205: Unwholesome Consciousness (Akusala Citta)

In this episode, we explore the twelve types of unwholesome consciousness in Buddhist psychology—states of mind rooted in greed (lobha), hatred (dosa), and delusion (moha). The Buddha taught that these mental roots shape how we think, speak, and act, leading to painful results in this life and future ones.

Through vivid examples, we look at how greed arises with attachment and craving, how hatred emerges when desires go unfulfilled, and how delusion clouds awareness through confusion and restlessness. Each unwholesome mind state has its own pattern—whether impulsive or prompted, joyful or neutral—and understanding these patterns helps us see how suffering begins in the mind.

By observing our daily thoughts with mindfulness, we can recognize when these unwholesome states appear, weaken their hold, and gradually cultivate wholesome, clear, and compassionate consciousness.

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Sayar Myat: 0:01

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa,Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa, Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa. Theravada Buddhism series, Dhamma talk number twenty eight. unwholesome consciousness Akusala Ceta Unwholesome Consciousness Akusala Cita is blameworthy and produce painful result. It is accompanied by the three roots of evil, namely lobak, greed attachment, wanting craving, dosat, ill will, anger, aversion, dissatisfaction, and moha, delusion, illusion, ignorance. Those are the words translated into English. Basically loba, dosa and moha. These three mental factors are collectively called kilisa mental defilements kilisa mental defilements. Loba greed is always mentioned first amongst the three because in every new rebirth the first swift consciousness that arises is accompanied by lobha, which is the attachment to the new existence of life. The first karmic forming consciousness, Javana Jeta is accompanied with attachment to the new existence of that particular life. And that is so strong it remains with one for the rest of one's life. As it started with the first new rebirth, Loba is always mentioned first among the three roots of evil. And then Dosa aversion is mentioned next because it arises whenever Lava, the greed, is not fulfilled. It arises a lot and it is very pronounced, dominant, obvious. And the third is Moha is mentioned lust. Loba, dosa, moha, moha, delusion, illusion, ignorance. And this mental factor moha accompany all twelve unwholesome consciousness. Twelve unwholesome consciousness. Whenever there is loba or dosa, there always is moha ignorance. Because moha arises with every unwholesome consciousness. If there is lobba, there is moha. If there is dosa, there is moha. So there are eight kinds of unwholesome consciousness. We call it lobha. Great rooted consciousness. Even though there's moha with it, we don't mention about it. We simply call loba mula greet rooted consciousness. And also there are two accompanied by dosa ill will aversion. And the remaining two is accompanied by delusion. So they are eight great rooted consciousness, two ill will rooted consciousness, and two delusion ignorance rooted consciousness. Altogether twelve. So unwholesome consciousness, major heading, major class is divided into three divisions based on greed, based on ill will, and based on delusion. So there are three divisions in the unwholesome consciousness. And then the three divisions are again subdivided using associated feelings, and also using association or lack of association with wrong view, and whether it is prompting or not prompting. With these three qualities, it is subdivided again. As we see, there are eight loba greed rooted or accompanied by greed consciousness. Let's go one by one. The first one the first one is the unwholesome consciousness accompanied by greed rooted. Unwholesome consciousness cordy by or rooted by greed associated with pleasurable feeling. That's Vedana and wrong view. And it arises unprompted. That is the character of the first unwholesome consciousness. So the following is how this particular consciousness is explained in the manual of Abhidhamma. The story goes like this. A boy saw an apple tree with many apples in his neighbor yard. He wanted to eat, thinking that there's no evil, nothing wrong in stealing that apple, instantly went into the neighbor's yard with excitement and joy and stole an apple. That is the storyline. And that if you look at it, he wanted to eat, wanted to eat. That wanting to eat is the greed. So when he saw the apple tree, there accompanies greed. No harm done, nothing wrong with it. Just go an apple going to steal it. In other words, saying that there will be no bad consequences, no bad karma. That means wrong view. The boy has the wrong view. The boy has greed in the mind in that particular consciousness. And also he instantly go into the neighbor's yard and stole an apple. That means nobody is pushing him, nobody is urging him to go and steal. He spontaneously did the job. That means he did it unprompted. So that story shows exactly how the first unwholesome consciousness is rooted in, accompanied by greed, and also accompanied by wrong view. And also he steals with excitement and joy because oh going to steal it so that nobody see me. There's a little excitement, that's little joy. That is a pleasurable feeling. And he did it without anybody seducing or enticing him to do so unprompted. All the characters of the first unwholesome consciousness accompanied by greed is in that storyline. So let's see the second one, second unwholesome consciousness. One of the eight rooted in accompanied by greed. Second one is written like this in the book. Prompted or induced by a friend. The boy joyfully steals an apple, viewing no evil thereby. Prompted or induced by a friend, a boy joyfully steals an apple, viewing no evil thereby. It is almost the same as the first consciousness. The only difference is in the first consciousness it is unprompted. Nobody pushed them to do. Second one is a friend dares him. Go ahead, go do it. Pick up another one for me too. That is prompted. That's a difference between the first and the second unwholesome consciousness. And let's see how the third and the fourth unwholesome consciousness accompanied by greed is. All greed are. Except the boy knows that it is a wrong action. This is evil. This is not good. He knows what he is doing is not good. So the difference is in this consciousness numbers three and four is not associated with wrong view. Meaning that he knows there will be a bad consequence. In other words, bad karma will arise down the line. So consciousness, one, two, three, four. Prompted unprompted with the wrong view without wrong view. That's the key distinctions. And the Greek