The Buddhist Mind, Spirt, And Soul: The Citta

This is a selection of reading I ran across in an old text called "Uncommon Wisdom" from the late great Ajahn Pannavaddho who taught for many many years as a Buddhist monk in the Thai Theravada Forest Tradition. This in particular is a teaching on at times simple and at times complex subject of "Citta".

Transcript

Within the Theravada Buddhist tradition,

There is much talk around the subject of the one who knows,

And in doing so,

It is important to make a fundamental distinction between two very different aspects of the mind,

The unchanging knower,

And the fluctuating states of mind that are known.

Because we fail to understand the difference,

We take transient mental states to be real,

To be the mind itself.

In fact,

They're just changing conditions that never remain stable from one moment to the next.

The knowing essence of mind,

The one who knows,

Is the only stable reality.

Mostly,

We group all mental functions together and refer to them as mind,

But in truth,

States of mind exist in conjunction with the knowing of them.

When we see that distinction clearly,

A realization occurs that mental states like good and evil,

Happiness and suffering,

Or praise and blame are conditions separate from the awareness that knows them.

The knower occupies a neutral position between dualities like happiness and suffering.

One simply knows them.

If we can see this clearly,

We can put down the whole lot and let go of them.

The Pali word citta is often used when referring to the one who knows.

The word citta itself is kind of very difficult to translate.

When discussing the nature of citta,

Language does have its limitations.

Attempts at translating a word like citta into English always lead to misunderstanding because no comparable English equivalent exists,

Which encompasses all aspects of its true meaning.

In fact,

The true nature of citta cannot be expressed in words or concepts.

Concepts such as mind,

Soul,

Or spirit all kind of miss the point.

All words carry certain preconceived notions that limit their definition.

But the citta is completely unlimited because it encompasses everything.

The citta has no boundaries by which to delineate it.

For that reason,

The word citta is best kind of left untranslated,

And there are several examples of this throughout Buddhism.

It is far better,

To one degree or another,

For people to struggle to understand an unfamiliar term than for them to completely misunderstand that term due to a misleading translation.

Misunderstanding disguised as knowledge never leads to the truth.

The term citta,

However,

Is usually translated as mind,

But this can be quite misleading.

What we generally refer to as the mind is different from what citta is.

The mind incorporates mental faculties of feeling,

Memory,

Thought,

And consciousness,

And is usually considered to be that which thinks and remembers.

Those mental faculties are inherently unstable.

They are all constantly arising,

Remain momentarily,

And then die away.

The citta,

On the other hand,

Does not arise and does not die away.

It exists entirely without reference to time and space.

Again,

The citta is kind of difficult to explain because it does not represent a material object.

Because the citta is not something that can be pointed to or examined in any way,

From the world's point of view,

One could say that it does not exist.

You can know the citta,

But you cannot see it.

It doesn't resemble an external object.

It's not a sensory thing that you can contact.

You can't perceive the knowing essence because the knower and the knowing are the same.

For the citta to perceive itself,

It would have to split into two,

And it can't do that.

In beginning to understand the nature of citta,

We should realize that it has various aspects.

On one level,

There is the citta of ordinary life.

This citta is rather like the movement of the waves on the surface of the ocean,

In contrast to the still depths of the waters below.

We might call the citta that moves on the surface the superficial citta.

The superficial citta knows the five senses of sight,

Sound,

Smell,

Taste,

And touch.

It is the one who makes decisions,

The one who makes karma.

In other words,

The one who is active.

This is what is meant by citta in an ordinary life,

Or superficial citta.

This superficial citta has qualities and faculties that are changing all the time.

It is never without change.

When the citta is associated with the aggregates of body and mind,

It is bound up with the world of constant change.

The citta changes because it must change,

Because the aggregates are part of the world.

They are inherently impermanent,

So the citta cannot remain fixed in that situation.

However,

The superficial citta is always grounded in something that we call the original or primordial citta,

And unlike the superficial citta,

The primordial citta is something which is vast and relatively or completely unfathomable.

