. He has no particular wish. His Magga will resemble fifth JhÈna.
This chart is not comprehensive. We could have many things here. Please understand there must be basic JhÈna, contemplated JhÈna and a person's wish. If there is no person's wish, the higher JhÈna will prevail. If there is a wish, then the Magga will resemble first JhÈna, second JhÈna and so on.
Since Magga can resenble first JhÈna, second JhÈna, third JhÈna, fourth JhÈna and fifth JhÈna, there are said to be five SotÈpatti Magga Cittas. Similarly there are five SakadÈgÈmÊ Cittas, five AnÈgÈmÊ Magga Cittas and Arahatta Magga Cittas. We get twenty Lokuttara Kusala Cittas.
The same is true for Phala Cittas. There are five SotÈpatti Phala Cittas, five SakadÈgÈmÊ Phala Cittas, five SakadÈgÈmÊ Phala Cittas and five Arahatta Phala Cittas. We get twenty Phala Cittas. If we add up these two we get forty Lokuttara Cittas. Eight Lokuttara Cittas become forty Lokuttara Cittas because each of the eight Lokuttara Cittas can resemble each one of the R|pÈvacara JhÈnas in terms of factors of JhÈna. If we add forty to 81 we get 121 types of consciousness. That is why we always say 89 or 121 types of consciousness. For beginners it is confusing. Why not say 89 or else 121, not both. We have to say it that way. In one way we have to say 89; in the other way we have to say there are 121 types of consciousness. If you are interested to learn more about the basic JhÈna and the contemplated JhÈna, you can read the Visuddhi Magga or the AtthasÈlinÊ. The AtthasÈlinÊ is the Commentary on the first book of Abhidhamma. It is translated in English as Expositor.
If you want to read the Visuddhi Magga, AtthasÈlinÊ or DhammasangaÓÊ for these individual types of consciousness, you can get the reference from the end of the book on page 376, appendix one, textual sources for the 89 or 121 types of consciousness. If you want to read about the first Akusala Citta, rooted in greed, you will read DhammasangaÓÊ paragraph # 365 or Visuddhi Magga chapter 14 paragraphs #90 & #91. And you can read Expositor or AtthasÈlinÊ page 336. If you want to go to the texts themselves you may consult these books. This chart is very helpful to find these Cittas in the texts.
The order given in this manual and the order given in the Abhidhamma books is different. The order in the Abhidhamma books themselves begins with Kusala, then Akusala Cittas, VipÈka Cittas and Kiriya Cittas. So you get KÈmÈvacara Kusala, R|pÈvacra Kusala, Ar|pÈvacara Kusala first. Next comes Akusala. Then there is KÈmÈvacara VipÈka, R|pÈvacara VipÈka and Ar|pÈvacara VipÈka. Then there is KÈmÈvacara Kiriya and so on. The order given in this manual and the Abhidhamma books is different. This chart is very helpful. You can find them very easily now. That is true if you have the books–the Visuddhi Magga, Dhamma SangaÓÊ and AtthasÈlinÊ. Visuddhi Magga is translated into English by Venerable ©ÈÓamoli as The Path of Purification. You can use these references. They are paragraph numbers. They are paragraph numbers. They can refer to both original PÈÄi and English translation. The AtthasÈlinÊ is by page number. So you can read the Expositor in English for these types of consciousness.
SÈdhu! SÈdhu! SÈdhu!
Student: Inaudible.
Sayadaw: The PÈÄiword used is Sunyatta. Sunyatta in TheravÈda is different I think from Sunyatta in Mahayana. In TheravadÈ Sunyatta means empty of permanency, empty of satisfactoriness and empty of soul. Sunyatta really means in PÈÄiAnicca, Dukka and Anatta. It does not mean empty, void nothingness. We will study this in the ninth chapter. When a person practises VipassanÈ, some people see impermanent nature more clearly. Some see suffering nature more clearly. Some see soulless nature more clearly. Depending on what characteristic they last contemplate on, the Magga is named Sunyatta Magga. You may translate it as empty, void or whatever. Then AppaÓihita and Animitta and so on –they are the names given to the Magga depending on the quality of the VipassanÈ or depending on the aspect of VipassanÈ. When you practise VipassanÈ at one time you can only be mindful of one characteristic because mind can only take one object at a time. If you are experienced with Anicca more than the other two characteristics, your Magga will be called Sunyatta Nimitta. These are the names of Magga determined by the quality of VipassanÈ. Sunyatta does not means the same thing here as it does in Mahayana. It means void of permanency, void of satisfactoriness and void of soul.
