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Prepared by
John D. Hughes, Anita Hughes, Evelin Halls and Pennie White.

ahetuka kusala vipaka citta
(wholesome and rootless resultant consciousness that arise as inevitable results of wholesome consciousnesses)


Abhidhamma Class No. 9, 20 August 2002

Buddhist practice is not a prime number so to speak, as Venerable Phra Rajadhammanidesa Thitanano says. It is, as it were, a composite number, consisting of three graded steps, with samadhi meditation as one of them.

Persons without the strength of mindfulness and wisdom as self-protection will be carried away by whatever nimitta or visions occur during the moments of meditation. Their visions are coloured and conditioned by their own tendencies in the background.

One mental hindrance, is running wildly after what one thinks is pleasant or tempting.

Generally speaking, an untrained mind tends to view the nature of the world lop-sidedly, not impartially.

Such a lopsided view is called vipallasa. This can be translated as distortion.

There are different degrees or intensities of distortions or views. They are:

sanna vipallasa: distorted memory;
citta vipallasa: distorted thought;
ditthi vipallasa: distorted views or concepts, which can be further divided into four subgroups, which are:

subhavipallasa: to view or regard things not beautiful as beautiful;
niccavipallasa: to regard things impermanent as permanent;
sukhavipallasa: to regard things offering suffering as offering happiness;
attavipallasa: to regard things non-self as self.

It ought not to be surprising to you that when you start investigating Abhidhamma, distortions of various forms occur.

If a learner has enough dependable fundamental knowledge thoroughly learned from the Tipitika there should be no comparative need for a Teacher or guide in person.

When a question or doubt arises, the learner may consult and decide honestly with accordance of what has already been learnt and digested.

But in the case where an intellectual knowledge is not enough, a competent Teacher or guide is necessary as a consultant.

This does not mean a competent Teacher ought to become a self-assumed controller.

Normally, a newly ordained Bhikkhu is under the supervision of an `acariya or Teacher for a minimum of five years. This five years is served consecutively day by day. So every day for five years the student is ordered by a mind well informed and well trained.

A lay person who comes to the Temple occasionally would need to spend their whole life under one Teacher to aggregate the five years or 1826 days.

So, if you came one day a week you would need 35 years to aggregate this time and if you came half a day a week you would need 70 years to aggregate this time.

If you came three hours a week, you would need to come 140 years for the same aggregation. If you came one hour a week you would need 420 years, and if you did not come here on the weeks where there are public holidays, family functions, trips interstate and came one hour every second week, you would need 840 years.

Even so, it would not be equivalent because your mind would be undoing what it learned the rest of the time you are not here.

These are very sobering figures for the untrained mind. But if you do not come here regularly this sobering thought is soon forgotten.

To make imperative the need for regular attendance, we say you are on the last carriage of the last train.

If a large elephant sat on you for every hour you did not attend here, you would have considerable pain. But this is a trifle amount compared to the potential dukkha an untrained mind accumulates. You must want the suffering to stop.

What sort of a legacy do you intend to leave to the world this very life?

Each kamma has its own period of ripening or bearing fruit. Some are long term; others are immediate due to their specific attributes.

It is important not to get blinkered by one life span, which is so fleeting and so short, that it does not allow experiential knowledges of kamma and vipaka to manifest in all cases.

It is impossible to expect all followers to progress at the same rate or attain to the same target at the same time.

Practitioners are encouraged by the fact that they will be protected by the power of the Dhamma to be able to put into practice, more or less in direct proportion to their receptivity or maturity.

The Dhamma gives protection (to one that lives and breathes it), like a great umbrella protecting the person from the rains.

Buddha Dhamma is not greedily hungry for disciples. The absolute value of Buddha Dhamma cannot be assessed through statistics. In other words, mathematical figures do not always reflect the prosperity or decline of Buddha Dhamma.

Please note, you are in the position of privilege by having the resources of this Centre available to you, so do not dally for a moment.



ahetuka kusala vipaka citta
(wholesome and rootless resultant consciousness that arise as inevitable results of wholesome consciousnesses)

These eight kusala citta can be symbolised in a table as follows:

cak		gha		ka		ti
-	-	-	-	V	-	-	+
	so		ji		sam		ti

Read – as negative.
Read + as positive.
For example, read –cak as negative cak.
The convention is the value symbol (- or +) goes in front of the property.
So, chant as negative cak, negative so, and so on.

The seven akusala vipaka citta are given the following symbols and names:

cak		gha		ka		ti
-	-	-	-	^	-	-
	so		ji		sam

-cak is the abbreviation for cakkhuvinnanam
(eye-consciousness)
-so is the abbreviation for sotavinnanam
(ear-consciousness)
-gha is the abbreviation for ghanavinnanam
(nose-consciousness)
-ji is the abbreviation for jivhavinnanam
(tongue-consciousness)
^ka is the abbreviation for kayavinnanam
(body-consciousness)
-sam is the abbreviation for sampatticchana-cittam (receptive consciousness)
-ti is the abbreviation for santirana-cittam
(investigating consciousness accompanied by indifference)
+ti is the abbreviation for santirana-cittam
(investigating consciousness accompanied by joy).
The symbol ^ is used with ka, to denote body consciousness accompanied by painful feeling, and the symbol V is used with ka to denote body consciousness accompanied by indifference.

The minus sign means accompanied by indifference and the positive sign means accompanied by joy.

This can be learned as –cak –so –gha –ji Vka –sam –ti +ti.

By chanting this as a mantra and moving the sati (mindfulness) from each type of consciousness, awareness will arise because when sati is put onto something the mind becomes aware of it.

So, traditionally it is always learned in this order which has not been changed for millenniums. The order is:

eye - ear – nose – tongue – body – receptive – investigating - investigating.

These appear to come into the chanting mind in groups of four:

eye – ear – nose – tongue, take a breath (meaning freshen the mind).

body – receptive – investigating – investigating, take a breath.

These last four are done two by two.

body – receptive, take a breath.

investigating (with indifference) – investigating (with joy), take a breath.

So, they become
-cak -so -gha -ji
Vka -sam
-ti +ti

Because in English plus and minus are so familiar they are easier to learn than “with indifference” and “with joy”. Intuitively we give indifference a negative value and joy a positive value.

dvipancavinnana.

There are five pairs of eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body consciousnesses. These five pairs are called dvipancavinnanam.

There are two body consciousnesses that arise: one with painful feeling and one with indifference.

The symbol L is used with ka, to denote body consciousness accompanied by painful feeling, and the symbol V is used with ka to denote body consciousness accompanied by indifference.

There are two sampaticchana citta (receptive consciousnesses) and three santirana citta (investigating consciousnesses, two accompanied with indifference and one accompanied by joy).

These dyads or triplets could be remembered as -sam
-sam -ti -ti +ti.

-cak -cak -so -so -gha -gha -ji -ji ^ka Vka -sam
-sam -ti -ti +ti.

While chanting this mnemonic aid, when you bring strong sati to the duplex or triplex nature of these complex ahetuka akusala – kusala vipaka citta your awareness of them will increase.


References

Dr. Mehm Tin Mon, “The Essence of Buddha Abhidhamma”, publisher Mehm Tay Zar Mon, Yangon, 1995, p. 33.

Venerable Phra Rajadhammanidesa (Rabaeb Thitanano) “Great Reply to Global Questions”, The Buddhism Promotion Centre of Thailand, Wat Borvoranives, Bangkok, Thailand, p. 150 et al.


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