It is like the depth and breadth of the ocean,

As opposed to wave-like sensations rippling on the surface.

The waves are not separate from the ocean,

But they do not affect the ocean much either.

At the same time,

The waves can be quite turbulent and full of motion.

They are never completely still.

The basic condition of waves on the ocean surface is constant change.

The deep depths of it,

However,

Always remain as they are,

Still and unchanging.

The mental aggregates,

Or skandhas,

Of feeling,

Memory,

Thought,

And consciousness are also bound up with the surface motion.

The fundamental ignorance,

Or avijja,

Which permeates the ordinary citta and influences its knowing,

Uses the functions of these mental aggregates to perceive objects,

Such as seeing forms and hearing sounds.

When the citta is modified in this way,

We call it consciousness,

Being that function which acknowledges sensations.

The citta is modified in that way because of avijja,

Which has been infused into the citta,

Usurps the citta,

And uses the citta's power to its own end.

One of avijja's primary aims is to experience sensations.

The reason it wants sensations is to certify and prove its own existence,

Or to apply self-identity to the sensations that we experience.

The only way that citta with avijja can verify its identity is by relating itself to other things through sense experiences.

So consciousness is necessary for the citta infused with ignorance to relate to other things,

Thus reinforcing its own self-existence.

Consciousness is necessary to experience the duality of subject and object,

But it is completely extraneous and unnecessary to that deeper original and primordial citta.

So from the point of view of the reality of the knowingness,

Which I know is a very strange phrase but hold on here,

Which is the true citta,

Consciousness is superfluous because the true knowing is always present in the citta,

Even after all the physical and mental aggregates have disappeared.

Because of that,

We cannot really say anything definitive about the original citta at all.

Although its scope is immeasurably large,

It remains for us a mystery,

An unknown quantity.

For that reason,

The citta always causes people great uncertainty,

But it's also the one that is most valuable,

The one that really matters,

And its subtlety makes it difficult to fathom.

We can say that the citta is the essence in a person,

Everything else is peripheral.

In that sense,

Citta is life,

The essential component in what it means to be alive,

And because of that,

Anything that lacks citta isn't alive,

It's just kind of inert material substance.

The citta is the active one,

It creates the five aggregates of body and mind,

Of feeling and sensation,

Of perception and cognition,

Of formations,

And of the internal sense bases,

Which are the eyes,

Ear,

Nose,

Tongue,

Body,

And mind.

It creates everything,

But you mustn't think of the five aggregates as being in kind of five different little boxes that the citta enters one after another.

It's not like that.

The citta creates a moment of sensation,

And then it dies away,

And then it creates another moment,

And that dies away,

And then it creates another thing,

And that dies away,

And then it creates another thing,

And that dies away.

It performs the duties of feeling,

Memory,

Thought,

And consciousness.

They're kind of all in the jurisdiction of the citta,

The whole lot of them.

It performs multiple tasks.

To give you an idea of what the citta's nature is,

We see,

Hear,

Smell,

Taste,

And touch things,

But how do we know these sensations?

Where is the knowing located?

Suppose we see something and we perfectly well know that it is such-and-such an object,

And we know its purpose,

And so on.

There's something in us which knows that sensory input,

But when we search for that which knows,

We find it very difficult to catch hold of the quality of knowing independent of what is known.

Say we know a sensation.

The knowing is not the same as the sensation.

Knowing is not a sensory experience.

Sensation is an object of awareness,

Something that is known,

But the knowing itself is never an object of awareness.

Rather,

It's awareness itself.

Normally,

We experience it through a perceived venue of senses,

But we can never experience the citta in this way,

Because the citta is actually that which knows all of those sensations.

The citta is the center.

Everything else is peripheral.

Basically,

It is the knowing essence within us,

But you should also approach the knowing with caution,

Because although the citta is the one that knows,

It does not always know correctly.

