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Citta Vithi – Processing of Sense Inputs

1. Thoughts (citta) do not arise as individual cittas. They arise in the mind due to sense inputs from
the five physical senses (cakku, sota, ghana, jivha, and kaya indriya corresponding respectively to eye,
ear, nose, tongue, and body) and also by the mana indriya (located in the brain; we will discuss this in
the Abhidhamma section).

As we discussed in the post, “What is Mind? How do we Experience the Outside World?“, each
of our sense inputs coming in though any one of the five physical senses is received and
analyzed by the mind in a “citta vithi” (series of cittas) with 17 cittas. These are
called pancadvara citta vithi. Pancadvara (“panca” + “dvara” where “panca” is five and “dvara”
is door) means five (physical) doors.
Vithi is pronounced “veethi”; in fact, the actual Pali (and Sinhala) term is veethi (meaning
“road”), since like a road, the flow is continuous. But vithi has become the established English
word, just like “piti” for the actual word “preethi“. And, citta is pronounced “chiththä”.
When we THINK ABOUT those external sense inputs, that is done via manodvara citta
vithi, which involve only the brain and the mind (those are not the same). These citta vithi
normally have 10-12 cittas in them.
Here we will describe both types of citta vithi.

2. According to citta niyama (or Law of Cittas), a pancadvara citta vithi proceeds in a standard way for
an object with great intensity (atimahantarama citta vithi). That means the object is of high interest
and also the conditions for the object to be grasped are optimum; for example, if it is a visual object,
that visual object is of high interest and also the light conditions for seeing that object are good.

The sequence of cittas in a pancadvara citta vithi is as follows:

Pancadvara Citta Vithi

# IN THE
CITTA TYPE SYMBOL
SERIES

1 Atīta Bhavanga (Past Bhavanga) AB

2 Bhavanga Calana (Vibrating Bhavanga) BC

3 Bhavanga Upaccheda (Arrest Bhavanga) BU

4 Pancadvaravajjana (Sense-door adverting consciousness) PD

5 Cakku Vinnana (eye-door perceiving consciousness) - for CV

example

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# IN THE
CITTA TYPE SYMBOL
SERIES

6 Sampaticchana (Receiving consciousness) Sam

7 Santīrana (Investigating consciousness) San

8 Vottapana (Determining consciousness) V

9-15 Javana J

16, 17 Tadarammana (Registering consciousness) T

3. When the mind is not dealing with a pancadvara citta vithi or a manodvara citta vithi, it is in a
“dormant state” called the bhavanga. Bhavanga (“bhava” + “anga” where “anga” means “a part”),
thus represents the particular “bhava” of the living being, in this case a “human bhava“. The
conventional English term is “life continuum”, but we will use bhavanga.

The bhavanga state is conventionally represented by the following series as if they are a series
of bhavanga citta:

..B B B B B B B B ………….

When the mind is in the bhavanga state, we do not “feel” anything. Just like an eye cannot see
itself, the mind cannot “see” its own state. This is the “dormant state” in between sense inputs.
When one is in deep sleep or unconscious, one is fully in the bhavanga state.
Conventionally, it is said that bhavanga citta flow unceasingly, until the mind is diverted to an
object of interest, whether through one of the five physical senses (cakku, sota, ghana, jivha, or
kaya indriya) or an “active thought” that originates in the “mano indriya” in the brain.
As we will see later, the mind is in the bhavanga (B) state most of the time even if the mind
feels like very active. Even during watching a movie, the mind is mostly in the bhavanga state
(in between various types of manodvara and pancadvara citta vithi) , even though we feel like
our brains are stressed to the limit with the sights and sounds from the movie.

4. We can represent the pancadvara citta vithi in the above Table as follows:

B B B B B “AB BC BU PD CV Sam San V J J J J J J J T T” B B B B B…..

In the above example, we took a “cakku vinnana” event, i.e., what happens when a picture is
presented to the mind via the “eye indriya” and the mind investigating that picture.
First the “mind needs to be released from the “bhavanga state”, and that takes three thought
moments of AB (atita bhavanga), BC (bhavanga calana), BU (bhavanga upacceda). Here
“atita” (or “atheetha“) means “past”, “calana” (or “chalana“) means “move” or “vibrate”, and
“upacceda” (or “upachchéda“) means “stopped”.
Then the mind looks at the “five physical senses or pancadvara (PD)” and determines through
which of the five sense inputs it is coming through, and then picks the relevant door, which in
the present case we assumed to be cakku vinnana (CV).
Then it investigates what that “picture” is, with the Sampaticcana (Sam) citta, decides what
type (like, dislike, etc) with the Santirana (San) citta, and determines what actions to take with
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The all important 7 javana citta arise based on that determination made with the Vottapana
citta (V). This is where potent kamma are done by the mind.
In the last two Tadarammana (T) cittas, the mind takes in the “flavor” of the sense object, and
then falls back to the bhavanga state at the termination of the pancadvara citta vithi.

The Simile of Tasting a Mango

1. A pancadvara citta vithi is the procedure by which the mind experiences an external object (sight,
sound, taste, etc). In the commentaries to the Tipitaka, what happens in a pancadvara citta vithi is
compared to the case of a man who is sleeping under a mango tree, awakened by the falling of a
mango, investigates it and decides to enjoy (experience) the taste of the mango.

2. Suppose a weary traveler is asleep at the foot of a mango tree. This state of being asleep is
analogous to the bhavanga state. Now a ripe mango drops to the ground near the traveler. This event
is similar to the striking of a visible object of very great intensity at the “eye door”.

