..續本文上一頁piness and suffering, or praise and blame, are all conditions of the consciousness that flow out from the citta. Since they represent activities and conditions of the citta that are, by their very nature, constantly arising and fading, this sort of conscious awareness is always unstable and always unreliable. Understood in this way, sañña, sankhara and viññana are all conditions of the citta.
These conditions create the flux of mental phenomena that we call the nama khandhas. Through the interaction of feeling, memory, thought and consciousness, forms and images arise within the citta. The awareness that knows them is the citta. Defiling influences like kamaraga manipulate and color the quality of that knowing. So long as the citta, under the authority of kamaraga, believes this internal imagery to be real and substantial, desire and aversion will occur. Internalized forms are then cherished or despised according to their perceived nature—either good or bad, attractive or repulsive. The citta”s perspective is then pided between these two extremes. It is tricked into identifying with a world of duality and instability. The citta”s knowing does not arise or pass away, but it mimics the traits of those things—like the kilesas and the khandhas—that do. When wisdom finally sees through the deception, the citta no longer harbours these phenomena although they continue to arise and vanish in the sphere of the khandhas. The citta is thus empty of such phenomena.
One moment after another from the day of our birth to the present, the khandhas have risen and fallen away continuously. On their own, they have no real substance and it is impossible to find any. The citta”s interpretation of these phenomena lends them a semblance of personal reality. The citta clings to them as the essence of oneself, or as one”s own personal property. This misconception creates a self-identity that becomes a burden heavier than an entire mountain, a burden that the citta carries within itself without gaining any benefit. Dukkha is its only reward for a misconceived attachment fostered by self-delusion.
When the citta has investigated these things and can see them with the clarity born of sharp, incisive wisdom, the body is understood to be a natural phenomenon that is real within the limits of its own inherent physical qualities. It is not intrinsic to oneself and so it is no longer an object of attachment. Bodily feelings—painful, pleasant and neutral feelings that occur within the body—are clearly real, but they are only a reality within their specific domain. They too are relinquished. But wisdom is as yet incapable of seeing through the subtle feelings that arise exclusively within the citta. So psychological and emotional feelings—painful, pleasant and neutral feelings that occur only within the citta—are conditions that continue to interest the citta. Although the citta is unable to understand the truth about them now, these subtle feelings will serve as constant reminders, always prompting the citta to investigate them further.
AS A WHOLE, THE WELLSPRING of thought and imagination is called sankhara khandha. Each thought, each inkling of an idea ripples briefly through the mind and then ceases. In and of themselves, these mental ripples have no specific meaning. They merely flash briefly into awareness and then cease without a trace. Only when sañña khandha takes them up do they become thoughts and ideas with a specific meaning and content. Sañña khandha is the mental aggregate of memory, recognition and interpretation. Sañña takes fragments of thought and interprets and expands them, making assumptions about their significance, and thus turning them into issues. …
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