characteristics are unalterable. Person, animal or tree are real in conventional sense, they are concepts wecan think of, but they are not ultimate realities.Citta or moment of consciousness is nama, it experiences an object. Different cittas experience objectsthrough the six doorways of the senses and the mind. Seeing is a citta experiencing visible object orcolour through the eyesense, and hearing is another type of citta experiencing sound through the earsense.Cittas are variegated: some cittas are wholesome, kusala, some are unwholesome, akusala, and some areneither kusala nor akusala. There is one citta arising at a time, but each citta is accompanied by severalmental factors, cetasikas, which each perform their own function while they assist the citta in cognizingthe object. Some cetasikas such as feeling (vedana) or remembrance (sanna), accompany each citta,whereas other types of cetasikas accompany only particular types of citta. Attachment, lobha, aversion,dosa, and ignorance, moha, are akusala cetasikas which accompany only akusala cittas. These cetasikasare called roots, because they are the foundation of the akusala citta. There are akusala cittas rooted inignorance, moha, and attachment, lobha, and these are called lobha-mula-cittas (cittas rooted in lobha).There are akusala cittas rooted in moha and aversion, dosa, and these are called dosa-mula-cittas (cittasrooted in aversion). There are cittas rooted in only moha, and these are called moha-mula-cittas. Non-attachment, alobha, non-aversion, adosa, and wisdom, amoha or pa, are sobhana cetasikas, beautifulcetasikas, which can accompany only sobhana cittas. They are roots which are sobhana.Citta and cetasika, which are both mental phenomena, nama, arise because of their appropriate conditions.Wholesome qualities and unwholesome qualities which arose in the past can condition the arising of suchqualities at present. Since our life is an unbroken series of cittas, succeeding one another, wholesomequalities and unwholesome qualities can be accumulated from one moment to the next moment, and thusthere are conditions for their arising at the present time.Some cittas are results of akusala kamma and kusala kamma, they are vipakacittas. Kamma is intention orvolition. Unwholesome volition can motivate an unwholesome deed which can bring an unpleasant resultlater on, and wholesome volition can motivate a wholesome deed which can bring a pleasant result lateron. Akusala kamma and kusala kamma are accumulated from one moment of citta to the next moment,and thus they can produce results later on. Kamma produces result in the form of rebirth-consciousness,or, in the course of life, in the form of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and body-consciousness which isthe experience of tangible object through the bodysense. These vipakacittas experience pleasant objects orunpleasant objects, depending on the kamma which produces them.Cittas which experience objects through the six doors arise in a process of cittas. When, for example,hearing arises, it occurs within a series or process of cittas, all of which experience sound. Only hearing-consciousness hears, but the other cittas within that process, which is called the ear-door process, performeach their own function. Hearing-consciousness is vipakacitta, it merely hears the sound, it neither likes itnor dislikes it. After hearing-consciousness has fallen away there are, within that process, akusala cittas orkusala cittas which experience the sound with unwholesomeness or with wholesomeness. These cittas arecalled javana cittas; they perform within the process the function of javana or "running through theobject". The javana cittas can be akusala cittas rooted in attachment, aversion or ignorance, or they can bekusala cittas. There are processes of cittas experiencing an object through the eye-door, the ear-door, thenose-door, the tongue-door, the body-door and the mind-door. After the cittas of a sense-door processhave fallen away, the object is experienced by cittas arising in a mind-door process, and after that processhas been completed there can be other mind-door processes of cittas which think of concepts. Cittas ariseand fall away in succession so rapidly that it seems that cittas such as seeing and thinking of what is seenoccur at the same time, but in reality there are different types of citta arising in different processes.Citta and cetasika are mental phenomena, in Pali: nama. Nama experiences an object whereas physicalphenomena, in Pali: rupa, do not know or experience anything. What we call the body consists ofdifferent kinds of rupa which arise and then fall away.The Buddha explained in detail about the different namas and rupas of our life and the conditions throughwhich they arise. Theoretical understanding of nama and rupa is a foundation for direct understanding ofthem. We should know, for example, that seeing is nama, and that eyesense and visible object are rupas.
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