A First Look at Abhidhamma (6):
The Citta as a Single Sequence of Consciousness



We now reach the heart of this series.  Psychology is the reaction (or non-reaction) to the rupa world via the enactments in the mental world.  It is also the study of our experience of phenomena.  Citta is the element in our mental world that is responsible for both.  Hence the study of our citta, yields the comprehension of our individual psychology.

The study of citta is best done by exploring in our individual mental world.  All sentient beings have citta, and the citta is active at all times.  Hence any time is a good time to look at our own citta.  Furthermore, due to the individuality of our mental world (see chapter 3 of this series), there is no other citta more relevant to us than our own citta.  It is more accessible to us too.  Therefore this series of notes about Buddhist psychology, is nothing more than a set of instructions for guiding the reader to discover his/her own citta.  If the reader does not use these notes to discover himself/herself, then these notes remain just knowledge which is of much less benefit.

It is like looking for a treasure in a big house.  The treasure has always been there despite the change in the construction and ambiance of the house.  The signs of this treasure are so subtle that we have to look beyond the physiques and even the concept of the house.  We have to feel deep down.  This series of notes tell how to look for it, and what it looks like.  The reader should look for the treasure himself/herself and contest every feature mentioned in this series.  Please do not rely on any blind faith.

This chapter is fairly technical because several processes need to be introduced.


The Citta as a Single Sequence of Consciousness

The citta is really just a single sequence of consciousness.  Here the word ‘consciousness’ is used in a very loose sense.  It simply means it experiences phenomena.  Each citta arises and falls very quickly.  How quickly?  In a single sighting of an object, there are at least 17 cittas that arose and fell.  Each of these cittas experiences the sighting of the object.  After a citta arose and fell, another citta immediately arises and immediately falls.  In this way, citta is really a sequence of arising and falling like a sequence of frames in a film.  It happens so quickly that every thing seems very continuous. 


Three Important Characteristics of the Citta

The citta is ‘single’ in the sense that there is only one such sequence existing in the mental world.  This characteristic is very important.  The taming of the citta will rely on this characteristic, as will be mentioned in subsequent chapters.  Another important characteristic is that each citta experiences a mental object (Pali: arammana), and the experience is enriched by the mental formations (cetasikas) that come with it.  We shall explore cetasikas after exploring cittas.  For now, just remember that there is a mental object that the citta works on, and there are ‘agents’ that help the citta work on the mental object.  Finally there are many different variety of citta.  According to different versions of Abhidhamma, there are either 89 or 121 kinds of citta (depending on the classification of a certain group of citta called the lokuttara cittas, which is either 8 or 40).  Each citta conditions the arising of the next citta.  Hence the sequence of cittas works like a chain-reaction, with each moment occupied by different kinds of citta.


The Formation of Mental Objects

Since psychology is the reaction (or non-reaction) to the rupa world, we have to understand the working of citta beginning from how it receives signals from the rupa and outside world.  We have five sensory organs to pick up signals from the rupa world.  For simplicity, I shall only elaborate on the seeing process, which beings through the eye.

All mental objects are produced under the presence of three entities: the rupa object in the outside world, the organ that receives the rupa object, and a sensory consciousness that feeds the signal into the mental world.  For example, when we see a flower, the rupa object consists of the light rays reflected from the flower.  The organs that receive the light rays are our eyes.  Then a sight sensory consciousness feeds the signal into our mental world.  If any of these three entities are missing or damaged, then our citta cannot possibly experience sight.

The same goes for:

In the classical Abhidhamma, these are the five rupa transforming processes that feed rupa phenomena into the mental world.


The Single-ness of Experience

The five rupa transforming processes are active all the time.  However there is only one citta at any one time.  Furthermore, once a citta receives a particular mental object, that mental object occupies at least 17 cittas.  Hence this causes a peculiar phenomenon: we can only experience one sensation at one time.

For example when we are experiencing sight, we cannot be experiencing sound, smell, taste or touch.  The same goes when we are experiencing sound, smell, taste or touch, we cannot be experiencing any of the other four sensations.  This is the reason why many times although our eyes are seeing but our mind is not really looking at what we see.  Our citta is at that moment experiencing some other mental objects.  Similarly many times we missed a sound, or a smell, or a taste or a touch.  In layman terms, we did not pay attention to these missed sensations.

Yet all these experiencing occurs very quickly.  It is so quick that we can actually ‘interleave’ all these experiences together to enact a scenario in our mind.  For example when we are engrossed in a movie in a cinema, we interleave the seeing experience with the hearing experience.  Together we feel as if we are experiencing both at the same time.  Meanwhile, we may ‘forget’ the temperature sensation in the cinema, and the taste and smell of the popcorn in our hands.