That's normally the case when its knowing is contaminated from within by our mental defilements,

From things like our greed,

Our hatred,

Our delusions,

Our misconceptions,

Our misperceptions,

Anything like this.

The citta still knows,

But it can know falsely.

What ensues from that wrong view are unwholesome actions of body,

Speech,

And mind.

The body and mind are simply mechanisms.

The citta is the force that controls their behavior.

The citta exercises the powers of intent and volition.

That intention,

In turn,

Creates karma,

Because the body and the mind cannot act independently of citta.

Only the citta can be held responsible for karma and its consequences.

When the kilsas,

Which are mental states that can lead to unwholesome actions and cloud the mind,

Usurp the citta's power,

They tend to make body and mind act in ways that promote greed,

Hatred,

And delusion.

The real and central power of the citta is neutral,

But these other factors are bias,

So they harness the strength of the citta for unwholesome purposes.

These other factors want this and want that all the time.

They're grasping at something,

And they push the citta about to make the body and the mind strive to attain those things.

In the end,

The citta reaps the consequences of those actions,

Which is why,

In one way or another,

There is so much pain and suffering.

When the citta,

Under the influence of greed,

Hatred,

And delusion,

Wants to go in a certain direction,

It makes the body and mind do its bidding.

Body and mind simply follow,

Carrying out the dictates of the citta.

Because of that,

Neither body nor mind is really essential.

The essential thing is the citta.

But in order to free the citta from these other things,

We must have both the body and mind as the mechanisms necessary to see the consequences of these other actions,

Clearly and directly.

These other things,

Greed,

Hatred,

And delusion,

Are located in the citta,

But they express themselves through the mechanisms of body and mind.

Body and mind are kind of comparable to a computer.

The body is the hardware,

And the mind is the software.

The person using them is the citta.

The computer must first be there for the person to use it,

Just as a body and mind are needed for the citta to function in the world.

A person can use a computer with good or bad intentions,

And either way,

The computer simply follows commands.

The intentions are found in the person,

Not in the computer.

Similarly,

These other things are not found in the body or in the mind.

The kilsas are located in the citta.

When a person dies,

The mental aggregates die along with the body and disappear,

But the citta,

The knowing essence of the mind,

Does not die.

That means that after death,

These other things remain with the citta.

They don't disappear,

And neither do the results of karma created by these things,

Nor the tendency for them to arise in the future.

Because the kilsas and their consequences are still there,

A new birth takes place.

Karma is then reactivated in conjunction with the next body and mind.

In this way,

One could see the citta as the very foundation of samsara.

It is the essence of being that wanders from birth to birth.

That wandering is governed by karma and its consequences,

And it is the citta that carries the karma from birth to birth.

This would seem to imply that the citta is some kind of entity,

Like a soul,

But it's not an entity at all.

Just as the vastness of space is not an entity,

The citta is simply a reality that knows.

A vast knowing essence at the depths of one's being that knows the nature of karma and its appropriate consequences from one birth to the next.

The karma that determines the next birth will then dictate the citta's level in that plane of existence.

That's the level at which the citta normally functions,

What it tends to kind of always revert back to.

If you investigate this often,

You can locate the level that it seems to revert to inside yourself.

We call this the ground of the citta,

Meaning the level of the citta.

In a cycle of rebirth,

The citta can experience many different levels.

Currently,

Our citta are on the human level,

But there is quite a lot of variation even within this level,

From people who are extremely low and coarse to people who are living existences that are almost like the god realms.

It's quite a broad range.

We should investigate to discover our normal level within this range,

And this is important to know.

If we can gain some understanding of our own level,

We can better understand where our own faults lie and how we can go about correcting and understanding them.

Due to various circumstances,

The level of the citta can change at times too,

But it always tends to revert back to the basic level.

If a person practices in good ways or in bad ways,

And they go on doing that for a long time,

The level of the citta can reestablish itself,

And the ground of citta can change.

For example,

If a person who is normally quite friendly gets into a long-lasting situation that causes a lot of anger to come up,

That anger can take over and become the citta's basic level.