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[Tape #9]
Revision of Chapter One
Let us mark the columns so I can take from here and you will know what column I an talking about. The first column is number one. Then the other three are two, three, four. Then there is five, six, seven. And then there is eight, nine, ten and eleven, twelve, thirteen and finally 14-21. The 121 types of consciousness are broadly divided into mundane and subramundane. How many are mundane consciousness? 81. So that is columns 1-13. Those are called mundane consciousness. The remaining columns 14-21 are supramundane consciousness. Among the mundane consciousness what are the sense sphere consciousness? Kamavacara consc iousness is columns 1-7. Altogether there are 54types of Kamavacara consciousness. Among them which are the unwholesome Cittas? Column number one. What are the rootless Cittas?Columns 2-4. Then the next group, beautiful sense sphere consciousness is columns 5-7. There are twelve unwholesome Cittas, eighteen rootless Cittas and twenty four beautiful sense sphere consciousness.
Among twelve Akusala Cittas how many are with Lobha? Eight, the first eight. How many are with Dosa? Two, the two green dots. How many are with Moha only? Two, the last two. Moha is with all twelve types of unwholesome consciousness. So we should say Lobha and Moha, Dosa and Moha and Moha only. When we say Lobha, we mean Moha also. When we say Dosa, we mean Moha also. There are twelve types of unwholesome consciousness.
The next group is the rootless consciousness. How many are there? Eighteen. How are they subdivided? They are divided into three groups. Column number two is the resultants of unwholesome, Akusala Vipaka. Column number three is the resultants of wholesome, Kusala Vipaka. And column number four is Kiriya or functional. In column two the first one is eye consciousness. The second one is ear consciousness. The third one is nose consciousness; the fourth one is tongue consciousness and the fifth is body consciousness. In the Akusala Vipaka the body consciousness is unpleasant. The next one is receiving consciousness and the last one is investigating consciousness.
Column number three is the Kusala Vipaka. The first one is eye consciousness, the second ear, the third nose, the fourth tongue and the fifth is body consciousness. Here body consciousness is pleasant. The next one is receiving consciousness. The last two are investigating consciousness. There are two investigating consciousness among the eight resultants of wholesome Kamma.
Then in column number four there are three types of consciousness. What is the first one? Five sense door adverting. The second is mind door adverting. The third one is smile producing consciousness.
Now let us go to the next group. Columns number five, six and seven are called beautiful sense sphere consciousness. Column number five is kusala. There are eight wholesome beautiful sense sphere consciousness. Four are accompanied by pleasant feeling. The other four are accompanied by indifferent feeling. Column number six is beautiful sense sphere resultant consciousness. They are also eight – four accompanied by pleasant feeling and four accompanied by indifferent feeling. Column number seven is functional or Kiriya consciousness. Again these are eight, four accompanied by pleasant feeling and four accompanied by indifferent feeling. Altogether there are 24. Twelve plus eighteen plus 24 we get 54. These 54 are called Kamavacara Cittas, sense sphere consciousness.
The next group, columns 8-10 are Rupavacara, fine material or we can just say form sphere consciousness. The first five or column eight are wholesome. The second five or column nine are resultant. The third five or column ten are Kiriya or functional. Now look across. What are the first three? First Jhana three. The second line is second Jhana three. The third line is third Jhana three. The fourthline is fourth Jhana three. The fifth line is fifth Jhana three.
Next group is columns 11,12 & 13. What are they? They are formless sphere consciousness. Column number 11 is Kusala. Column number 12 is Vipaka. Column number 13 is Kiriya. What Jhana are they? Fifth Jhana. All twelve belong to fifth Jhana. They are accompanied by two Jhana factors, Upekkha and Ekaggata.
Form sphere and formless sphere consciousness fifteen plus twelve altogether 27 are collectively called Mahaggata Cittas. There are 27 Mahaggata Cittas. How many are first Jhana? Three. Second Jhana? Three. Third Jhana? Three. Fourth Jhana? Three. Fifth Jhana? 15. Very good. Altogether we get 81 types of mundane consciousness.
Now let us do a difficult thing. The first column is Akusala. How many Cittas belong to unenlightened persons? All twelve. How many belong to a Sotapanna? Seven, consciousness accompanied by doubr and four accompanied by wrong view are eliminated by Sotapannas. Only Seven belong to Sotapannas. How many belong to Sakadagamis? The same seven. How many belong to Anaganis? Five. What two do you take out? The two Dosamula Cittas. Anagamis eradicte Dosa altogether. Dosa does not belong to Anagamis. How many belong to Arahants? None. Good.
Columns two, three and four–can column two arise in the mind of Arahants? Yes. Column three also? Yes because Arahants can for example see both beautiful and ugly objects. They can hear both ugly and beautiful sounds. Column four, there are three and they can belong to Arahants also. The last one, smile producing consciousness is peculiar to Arahants and Buddhas only.
