Citta

The truth is different from what we always assumed. What we take for a person are only nāmas, mental phenomena, and rūpas, physical phenomena, that arise and fall away. Nāma and rūpa are real in the ultimate sense, they are different from concepts such as person or animal. Citta, consciousness, and cetasika, mental factor arising with the citta, are both nā ma. They experience different objects. It is not a self or a person who experiences something, it is citta that cognizes an object. Citta experiences only one object and then it falls away to be succeeded by the next citta. We may have thought that there is one consciousness that lasts, that can see, hear and think, but this is not so. Only one citta arises at a time: at one moment a citta that sees arises, at another moment a citta that hears arises. Each citta lasts only for an extremely short time and then it falls away. The five senses and the mind are the doorways through which citta can cognize the different objects which present themselves. Each citta experiences an object, in Pāli: ā rammaṇa. Knowing or experiencing an object does not necessarily mean thinking about it. The citta which sees has what is visible as object; it is different from the cittas which arise afterwards, such as the cittas which know what it is that was perceived and which think about it. The citta which hears (hearing-consciousness) has sound as its object. Even when we are sound asleep and not dreaming, citta experiences an object. There isn’t any citta without an object. There are many different types of citta which can be classified in different ways. Some cittas are kusala (wholesome), some are akusala (unwholesome). Kusala cittas and akusala cittas are cittas which are cause; they can motivate wholesome or unwholesome deeds through body, speech or mind which are able to bring about their appropriate results. Some cittas are the result of wholesome or unwholesome deeds, they are vipā kacittas. Some cittas are neither cause nor result; they are kiriyacittas (sometimes translated as “ inoperative”). Cittas can be classified by way of jāti (jāti literally means “ birth” or “nature”). There are four jātis:

• kusala

• akusala

• vipāka

• kiriya

Both kusala vipāka (the result of a wholesome deed) and akusala vipāka (the result of an unwholesome deed) are one jāti, the jāti of vipāka. It is important to know which jāti a citta is. We cannot develop wholesomeness in our life if we take akusala for kusala or if we take akusala for vipāka. For instance, when someone speaks unpleasant words to us, the moment of experiencing the sound (hearing-consciousness) is akusala vipāka, the result of an unwholesome deed we performed ourselves. The aversion which may arise very shortly afterwards is not vipāka, but it arises with akusala citta. Aversion or anger, dosa, can motivate unwholesome action or speech. We can learn to distinguish these moments from each other by realizing their different characteristics. When we have understood that cittas both of ourselves and others arise because of conditions we shall be less inclined to dwell for a long time on someone else’s behaviour. In the ultimate sense there is no person to be blamed and no person who receives unpleasant results. In reality there are only citta, cetasika and rūpa that arise because of their own conditions.