209: Rootless Consciousness (Part 2)

In this episode, we continue exploring rootless consciousness—states of awareness that arise without mental roots of greed, hatred, or delusion. Building on Part One, we dive deeper into the 18 types of rootless consciousness, grouped as unwholesome, wholesome, and functional. Each is shaped by three factors: its nature, feeling (pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral), and kind of consciousness.

This talk shows how our sensory experiences—seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and thinking—reflect past karma, and how neutral or pleasant feelings arise from these subtle mental processes. It also examines rare forms of consciousness unique to enlightened beings, such as the smile-producing consciousness of the Buddha and arahants.

Listen to gain a clearer understanding of how consciousness functions beneath the surface of everyday awareness, bridging theory and meditative insight on the path toward liberation.

YouTube Video Link

YouTube Channel Link

Website:
www.satipatthana.ca

Donations and Memberships

Transcript

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 Thirty Two. Ahetuka citta- Rootless Consciousness Part Two. In Part One of Rootless Consciousness, we discussed or described in general. In this talk we are going to talk about each and every rootless consciousness, Ahetuka citta. Each of the eighteen rootless consciousness is individualized based on nature such as wholesome, unwholesome, functional, feeling pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral, and kinds of consciousness. There are three factors involved in this classification of rootless consciousness. Nature, feeling, and kinds of consciousness. This rootless consciousness is divided into three groups. First of all, like wholesome, unwholesome, and functional. So let's see what unwholesome resultant consciousness. Ahetuka vipakka citta. There are seven of them. The first one is- in Pali it sounds like this- Upaka sahagata cakkhu viññāṇa. In this Pali phrase, cakkhu is eye. Vijnana is awareness. So it means eye consciousness, or you can call it seeing consciousness. And this seeing consciousness function is to see with neutral feeling and represent the first moment of awareness of a form or object. You remember seeing consciousness in your meditation. Whenever you see something right away, you note it seeing, seeing, seeing, meaning seeing consciousness. That is the first moment of seeing, the first moment of contact, the object, eye sensitivity, and awareness. Only that moment, nothing beyond that. At that moment there is a neutral feeling. But the next consciousness beyond that is not neutral anymore. It can go into any direction based on one's attitude. That's why seeing consciousness function is to see with neutral feeling, and it is precisely at the moment of first contact with the object. Therefore, all the forms you encounter, all the forms you encounter is undesirable and ugly. Because your past kamma is unwholesome. We are talking about unwholesome resultant consciousness. So every object you encounter now will be undesirable and ugly. So as it is undesirable and ugly, automatically it will give rise to unpleasant feeling. That is the cause and effect in sequence. You have an unpleasant feeling. For that group, blue cheese is a desirable object. So this pleasant or unpleasant feeling that will arise is dependent on one likes and dislikes. Because that is the natural law, natural phenomena. But there's one exception, individual likes and dislikes will decide what is and what is not. So we use one consciousness, particularly seeing consciousness, which is the result of past unwholesome actions. Of course, we have already established this is rootless. Try to explain in detail this one particular consciousness, which is seeing consciousness. Out of the 28, four are Mahabuddha, four great elements. And the remaining twenty-four are dependent upon these four great elements. So there are two groups. And the twenty-four dependent qualities are called soft materiality. Hard materiality and soft materiality. Hard materiality is earth, wind, fire and water in short. But water is something you cannot really detect or touch. Cohesion, the power of cohesion or dispersion. But earth, hardness, you can feel it. Heat, hot or cold, you can feel it. Wind, the movement, vibration, you can feel it. So those three elements, earth, wind and fire, together produce touch sensation. It can be touch and feel. Those three elements, earth, wind and fire is or produced. Touch sensation potthabba. Those are the objects of touch. So that is called hard element. And the other 24 is soft element. So we understand what hard element and soft element or hard materiality or soft materiality under rupa matter. Now next step. Let's see seeing consciousness. To have a seeing consciousness, we need three factors. One is the eye, eye sensitivity. That is a soft materiality. And the form outside. But the form outside is you don't go and touch the form with your eye. It's simply the reflection of it. So it is also called soft materiality. So external soft materiality come in touch with the internal soft materiality. When it touches, of course, there's awareness. Without awareness, you can't describe anything. At that moment, the feeling that produces very soft, very subtle, very dull. That is why the feeling it produces neutral feeling. Upekkhā. Upekkhā vedanā. Neutral feeling. That's a reason I consciousness is always associated with neutral feeling. That is how my teacher taught me. So we have discussed in detail about rootless, unwholesome, resultant consciousness. The first one is seeing consciousness. And the second consciousness is hearing consciousness. The third one is smelling consciousness. The fourth one is tasting consciousness. The flavor. And hearing, smelling, and tasting are exactly the same as the first one. They are similar to the seeing consciousness. So you