We also see the same thing in people who have mental trouble.

When they became stuck in that mental state for a long time,

That state can become the level of the citta.

One of the problems we have is that we all tend to think that things are fixed inside,

And this is not so.

States of mind change all the time,

Going this way and that way.

It depends entirely on the conditions that produce the state.

Conditions that occur very frequently can bias the citta in a certain direction.

To put it another way,

When we develop habits,

Those habits tend to take hold of us,

Now don't they?

When we become thoroughly involved in those habits,

They can be so strong that they become a part of us.

The most effective way to shift the ground of citta in a positive direction is to put the Buddhist teachings into practice.

Constant,

Sustained meditation practice develops good mental habits.

Good habits lead to sharper mental focus and greater degrees of calm and concentration.

When the citta is raised to a sufficient level of calm and concentration,

The knowing essence within becomes more apparent.

In truth,

That knowingness is so very refined compared to our physical form that its true nature becomes apparent only in a state of meditative calm.

Although the citta is bound to the physical body from birth,

Its presence is so subtle that normally we are unable to detect it.

The citta's knowing is actually dispersed throughout the body in such a way that we can't pinpoint its exact location.

Only the practice of meditation can identify its presence and separate it from everything else associated with the body.

In samadhi meditation or concentration meditation,

We can experience that separation,

Seeing this citta as the knowing and the body as the known.

In order to reach that stage,

We must first discipline the mind to overcome the resistance formed by our accumulated mental habits.

In other words,

We have to train the mind to calm down and stay at home.

When the mind is very calm,

It is easy to direct it inward.

It will be content to stay inside and go deep until it understands things clearly.

Whereas if we try to do that with our ordinary consciousness,

The mind will jump about and not stay fixed on one object because it is still hungry and unsatisfied.

The mind is always hungry and searching for something to satisfy its appetite,

So it seeks satisfaction in senses,

Which is searching in the wrong direction.

It jumps all around all over the place like a monkey but never receives any satisfaction.

The way to cure that is to temporarily halt sensory experience.

Clamp down and block it off.

In meditation,

This means keeping the mind focused on only one object.

You undercut the feeling of dissatisfaction by allowing the mind only one object,

Using mindfulness to hold the object in place.

This anchors the mind and prevents it from drifting.

Because it can no longer jump about,

The restlessness gradually subsides.

In a book called the Visuddhimagga,

The citta,

The restless mind,

Is compared to a calf that is half taken away from its mother and tied to a post with a rope.

At first it brays and it jumps about trying to escape.

Because the rope prevents that,

It eventually gets used to the situation,

Calms down,

And goes to sleep by the post.

When you anchor your mental focus on one object for a long time,

The mind will calm down and fill with inner peace.

Eventually you'll get to the point where the citta is so fully satisfied that it no longer reaches and searches for sensations.

When that happens,

The citta goes still and quiet.

When the citta becomes still and quiet,

Because it no longer wants to experience external sensations,

You can begin to see its true nature,

Seeing that you realize how rarely the citta is in harmony with itself.

Meditation is a process of going inward.

Essentially,

This process moves from external to internal,

From coarse to subtle.

It moves from an emphasis on the body to an emphasis on the mind,

From a condition of activity to a condition of stillness.

It involves a movement away from the realm of the known and into the realm of the knowing.

Once the mind becomes skilled at achieving calm and concentration,

It begins questioning its relationship to the known,

The objects of awareness.

The body is made up of entirely inert material substance,

Physical matter that on its own has no awareness.

Since physical matter is incapable of knowing itself,

What is it that knows the body?

Where is the awareness located?

Feelings don't know themselves,

They are known.

What is it that's aware of feelings,

Memories,

Perceptions,

And thoughts as objects of awareness and that are objects of awareness?

They are known as they arise and cease,

But they themselves have no innate awareness.

So what knows them?

If body,

Feelings,

Memories,

Thoughts,

And perceptions are all known,

There must be an independent knower that encompasses all aspects of body and mind.