3. The falling of the mango awakens the traveler and causes him to raise his head. This event is similar
to the appearance of the visible object at the eye door causing the bhavanga to vibrate twice and
become arrested; now he is not asleep anymore.

The traveler opens his eyes and looks around to enquire what the disturbance was. This is
similar to the pancadvàravajjana (PD) citta adverting the mind towards the sense object.

4. The traveler sees the fallen mango. This is analogous to the eye-consciousness seeing the object
(CV). Now the man picks up the mango, which is similar to the sampaticchana (Sam) citta receiving
the cakku vinnana. By the way, sampaticcana comes from “san“+”paticca“; you can contemplate
on this to get the basic idea; see, “What is “San”?”.

Then the man inspects the mango to see whether it is suitable for eating. This is similar to the
santirana citta (“san” + “tirana” or “theerana“, where “theerana” means “decide on whether
the sense object is good or bad”) investigating the sense object.
Then the man decides that the mango is good and edible. This is similar to the
votthapana (“votta” + “pana” meaning “deciding on what to do” or in Sinhala, “pana denava”
or “energize”). Vottapana is pronounced “voththapana”. If it was a rotten mango, one would
decide to throw it away.
Most Pali terms can be understood well if one understands Sinhala. As I have mentioned
before, it is the Sinhala language that is close to Pali and not Sanskrit.

5. The man bites the mango seven times eating and enjoying the taste. This is similar to the
occurrence of seven javana cittas enjoying the taste of the sense object. These are really the “actions
corresponding to the decision made with the vottapana citta“; if the mango was bad, here the mind
will generate appropriate javana citta to throw the mango. We will discuss such complex processes
later.

Then the man gathers the remnants of the fruit and the juice sticking on the teeth with his
tongue and swallows twice. This is similar to the two tadarammana (T) cittas following
the javanas.
Task completed, the man falls back to sleep. This is similar to the resumption of the
bhavanga state.

6. However, according to the Tipitaka, each pancadvara citta vithi is immediately followed by
three manodvara citta vithi. The javana cittas in those three citta vithi become increasingly strong,
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and it is javana cittas of the last manodvara citta vithi that instructs the brain to get the body to act
(and initiate speech).

We will discuss this in detail in the future posts. But the complete sequence of a thought
process initiated by a pancadvara citta vithi takes three more manodvara citta vithi to be
completed. In fact, when one gets “absorbed” (for example, keeps looking at an attractive
picture), one may be generating millions of such “one plus three processes” with the mind
falling back to the bhavanga state repeatedly in between.
It will be easier to visualize this process by understanding what happens when we look at an
object, for example, in scientific terms; see, “Citta and Cetasika – How Vinnana
(Consciousness) Arises” (especially starting with #4 of that post).

Now let us look at a typical manodvara citta vithi.

Manodvara Citta Vithi

# IN THE SERIES CITTA TYPE SYMBOL

1 Bhavanga Calana (Vibrating Bhavanga) BC

2 Bhavanga Upaccheda (Arrest Bhavanga) BU

3 Manodvaravajjana (Mind-door adverting consciousness) MD

4-10 Javana J

11, 12 Tadarammana (Registering consciousness) T

1. We can represent the manodvara citta vithi in the above Table as follows:

B B B B B “BC BU MD J J J J J J J T T” B B B B B…..

Here it takes only two thought moments to be released from the “bhavanga state”: BC
(bhavanga calana), BU (bhavanga upacceda).
The mind already knows the arammana (thought object).
The 7 javana citta arise, and then the citta vithi ends with the two Tadarammana (T) cittas.
Just like in the case of a pancadvara citta vithi, here also we considered an object with high
intensity as an example. We will discuss the variations when handling signals of lower
intensities as the need arises. However, this discussion is su icient to get an idea about
how the two types of citta vithi function in the cognitive processes.

2. Now we can write the complete sequence of citta for a sense event initiated by a pancadvara citta
vithi as:

B B B B B “AB BC BU PD CV Sam San V J J J J J J J T TBC BU MD J J J J J J J T TBC BU MD J J J J J J J T

TBC BU MD J J J J J J J T T ” B B B B B…..

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As mentioned above the initial pancadvara citta vithi is followed by three manodvara citta
vithi.

3. On the other hand, manodvara citta vithi can arise just by themselves.

Furthermore, even though the length of a manodvara citta vithi is normally 10-12 cittas for
average people, a single manodvara citta vithi can have many javana cittas while in a jhana.
In a jhana, such long manodvara citta vithi are interrupted by pancadvara citta vithi that arise
in between. This is why one could hear external sounds while in a jhana.

4. But in a jhana samapatti, a single manodvara citta vithi goes on uninterrupted for long times, with
javana citta arising unceasingly :

B B B B B “BC BU MD J J J J J J J J J J J ………..

Thus there is no way to get back to the bhavanga state, or for a pancadvara citta vithi or
another manodvara citta vithi to arise, and one becomes unaware of what happens in the
outside world. Before getting into the samapatti, one makes a determination on how long to
stay in the samapatti.
This is why the real power of javana citta can be truly displayed by people who can get into
jhana samapatti.
This can be visualized crudely as follows: Suppose one is trying to light an oil lamp (oil-soaked
wick) with the light of a matchstick. If one is not holding the lighted matchstick steady and the
light moves in and out of the vicinity of the wick, it will not light. But if one can hold the light
steady, it will light up quickly.
That is probably a too crude an analogy. A better one may be given for those who are familiar
with lasers. One can drill holes in a metal plate using a laser beam. But if the laser beam is not
held steady, it will not get the metal spot to heat up and evaporate. Being in a jhana samapatti
is like holding a laser beam quite steady on one spot for long times.

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