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Synopsis of a Cognitive Act in Abhidhamma

Introduction

Abhidhamma developed when early Buddhist academics tried to analyse material into their
most basic units which they called dhammas. They endeavour to describe their duration, their
characteristics, their interaction with one another and their kammic results. The Abhidhamma
is a body of literature of the early Buddhist canon. It is the third of the “Three baskets”
(Tipitaka) documented about two hundred years after the parinibbāna of the Buddha. The
word dhamma also point widely to a body of thought where we can trace to the meditation
practices as well as psychological teachings and of the discourses (suttas). It develops further
into the different Buddhist schools of the Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna traditions. The
Abhidhamma is essentially an attempt to systematise the Buddha’s teachings about the
dynamic moment to moment experiences as it unrolls in the stream of consciousness.
Whereas the Buddha generally restricted himself to empirical experience, Abhidhamma tends
to be more psychological. A summary account of some of the main components might be
discerned about the system is described in the following synopsis.

Consciousness (citta). In Abhidhamma consciousness that constitutes the knowing or

awareness of an object is termed citta. It always arises in immediate concurrence with mental
factors (paragraph below) which functioning in more specialised tasks in the process of
cognising an object. When bare consciousness connects with other factors, the description of
each nature of the bare consciousness will be named in relations to whom the dhammas
(primary factors) are interconnected. Each mind moment will express as one of the eighty-
nine forms of consciousness enumerated on this list.1 It will be consciousness taking place on
a particular sphere or level of existence, from the mundane sense-oriented sphere, through the
higher form and formless spheres accessible by the purification practices of absorption
(jhāna), all the way to the non-ordinary states of consciousness associated with the attainment
of awakening. Also, this moment of consciousness will be known to be unwholesome,
wholesome, or neutral in terms of its karmic effects on following moments. Eventually, each
moment will be classified either as a kamma producing mind moment, the result of previous
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kamma producing moments, or as a purely functional moment that is neither. The moment of
consciousness under review will be seen as only one of the eighty-nine possibilities; the next
moment is bound to be different. That is consciousness does not arise in its true separate
condition; it always arises together with a set of mental factors. Consciousness is the basic
awareness of an object; therefore, it has to be supported by a set of concomitant mental
factors to perform the specific tasks for the act of cognition to be possible. The Abhidhamma,
affected primarily by later tradition, identifies seventeen different functions of the mind that
unroll one after another over a series of time in the stream of consciousness. From a starting
point of unconscious mental activity, the mind responds to a stimulant presenting at a sense
door by progressively taking notice and turning attention toward the object, cognising the
object in a moment of seeing, hearing and then taking a few moments to receive, investigate
and determine what is happening. There are then seven moments of intentional response in
which wholesome or unwholesome karma is produced, carry on in some instances by a few
moments of recognition. When the mental process is taking place at the mind door instead of
at a sense door, it is somewhat faster and diminishes out a few steps. After this progression,
the mind lapses again into an unconscious state until the next stimulation. This is known as
the mental process which consists of seventeen mind moments depicted as:

1. past-bhava¤ga (atita-bhava¤ga) – 1 moment

2. bhava¤ga-vibration (bhava¤ga-calana) – 1 moment

3. bhava¤ga- arrest (bhava¤ga-upaccheda) – 1 moment

4. five door-adverting (pa¤ca-dvāra-āvajjana) – 1 moment
5. sense-consciousness (vi¤¤anā) – 1 moment
6. receiving / assimilating (sampaticchana) – 1 moment

7. investigating (santårana) – 1 moment

8. determining (votthapana)
9-15 javana – 7 moments
16-17. registration (tadārammana) 2 moments
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Mental factors (cetasika). There are a total of fifty-two sub-functions of the mind, called
mental factors, which cooperate in various configurations to assist consciousness in the
knowledge of an object. Mental factors arise and cease together with consciousness that has
the same object and same base with consciousness. The cetasika are mental phenomena that
occur in immediate conjunction with consciousness and assist consciousness by performing
more specialised tasks in a total act of cognition. The mental factors cannot arise without the
citta, nor can citta arise segregated entirely from the mental factors. Though they perform
interdependently, consciousness is looked upon as primary requirement because the mental
factors help in the cognition of the object depending upon consciousness, which is the
essential element. Among these, seven arise in all mind moments and are called universals;
while six other factors may or may not be present and are thus called occasionals. These
thirteen mental factors are ethically variable because they can arise in either wholesome or
unwholesome states of mind. The next fourteen factors are always unwholesome, and their
presence renders all moments of consciousness containing them unwholesome. They too can
arise in various internal combinations, but the first four of them are always present in every
unwholesome mind moment. The final twenty-five mental factors are always wholesome
(called beautiful), and any mind moment containing them will become wholesome by their
presence. They too can arise in various combinations involving universal and occasional
wholesome factors. An essential principle of the system is that wholesome and unwholesome
factors can never arise together in the same mind moment. A list of breakdown of fifty-two
mental factors is depicted.2

