..续本文上一页. But the true citta does not exhibit any activities or manifest any conditions at all. It only knows. Those activities that arise in the citta, such as awareness of good and evil, or happiness and suffering, or praise and blame, are all conditions of the consciousness that flows out from the citta. Since it represents activities and conditions of the citta that are, by their very nature, constantly arising and ceasing, this sort of consciousness is always unstable and unreliable.
The conscious acknowledgement of phenomena as they arise and cease is called viññãna. For instance, viññãna acknowledges and registers the sense impressions that are produced when sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations contact the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body respectively. Each such contact between an external sense sphere and its corresponding internal base gives rise to a specific consciousness that registers the moment at which each interaction takes place, and then promptly ceases at the same moment that the contact passes. Viññãna, therefore, is consciousness as a condition of the citta. Sankhãra, or thoughts and imagination, is also a condition of the citta. Once the citta has given expression to these conditions, they tend to proliferate without limit. On the other hand, when no conditions arise at all, only the citta”s inherent quality of knowing is apparent.
Still, the essential knowing of the average person”s mind is very different from the essential knowing of an Arahant. The average person”s knowing nature is contaminated from within. Arahants, being khïõãsava, are free of all contamination. Their knowing is a pure and simple awareness without any adulteration. Pure awareness, devoid of all contaminants, is supreme awareness: a truly amazing quality of knowing that bestows perfect happiness, as befits the Arahant”s state of absolute purity. This Supreme Happiness always remains constant. It never changes or varies like conditioned phenomena of the world, which are always burdened with anicca, dukkha, and anattã. Such mundane characteristics cannot possibly enter into the citta of someone who has cleansed it until it is absolutely pure.
The citta forms the very foundation of samsãra; it is the essence of being that wanders from birth to birth. It is the instigator of the cycle of existence and the prime mover in the round of repeated birth and death. Samsãra is said to be a cycle because death and rebirth recur regularly according to the immutable law of kamma. The citta is governed by kamma, so it is obliged to revolve perpetually in this cycle following kamma”s dictates. As long as the citta remains under the jurisdiction of kamma, this will always be the case. The citta of the Arahant is the sole exception, for his citta has completely transcended kamma”s domain. Since he has also transcended all conventional connections, not a single aspect of relative, conventional reality can possibly become involved with the Arahant”s citta. At the level of Arahant, the citta has absolutely no involvement with anything.
Once the citta is totally pure, it simply knows according to its own inherent nature. It is here that the citta reaches it culmination; it attains perfection at the level of absolute purity. Here the continuous migration from one birth to the next finally comes to an end. Here the perpetual journey from the higher realms of existence to the lower ones and back again, through the repetitive cycle of birth, ageing, sickness, and death, totally ceases. Why does it cease here
Because those hidden, defiling elements that normally permeate the citta and cause it to spin around have been completely eliminated.…
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