The cognitive process (vīthi)

What is a cognitive process?

“Vīthi” means path or sequence. A cognitive process is the series of consciousnesses that arise one after another to know an object once. The sequence is fixed and nobody directs it; the commentaries call this regularity the “law of mind” (citta-niyāma).

Cognitive processes are divided by door into six: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. The first five together are the “five-door process”, which takes a present material object. The “mind-door process” can take any object: past, present, future, and concepts.

The 17-moment eye-door process, step by step

The table shows each moment, its function and the mango simile from the commentary. Most moments in the process are resultant or functional; only the javana phase is wholesome or unwholesome.

• Moments 1–3 (life-continuum) — resultant consciousness. The object starts to strike at moment 1, the life-continuum vibrates at moment 2 and its stream is cut at moment 3.
• Moment 4 (five-door adverting) — functional consciousness that “turns” towards the object at the door that was struck.
• Moments 5–7 (seeing, receiving, investigating) — all resultant. If what is seen is agreeable they are wholesome results; if disagreeable, unwholesome results.
• Moment 8 (determining) — functional consciousness that determines what the object is, opening the way for javana.
• Moments 9–15 (javana, 7 moments) — wholesome or unwholesome for worldlings and trainees; for arahants they are functional.
• Moments 16–17 (registration) — resultant consciousness that continues to savour the object after javana, before the mind returns to the life-continuum.

Why 17 moments?

In Lesson 3 we saw that one moment of matter lasts as long as 17 moments of consciousness. A visible object, being matter, arises together with the past life-continuum moment and ceases together with the second registration moment. A full 17-moment process is one that “uses the object's whole lifespan”.

The commentaries also say that seeing needs four conditions together: the eye-sensitivity, a visible object, light and attention (manasikāra). Without any one of them, no eye-door process occurs — as when the eyes are open but the mind is elsewhere, and we don't “see” what is right in front of us.

Objects of different strength, processes of different length

The Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha divides objects at the five doors into four levels of intensity. The weaker the object, the more life-continuum moments pass before the mind starts to receive it, so the shorter the process.

• Very great object (atimahanta) — the full 17-moment process, with registration.
• Great object (mahanta) — reaches javana but has no registration, because the object ceases first.
• Slight object (paritta) — reaches determining, which repeats 2–3 times, but not javana: “something passed before my eyes, but I didn't pay attention”.
• Very slight object (atiparitta) — only the life-continuum vibrates; no cognitive process arises at all.

Javana: the moment kamma is made

“Javana” means “running”: consciousness running fully on the object. It is the only phase of the process that is wholesome or unwholesome, and where volition becomes kamma. The seven javana moments are of the same type, but chapter 5 of the Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha says they bear fruit at different times:

• The 1st javana — the weakest; it bears fruit in this life (diṭṭhadhamma-vedanīya kamma). If it gets no chance, it becomes defunct (ahosi-kamma).
• The 7th javana — bears fruit in the next life (upapajja-vedanīya kamma).
• Javanas 2–6 — bear fruit in later lives whenever the opportunity arises, until one leaves the round (aparāpariya-vedanīya kamma).
• An arahant's javana is functional, so it produces no new kamma, even though the arahant sees, hears and acts like anyone else.

Attention: the steering wheel before javana

What decides whether javana will be wholesome or unwholesome? The commentaries explain that it depends on attention. With wise attention (yoniso manasikāra), javana tends to be wholesome; with unwise attention (ayoniso manasikāra), it tends to be unwholesome. This in turn depends on accumulated habits, what one has learned and heard, and one's surroundings.

This is why mental training works. We cannot stop seeing, but training mindfulness and listening to the Dhamma gradually change our “habits of attention”. When those habits change, the javanas that follow change too.

After seeing: the mind-door processes that follow

A single eye-door process only knows “colour”; it doesn't yet know what the thing is. Several mind-door processes must follow. Later teachers explain them in stages, as in the diagram, until we know “this is a rose” — a concept, as we learned in Lesson 2.

The mind-door process is shorter: vibrating life-continuum, arrest, mind-door adverting, javana 7, and possibly registration 2. Every process has javana, so liking or disliking can arise at every stage, not only at the first moment of seeing.

“Just seeing”: the cognitive process and practice

In the Bāhiya Sutta, the Buddha teaches Bāhiya briefly: “In the seen there will be just the seen; in the heard, just the heard.” Bāhiya attains arahantship immediately after hearing this teaching.

Seen through the cognitive process, this teaching means knowing in time, right at “seeing”, before the mind-door processes elaborate it into stories, names, likes and dislikes. What can be practised in daily life is noticing that seeing and our reaction to what is seen are separate moments.

Common misunderstandings

• “The eye sees.” — No. The eye-sensitivity is matter and knows nothing. Eye-consciousness (citta) sees, depending on the eye-sensitivity.
• “Seeing something bad is a sin.” — No. Seeing is resultant consciousness, not kamma. Kamma arises at javana, in liking or disliking what is seen.
• “Seventeen moments must be long enough to feel.” — No. The process is extremely fast; the commentaries say countless moments of consciousness arise and cease in a flash of lightning or the blink of an eye.
• “There is a ‘me’ ordering the mind to work in sequence.” — No. The sequence is the law of mind; each consciousness conditions the next.
• “Liking and disliking happen by themselves and can't be trained.” — No. Javana has causes and conditions; training attention and mindfulness changes those conditions.