accompany greed rooted consciousness number four, five, six, sorry, number five, six, seven and eight. It is similar to the first four. Similar to the first four. Except that this time the boy did it with a indifferent or neutral feeling. The first four the boy did it with pleasurable feeling, little excitement and joy, adventure. And the last four no feeling, indifferent feeling. Neither sad or neither happy. Just did it. So those are the eight unwholesome consciousness accompanied by lob greed. There are two kinds of unwholesome consciousness accompanied by dosa ill will. Ill will anger. So these two fall in the consciousness number nine and ten. Number nine is with rage. One murders another without predetermination. That is the storyline given. One must know killing is always done with ill will or aversion. Whenever there is a killing, there is the ill will. There is dosak. And also whenever there is ill will, it associates with displeasure or undesirable feeling. Feeling vidana in Pali Dhamana Satellite always done by accompanied by ill will, and ill will is always accompanied with displeasure or unpleasurable feeling. And then the word is not predetermined. That means spontaneously with rage, spontaneously committed to killing with rage, meaning unprompted. So number nine is dead with ill will associated with unpleasurable feeling and it is unprompted. Unwholesome consciousness number ten. A person commit murder with predetermination. So as it is killing, it's accompanied by dosat, ill will. And it is accompanied by unpleasurable feeling, dominasat. And it is associated with hatred. And as he plans to kill it, predetermination is being planning ahead. As he plan and kill a person, it is prompted, prompted by the motive with hatred. He just plan and kill a person. That is the unwholesome conscious number ten in the division of dosak, anger rooted consciousness. And next there are two kinds of unwholesome consciousness accompanied by moha, delusion. It just gives specifically two. But we already said moha delusion is associated with all twelve unwholesome consciousness. And how come two here? Even though there's moha delusion with lobat, greed and dosak, anger. Even though they are there, Moha plays a minor role. Because greed and anger plays a very dominant and obvious role. In the first ten unwholesome consciousness. So as his role is at the background not obvious, it's not mentioned or giving credit to it. Because of that, the first ten are called loba, greed rooted, or dosab, anger rooted. But the last two unwholesome consciousness. Of course, also accompanied by moha. But in those two there is no loba greed. There is no doza anger. It's only moha by itself. That's why it is given there are two moha accompanied unwholesome consciousness. And this moha delusion or illusion. It's a mental factor. It is a dull mental factor. It's very dull. Therefore, that consciousness is associated only with indifferent or neutral feeling. As it is dull, obscure, fuzzy, foggy. It's associated with indifferent or neutral feeling. That's how the Mohawk accompany consciousness behave. So let's go specifically to consciousness number eleven. Accompanied by Moha delusion. And indifferent or neutral feeling. A person bears doubt. A person bears doubt at the existence of Buddha and the efficacy of the Dharma. So that's a storyline giving in the book as an example. Repeat again, accompanied by delusion and indifferent feeling. A person bears doubt at the existence of Buddha or efficacy of the Dharma. So doubt, we chiketya. Think we all have heard about this many times. The five hindrances. There are two kinds of doubts. The first kind is doubt arises due to indecision. You have a situation or condition and you can't decide this or that. This is right. Maybe no, no, that is right. Just can't decide it. Both seems to be right, and both seems to be maybe wrong. That is the first kind of doubt, indecision. And the second kind of doubt rises due to lack of knowledge or intelligence. To understand or comprehend an object or a condition. There is a situation that is beyond your capability to decide. It is too deep. Too complex, too profound. You don't have the enough intelligence to know what is right and wrong. That kind of doubt is the second kind of doubt. So that is the eleventh type of consciousness. Again, it is accompanied by Moha delusion associated with indifferent feeling. Ubaka Vedana. Indifferent feeling. Those are the factors that are accompanied. Or you can find it in the 11th, unwholesome consciousness. The twelfth one. A person is distracted in mind, unable to concentrate on an object. Example given. The mind distracted can't concentrate on the object. So if you look at it, it is accompanied by moha delusion. And also, as it is moha, it is indifferent feeling. Upakawidana. And it is associated with restlessness. Odithya. Association is restlessness. Restlessness is the inability to be fully aware of an object. There's an object, but you don't you can't know fully about it. You sort of know, but you don't know. For example, is let's say we are meditating. Everybody is observing, noting, rising, falling, rising, falling. Everybody knows there's a rising, everybody knows that's a falling. But the way they are aware, the way they know the rising and falling is different. Some are very superficial, some are very deep and detailed. That superficial knowing is due to restlessness. Not deep enough. So that's why you sort of know, you know, rising and falling, but at the same time you don't truly know. Rising and falling sharply and clearly and in detail. That's due to restlessness. Restlessness is with every unwholesome consciousness. Remember we said Moha is with all twelve unwholesome consciousness? Here we go. This is Moha Restlessness with every one of the twelve unwholesome consciousness. But it is not obvious in the consciousness that are rooted with lobak greed and dosha anger. However, it becomes noticeable in the twelfth unwholesome consciousness accompanied by delusion. Only then you know that moha, the restlessness, because stance alone you can notice. So those are the twelfth unwholesome consciousness. Akuchala Chaita. We should have a little exercise for ourselves every day. Reflect on your daily thoughts. Whenever there's activities, there's a thoughts involved. Reflect on your thoughts. What kind of unwholesome consciousness is there? What kind of unwholesome consciousness is arising? Of course, if the time permits, if the place permit, whenever possible, exercise that. And you will know what kind of consciousness are dominating and arising in your mind. May all of you be able to practice mindfulness inside meditation and be able to eliminate all twelve unwholesome consciousness as soon as possible. Sadu sadhu sadhu. Thank you very much.