Therefore to be exact, we cannot experience the entire entity of any rupa object.  At any one time, I can only experience the rupa object in one of the sensory ways.  I cannot experience a music conductor.  Within every single experience, it could only be the music he/she conducts or the appearance of him/her, etc.  In this way, the mental image of the music conductor does not have a self.  It is only the synthesis of different dimensions of perception.


An Extension from Classical Abhidhamma: The Brain

What is mentioned above, is strictly the classical Abhidhamma as discussed by scholars.  In the Sutras, besides the five sensory organs of eye, ear, nose, tongue and body, the mind is often mentioned as the sixth organ.  In classical Abhidhamma, scholars consider the mind as the entire mental world.  Hence they classify citta under the mind, and there is no mention of the brain.  In this series, I consider the mind as including both citta and the brain (see chapter 4 and 5).  This extended model explains many mental phenomena that the classical model could not.  However since this deviates from the classical model, readers are reminded to exercise their free inquiry to contest the model.

The brain is the sixth organ.  It too can generate mental objects, just like the eye, ear, nose, tongue and body.  According to modern science, the rupa objects are electric pulses.  The organ is the brain, and the last ingredient is the brain sensory consciousness.  Thus the brain also feeds mental object to the citta.

The brain produces 2 main kinds of mental objects: thought and memory.  Examples of thoughts include planning an outing, thinking of what to do next, working out a mathematical problem mentally and even daydreaming.  Notice that all these thoughts are derived from what we learn in our present life.  Hence they are more likely to be from the brain than from the citta.  Other than the mental objects from the five sensory organs, the citta experiences thought mental objects as well.  In fact, when we are daydreaming, we do not experience sight, sound, smell, taste and touch from the rupa world.  This is because the citta is occupied with the thought mental object.  The same happens when we are solving a mathematical problem mentally.

The brain has another powerful function called the memory.  Knowledge is stored as memory, so is past experiences.  We can remember a scene from the past, including the sight, sound, smell, taste and touch in that scene.  We remember the feelings of the scene as well.  From experiences we generate concepts and beliefs, and these are stored as memory as well.

The brain can feed memory into the mental world as well, as memory mental objects.  Although we are looking at something, we can ‘load’ the picture of another thing from our memory into our mental world.  When this happens, it is as if we are looking that what we recalled, rather than what our eyes are actually seeing.  Similarly, we can ‘load’ a sound, smell, taste, touch or thought from our memory into our mental world.  It would seem to us as if we are experiencing the mental object fresh from the rupa world.

When we read a book, a very complex sequence occurs.  Our eyes feed the sight of the words into our mental world.  Our citta experiences the sight.  Our brain recognizes the word and loads its pronunciation.  It is fed as a sound in our mental world.  Hence although no person is reading, our brain reads to us and we

‘hears’ a voice in our mental world.  Our citta experiences the sound.  When enough words are ‘read’, our brain thinks and interprets the meaning of the written words.  Our citta experiences the thought mental object.  Sometimes we may even visualize or daydream what the book describes using our brain.  Our citta experiences this thought mental object as well.  Sometimes we further recall happy or sad experiences with the visualized scenario.  Our citta experiences this memory mental object.

This process continues for a page, or a few pages, in a minute or a few hours.  This is why reading takes a lot of concentration and brain effort.  This is also why it is difficult to read when someone else is speaking in the background.  We feel as if two voices are competing against each other, although one voice is really arising in the rupa world, and the other arising in our mental world.  Notice that in reading, our citta experiences a variety of different kinds of mental objects.  Our citta arises and falls so quickly that all these experiences seem to occur simultaneously to give a ‘reading’ experience.  Some people like this reading experience.


Mindfulness Meditation

Watching the citta is like watching the moon in the sky.  If we are not mindful, then it is like we are not looking at the sky.  Hence we cannot see the moon (citta).  Even when we are mindful, if we have too much thoughts, then we are like looking at a cloudy sky.  The layers of thoughts are like layers of cloud.  Hence we still cannot see the moon (citta).  Sometimes the layers of thoughts are lesser.  This is like the thinner parts of the clouds.  We may see a blurry image of the moon.  This is our first glimpse of our own citta.  When all our brain thoughts are calmed, then we can see the moon clearly.

According to the four foundations of mindfulness, the first sign that we can observe from the citta is our feelings.  Feelings is not citta.  Feelings is a mental formation that accompanies all citta.  In other words, feelings is not the experience, feelings is really just a ‘side dish’ of the experience.  In our simple example above, feelings is like the blurry image of the moon.  It is not the actual moon image yet.  We can observe the feelings aspect of the citta first because it penetrates our layers of thoughts most easily.

Every citta is accompanied by only one feeling.  Thus as feelings change, we know cittas must have arisen and fallen.  By ‘listening’ to our feelings, we akin ourselves to the arising and falling of cittas.  We appreciate how fast and subtle it happens.  We notice the impermanence of our consciousness and non-self.


--By Lee Hon Sing.  Last modified: January 8, 2004.  All ignorance is mine. 

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