There is,

Of course,

But the problem is that ignorance weaves a web of delusion around the knower,

Distorting the knowing in such a way as to cloud the difference between that which knows and that which is known.

In that respect,

The phrase the one that knows and the word chitta are used by the Theravada Buddhists in a way that other Buddhists might find difficult to comprehend.

Sometimes this understanding may seem at odds with what we read in the early Buddhist texts.

One of the standard formulas found in the suttas state that a full comprehension of the five aggregates results in the destruction of greed,

Hatred,

And delusion.

In a way,

This statement represents a simplified view of a very complex experience.

The implication is that the five aggregates encompass the entire human world of experience,

That nothing,

Including an independent awareness,

Exists outside the domain of the five aggregates.

If nothing exists separately from these five aggregates of form,

Feeling,

Perception,

Concept,

And consciousness,

Then everything that exists must be included within their domain.

That is actually true,

But not in the way people normally think.

It hinges on what is meant by the word and concept existence.

Change is the essence of existence,

And everything within the five aggregates is constantly changing.

Therefore,

The five aggregates are the domain of existence.

Without change,

There is no existence.

On the other hand,

Changing phenomena are not real,

Because reality never changes.

Thus,

The five aggregates exist,

But they are not real.

They are not reality,

Because reality is not impermanent.

Because it never changes,

Reality is not known through sensations.

And because we can't sense reality,

It's not associated with these five aggregates.

However,

Reality can be known.

We know it by being it.

We can put it like this.

And this is a little convoluted,

But run with me here.

Everything in the world is impermanent.

Everything is constantly changing.

Again,

Change is the very nature of existence.

Without change,

There is no existence.

Everything that is impermanent is unreal.

It never has any time to be real.

It's changing all the time.

What we have here is a fundamental lack of reality.

The Chitta,

On the other hand,

Is the exception to this rule.

Existing separately from the five aggregates,

The Chitta is comparable to the unfathomable vastness of space.

Just as space is the medium without which nothing could come into being,

The Chitta is the stable conscious continuum without which nothing in the realm of the five aggregates or the six sense bases could come into being.

The Chitta is the unchanging reality in which everything in the world arises and then ceases.

Because the Chitta does not change,

It does not exist,

But it is real.

Being awareness itself,

It is that all-encompassing presence in which arising and passing are known.

In truth,

There's nothing really wrong with Chitta.

Within itself,

It is naturally pure.

It's the defiling influences infiltrating the Chitta which cause it to experience happiness and suffering,

Gladness and sorrow.

But the true nature of the Chitta has none of those qualities.

Moods like happiness and suffering are not intrinsic to the Chitta.

They merely deceive an untrained mind which follows after them until it forgets itself,

Forgets its true nature.

Really speaking,

The Chitta is already still and unperturbed.

When the wind blows,

The surface waters ripple,

And the ripples are due to the shifting winds on the surface,

Not the ocean itself.

The ocean depths remain unmoved and unaffected.

When thoughts and perceptions arise,

The surface of the mind ripples.

When sense impressions arise,

The surface of the mind ripples.

The rippling is due to the thoughts and sensations.

When the mind follows its surface activity,

It loses sight of its true and deeper nature.

If it doesn't follow after them,

It can know fully the fluctuating nature of mental activity and still remain unmoved.

Our practice should be focused on seeing that which knows thoughts and sensations as they arise and pass away.

We must train the mind to know all aspects of mental activity without getting lost in them.

By doing that,

The natural peacefulness of Chitta will stand out clearly and remain unperturbed by happiness,

By suffering,

By gladness,

Or by sorrow.

If we can experience this distinction with clarity,

We can relinquish all aspects of existence and let them go their natural way.

Ultimately,

This is the goal of Buddhist practice.

Reviews

Thank you!

Silas is a great gifted teacher. Thank you.

Excellent explanations as always. Thank you! 🙏✨️

Thank you Silas I learned a lot from this talk