Material clusters (rūpa-kalāpa). Dhamma here refers not to the doctrine of the Buddha, but
usually in plural “Dhammas”, a term in the Abhidhamma that assumes a more technical
meaning, referring to the items and phenomena that result when the process of analysis is
taken to its ultimate limits, the analysis of the world of experience. All dhammas, mental and
material, do not arise in solitary but in groups or clusters. The theory of conditional relations
expounds this. The theory stated that nothing could activate as a single cause, nor can
anything arise as a single effect and in isolation. 3 As mention in the mental factors above,
this works with the same object and same base with consciousness; thus they perform in the
cognition of mind as by groupings and the many kinds of consciousness. This total to the
twenty-eight material dhammas (rūpa-dhammas) are based on the four great elements
(mahābthūpa ), earth, water, air, and fire and their dependents; colour, smell, taste and
nutritive essence, and these four also all arise together in different combinations or saturation.
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These eight material dhammas are inseparable and found in all instances of matter regardless
they exist in any part of the composite of the individual being or anywhere else. Material
dhammas include the organs and the objects of experience, as well as several supporting life
functions. For instance, the essential elements of the earth give rise to the trees and grass that
grow in dependence on the earth. These eight elements are also described as inseparable in
the sense that the presence of one entails the presence of the rest. Not one can arise without
the spontaneous arising of the seven; hence, the eight elements do not exist in isolation. This
eight thus form the basic foundation for the existence of occasions arising of all matter. The
rest of the material dhammas cannot arise within solitary without the eight basic foundation
elements. However, the remaining material dhammas can arise by itself with the inseparable
elements; for example, nose-sensitivity does not need to arise with eye or ear or body
sensitivity. Nose-sensitivity, when associated with the compulsory eight, can arise by itself.
The notable two division materials dhammas for the theory of material clusters in
Abhidhamma discourse.

A category of non-concrete matter includes differing characteristics of material dhamma not

construed as things in their own right. With material factors, as with mental factors, various
rules are governing the way they can arise in combination. All these twenty-eight types of
dhammas are segregated into eleven general classes and further analysed as depicted in the
chart of material phenomena.4

Conclusion

The Abhidhamma describes how twenty-eight physical phenomena co-arise with fifty-two
mental factors, manifesting as eighty-nine types of consciousness, which unfold in a series of
seventeen mind moments, governed by twenty-four types of causal relation. Consciousness is
neither an entity nor an extension of an entity-substance but a mental phenomenon which
comes into being as a result of particular conditions: there is no independent consciousness
which exists in its own right. It manifests the relationship between all possible combinations
of material phenomena, mental factors, and consciousness and factors within a single group
(mental, material), within a single mind moment, between different mind moments, between
individual and group factors, material dhammas, culminating in the cognitive process of a
cognitive act.

(1480 words)
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1. EIGHTY-NINE FORMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

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2. FIFTY-TWO MENTAL FACTORS

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3. TWENTY-EIGHT MATERIAL PHENOMENA

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Endnotes

1. eighty-nine forms of consciousness – page 5

2. fifty-two mental factors – page 6
3. Dhammasangani Atthakatha, 59-60 rejected that things can arise from a single effect and
that a thing can arise as a single and in isolation.
4. twenty-eight material phenomena – page 6

References

1. The Dhamma Theory, Philosophical Cornerstone of the Abhidhamma, Y. Karunadasa,

Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy • Sri Lanka

2. Paul Dahlke, Buddhism and Science, Macmillan and Co., Limited St. Martin's Street,
London, 1913

3. The Theravada Abhidhamma, Its Inquiry into the Nature of Conditioned Reality, Y.
Karunadasa, Centre of Buddhist Studies, The University of Hong Kong, 2014

4. Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, Bhikkhu Bodhi