Column number five belongs to ordinary people, Sotapannas, Sakadagamis and Anagamis. Let’s say it belongs to non-Arahants. Column six belongs to both non-Arahants and Arahants. Column seven belongs to Arahants only.
Column eight belongs to non-Arahants. Column number nine belongs to both non-Arahants and Arahants. Column ten belongs to Arahants only.
Column eleven belongs to non-Arahants. Column twelve belongs to non-Arahants and Arahants. Column thirteen belongs to Arahants only.
Now we go to supramundane consciousness. There are eight or forty supramundane consciousness. When we say there are eight, we take column 14 to be just one. It is the Magga pr path of a Stream-entrant. So in columns 14,15,16 & 17 there is one Citta in each. When we say there are 89 types of consciousness we take those as one Citta each. When we say there are 121, we take it that there are five for each one. (Sotapatti Magga, Sotapatti Phala, Sakadagami Magga, Sakadagami Phala and so on) How many Magga Cittas are there? Among the forty Lokuttara there are twenty. Twenty of the forty Lokuttara Cittas are Path consciousness. The othertwenty are fruit consciousness. Among twenty Magga consciousness the first column is Sotapatti Magga. Then column 15 is Saladagami Magga. Column 16 is Anagami Magga. And column 17 is Arahatta Magga. Number 18 is Sotapatti Phala. Number 19 is Sakadagami Phala. Number 20 is Anagami fruit. Number 21 is Arahatta Phala. Altogether we get forty supramundane consciousness. Then when we add forty to 81 we get a total of 121 types of consciousness.
Let us say there are 89 types of consciousness. Among the 89 types of consciousness how many are Akusala? Twelve. How many are Kusala? 21 Cittas or columns 5,8, 11. 14, 15, 16 & 17. How many are Vipaka? Columns 2,3,6,9,12, 18, 19, 20, 21. How many are Kiriya? Columns 4, 7, 10, 13. There is no Kiriya in Lokuttara. Why is there no Kiriya in supramundane consciousness? Do you remember? Because Path consciousness arises only once.
If we take 121 types of consciousness how many Kusala Cittas are there? Columns 5, 8, 11 & 14, 15, 16, 17. Altogether there are 37. How many Vipaka Cittas are there? Columns 2, 3, 6, 9, 12 & 18, 19, 20, 21. Altogether there are 52 Vipaka Cittas.
How many are accompanied by Somanassa? All the red dots, 62. How many are accompanied by Upekkha? All the blue dots, 55. How many by Domanassa? The two green dots. How many by Dullha? The green cross. How many by Sukha? The red cross. Very good. Altogether we get 121 types of consciousness.
We used circles only in this chart. In another chart there are circles, triangles and squares. Akusala arerepresented by triangles. Vipaka are represented by cirales. Kiriya are represented by squares. Kusala are represented by diamonds. What is important to know is which is which. So we come to the end of the first chapter.
End of Chapter One
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Review Questions
1. What are the two Realities?
A. Sammuti-sacca = Conventional Truth,
B. Paramattha-sacca = Ulitimate Truth.
1. What are the Four Paramatthas examined in the Abhidhamma?
A. Cittas = Consciousness,
B. Cetasikas Mental Factors,
C. R|pa Matter,
D. NibbÈna.
1. What are three planes of existence?
A. KamÈvacara Sense-Sphere World,
B. RupÈvacara Form-Sphere World,
C. Ar|pÈvacara Formless-Sphere World.
1. What are the PÈÄi terms for mundane and supra-mundane and how many states of consciousness does each represent?
A. Lokiya-81,
B. Lokuttura-8,
1. What are the four classes of consciousness with respect to their nature and how many cittas are found in each group?
A. Kusala = Skillful - 37 or 21,
B. Akusala = Unskillful – 12,
C. VipÈka = Resultant - 52 or 36,
D. Kiriya - Functional or Inoperative - 20.
1. What are the three roots of the unwholesome (akusala) cittas?
A. Lobha Greed
B. Dosa Hatred
C. Moha Delusion
1. Name the five feelings (vedanÈs) and how many cittas have the paticular vedana.
A. Sukha = Pleasurable Physical Feeling (1)
B. Dukkha = Unpleasant Physical Feeling (1)
C. Somanassa = Pleasurable Mental Feeling (62)
D. Domanassa = Unpleasant Mental Feeling (2)
E. UpekkhÈ = Neutral Feeling (55)
1. Define Sasa~khÈrika and Asa~khÈrika
A. Sasa~khÈrika is prompted.
B. Asa~khÈrika is unprompted or spontaneous.
1. What is the meaning of VicikicchÈ?
The term is commonly translated as meaning doubt. In Abhidhamma it means doubt with regard to fundamental spiritual truths like the Law of Kamma, Dependent Origination, the ability of the meditation practice to eliminate defilements of the mind etc.
