Consciousness (citta)

What is consciousness? — four aspects

The commentaries describe each ultimate reality in four ways: its characteristic (what it is), function (what it does), manifestation (how it appears to the observer) and proximate cause (what makes it arise). For consciousness:

• Characteristic — knowing an object (vijānana). Consciousness does nothing but know, like a mirror receiving an image.
• Function — to lead the states arising with it (the mental factors), as the Dhammapada verse above says.
• Manifestation — continuity: one moment ceases and the next arises without a break.
• Proximate cause — mind and matter: the accompanying mental factors and the matter it depends on.

Citta, mano, viññāṇa — the same thing?

The Dhammasaṅgaṇī uses many words for the same reality: citta, mano, mānasa, hadaya, paṇḍara, manāyatana, manindriya, viññāṇa and the consciousness aggregate. In the Abhidhamma all of these are consciousness, seen from different angles — “viññāṇa” stresses clear knowing of the object, “manindriya” stresses its dominance in knowing.

“Hadaya” (heart) here means the mind, not the physical heart, and “viññāṇa” is not a ghost or soul, as the word is used in everyday Thai.

Consciousness never arises alone

Every moment of consciousness always comes with three things:

• An object — consciousness always knows something. There is no blank consciousness; even in deep sleep it has its own object.
• Mental factors — at least seven factors always accompany it (the universals), such as contact, feeling, perception and volition, studied in the next lesson.
• A base — for beings with a body, consciousness depends on matter; for example, seeing depends on the eye-sensitivity.

One at a time, and faster than anything

In the Aṅguttara Nikāya the Buddha says he sees nothing that changes as quickly as the mind. The Abhidhamma explains that each moment of consciousness has three sub-moments: arising (uppāda), presence (ṭhiti) and dissolution (bhaṅga), and that one moment of matter lasts as long as seventeen moments of consciousness.

Only one consciousness arises at a time. When one ceases, it conditions the next to arise immediately, with no gap (proximity condition). The diagram below is simplified: in reality there are several more moments between “seeing” and “thinking”, which we will study in the lesson on the cognitive process.

The 89 types by plane

Plane (bhūmi) means the level of consciousness, from everyday mind up to the mind that knows Nibbāna.

• Sense-sphere consciousness, 54 — consciousness that circles among objects of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. It divides into 12 unwholesome, 18 rootless (consciousness without roots, such as seeing and hearing) and 24 beautiful sense-sphere types.
• Fine-material-sphere consciousness, 15 — the consciousness of those who reach the form jhānas through concentration, such as kasiṇa meditation. It divides into wholesome, resultant and functional, five of each by jhāna level.
• Immaterial-sphere consciousness, 12 — the consciousness of those who reach the subtler formless jhānas, whose objects are not matter, such as boundless space. Four of each kind.
• Supramundane consciousness, 8 — the four path and four fruition consciousnesses of the stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner and arahant, which take Nibbāna as object.

The 89 types by nature (jāti)

Another way is to ask whether consciousness is wholesome, unwholesome, resultant or functional. This continues the wholesome–unwholesome–indeterminate scheme from Lesson 1 (resultant and functional are the indeterminate).

• 12 unwholesome and 21 wholesome — the consciousness that “makes new kamma” with future results.
• 36 resultant — results of kamma already done; seeing something pleasant is the result of wholesome kamma, seeing something unpleasant the result of unwholesome kamma.
• 20 functional — they do a job but produce no kammic result. Most occur only in arahants, except a few, such as the consciousness that turns to an object at the five sense doors, which occurs in everyone.

Reading the names: why greed-rooted consciousness has 8 types

Names of consciousness in the Abhidhamma are long because they list the ingredients. For example, the first greed-rooted consciousness is called “somanassa-sahagataṃ diṭṭhigata-sampayuttaṃ asaṅkhārikaṃ”: accompanied by joy, associated with wrong view, and arising spontaneously without prompting.

Greed-rooted consciousness varies in three ways, two options each, giving 2 × 2 × 2 = 8 types.

• Feeling — joy (somanassa) or neutral (upekkhā).
• View — associated with wrong view, or not.
• Prompting — unprompted (asaṅkhārika) or prompted by something or someone (sasaṅkhārika).
• Example of type 1: happily drinking alcohol, thinking “there's nothing wrong with it”, without anyone suggesting it.
• The 8 great wholesome types follow the same pattern: joyful or neutral × with or without wisdom × unprompted or prompted.

A day in the life of the mind

Look at how different kinds of consciousness take turns on an ordinary day:

• You wake up and open your eyes to sunlight — seeing is resultant consciousness (rootless).
• You sip coffee, find it delicious and want another cup — greed-rooted consciousness.
• Traffic is jammed and you'll be late; you're irritated — hatred-rooted consciousness.
• You sit at work, mind drifting aimlessly — delusion-rooted consciousness (with restlessness).
• You gladly hand money to someone in need — great wholesome consciousness.
• Deep, dreamless sleep — the mind still works as life-continuum (bhavaṅga), which is resultant consciousness.

Common misunderstandings

• “The mind is a permanent self that moves from life to life.” — No. In the Mahātaṇhāsaṅkhaya Sutta the Buddha rebukes the view that the same consciousness wanders on. What exists is a stream of consciousness arising and ceasing according to conditions.
• “Vipāka means only bad results.” — No. Results come from both wholesome and unwholesome kamma.
• “Everyone has all 89 types.” — No. Eighty-nine is the number of possible kinds. Ordinary people do not have supramundane consciousness, and most functional consciousness occurs only in arahants.
• “We can really multitask.” — No. Consciousness arises one at a time; what looks simultaneous is very fast switching.