2. What is Citta?
Citta is the bare awareness of the object or consciousness of the mind. In Abhidhamma Citta is taken to be present even when a person is "unconciousness" or in deep sleep.
3. When an akusala citta has ditthi, what is associated with that state of consciousness?
Wrong view is associated with that citta.
4. With which cittas is moha associated?
Moha is associated with all 12 akusala cittas. With the moha mula it is the only root.
5. Define the word Ahetuka and how many cittas are there in the Ahetuka group?
The term ahetuka means without roots specifically the six roots alobha, adosa, amoha, lobha, dosa and moha. There are 18 cittas in the ahetuka group. These cittas are without roots, but this does not mean they are without a cause.
6. What is the difference between the first and the second column of ahetuka cittas?
The first column is the result of akusalakamma done in the past.
The second column is the result of kusala kamma done in the past.
7. Give some examples of passsive dosa.
Some examples of passive dosa are fear and sorrow.
8. Define the term PaÒcadvÈrÈvajjana.
PaÒcadvÈrÈvajjana is the moment of consciousness in which the mind turns to one of the five senses in the thought process.
9. What is HasituppÈda ?
It is smile producing consciousness peculiar to Arahants and Buddhas only.
10. How many cittas comprise the KÈmÈvacara Sobhana group and what kind of cittas are found in each of the three columns?
There are 24 cittas in this group. The first column is made up of kusala cittas; the second column is made up of vipÈka cittas; the third column is made up of kiriya cittas.
11. Some of the KÈmÈvacara Sobhana Cittas have two roots and some have three roots. What are the two roots common to all of these cittas? What is the additional root common only to some of these cittas?
A. Alobha (Generosity) and Adosa (Loving-kindness) are common to all.
B. PaÒÒÈ or Amoha (Wisdom) is common to some.
20.What is the difference between the KÈmÈvacara Sobhana cittas and the KÈmÈvacara Sobhana Kiriya cittas?
KÈmÈvacara Sobhana Kusala cittas are wholesome worldly actions done by worldlings and lower Ariyas. KÈmÈvacara Sobhana Kiriya cittas are worldly actions done by actions done by Arahants or Buddhas.
21. What are the five Factors in Jhanas?
A. Vitakka Initial Application of the mind.
B. Vicara Sustained Application of the mind.
C. Piti Zest or joy.
D. Sukha Happiness.
E. Ekaggata One Pointeness of the mind.
22. What hindrances do the JhÈna factors temporarily inhibit?
A. Vitakka - Tinha & Midha Sloth & Torpor
B. Vicara - Vicikiccha Doubt
C. Piti - Vyapada Illwill
D. Sukha - Uddhacca & Kukkucca Restlessnes & Remorse
E.Ekaggata - Kamachanda Sensual Desire
F.Upekkha - Uddhacca & Kukkucca Restlessness & Remorse
23. What are the two kinds of meditation?
The two kinds of mditation are Samatha and VipassanÈ.
24. How many traditional objects of Samatha Meditation are there? What are the major divisions of these objects of Samatha Meditation?
There are 40 traditional objects of Samatha Meditation.
A. There are 10 KasiÓa Objects.
B. There are 10 Asubha Objects (Corpses in various stages of deterioration).
C. There are 10 Recollections (Buddha, Dhamma, SaÑgha, etc.).
D. There are the Four Illimitables (BrahmvihÈras).
E. Loathsomeness of food is one of the Meditation Objects.
F. The Four Elements is another Meditation Subject.
G.The Four Formless Objects are another group of Meditation Objects.
25. What are the Four BrahmavihÈras?
A. MettÈ = Loving-Kindness
B. KaruÓÈ = Compassion
C. MuditÈ = Sympathetic Joy
D. UpekkhÈ = Equanimity
26. What are the three signs of being or of conditioned things?
A. Anicca = Impermanence
B. Dukkha = Suffering
C. Anatta = Soullessness
27. Name the Four Arupa Jhanas.
A. ŒkÈsÈnÒncÈyatana = Jhana having infinite space as object.
B. ViÒÒÈÓaÒcayatana = Jhana having infinitevconsiousness as object.
C. ŒkiÒcaÒÒÈyatana = Jhana dwelling on nothingness i.e. absence of 1st Arupa Jhana.
D. NevasaÒÒÈnÈsaÒÒÈyatana = Neighter preception nor nonperception as object.
The two kinds of meditation are Samatha and VipassanÈ.
How many traditional objects of Samatha Meditation are there ? What are the major divisions of these objects of Samatha Meditation?
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