can apply the same principle I have discussed to the other three more consciousness. In other words, seeing consciousness, hearing consciousness, smelling consciousness, tasting consciousness. They are saying, they have no roots. They are the result, 'vipakka' of unwholesome kamma and they are associated with neutral feeling. So in this first group we finished four now, based on seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting. The fifth one. The fifth one is body consciousness. In general, it is the same as the first four. Except one. Body consciousness. Your body sensitivity. That's a soft material. And this soft material comes in touch, actually, physically touch. So the exterior form or substance or object is hard materiality. It might be a stick, it might be a blade of g lass, hard materiality. So soft materiality and hard materiality come in contact. At that moment, neutral feeling cannot arise. At that moment, unpleasant feeling will arise. That's a difference. In Pali it's called dukkha sahagata. Dukkha is suffering. Sahagata is accompany with kāyaviññāṇa, body consciousness. Number five. Now number six and number seven consciousness of this first group. That one we have discussed about it in fair detail in the last Dhamma talks. It's the sense door adverting consciousness. If you listen carefully, last lecture you will know exactly what it is. Sense door adverting consciousness. That consciousness arises right after the bhavaṅga consciousness, life continuum or life constituent. It arises after bhavaṅga consciousness and before the five sense consciousness. Five sense consciousness, pañca viññāṇa, which is seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. That is number six. Number seven, if you remember, is called investigating consciousness. This investigating consciousness arises right after the five sense consciousness, which is seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. Five sense consciousness. And these two consciousness are associated with neutral feeling. Both are functional consciousness, 'kiriya', associated with neutral feeling. If you have digested quite well in the last Dhamma talk, you will understand this clearly. If not, it might sound very confusing. Okay, those are the seven kinds of consciousness in the first group, which is rootless, unwholesome, resultant. Sorry... akusala, unwholesome resultant consciousness. The second group is a wholesome resultant consciousness. So the first group and second group the different is the first one is unwholesome, the second one is wholesome, kusala. And in this group, the first four, one, two, three, four, which is seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting consciousness. They are similar to the first four of the first group, except the difference is wholesome and unwholesome. That's the only difference. Wholesome resultant consciousness. So if you understand the first four of the first group, you understand this second four of the second group. Substitute wholesome for unwholesome. And also they are associated with neutral feeling, just like the first one. Now number five. Number five is body consciousness of wholesome resultant. It is exactly the same as number five of the first group. Except this is the wholesome kusala group. So the feeling is pleasant feeling. That's a difference. And the sixth consciousness is wholesome functional receiving consciousness. So receiving consciousness, but it is belong to the it belongs to the wholesome kusala and also it is kiriya, functional, and it is associated with neutral feeling. That's a sixth. And seven and eight. This second group has eight kinds of consciousness. The first group has seven kind. This has eight kinds. Why one more? Let's see. Seven and eight. Number seven, one of the consciences is associated with neutral feeling. Because whenever you encounter a dull or not very interesting object, you have a neutral feeling. But the number eight is there are times you encounter object of high interest, or in other words, you like it very much, or in other words, the object has a very desirable quality. And when the object is desirable quality, your feeling is pleasant. So seven and eight is exactly the same except one has a neutral feeling and another one has a pleasurable or pleasant feeling. That is the second group. Now the third group. Second group has eight. The third group has three. Functional kiriya. What kiriya citta, functional consciousness? Let's have go through that little definition first. Any consciousness with no roots and does not produce a wholesome or unwholesome result. It does not produce wholesome or unwholesome result. It has no roots. That kind of consciousness is called functional consciousness, kiriya. Now this one is resultant functional consciousness. Ahetuka with no roots. The first one is five sense door adverting consciousness. Five sense door adverting consciousness. It associated with neutral feeling. That is one of the kiriya citta. Second one is determining or mind door adverting consciousness. And it associates with neutral feeling. So this one has two names if you remember. One is called determining consciousness, another name is mind door adverting consciousness. Why two? Let's call it determining consciousness. One is called determining consciousness. How it operates is first of all, you have a sense object. You have to turn towards it. You have to see or hear it. You then you receive it. You then you investigate it. And after investigation, you make a decision. Is this good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant. They go through the whole sequence directly with the sense object. When the operation is like that, it's called determining consciousness. But let's say the same object you are talking about arose that you have saw or seen. And the next day you think about it. At that time you are not actually touching. It is directly it happenings, it is happening at the mind door. Thoughts, recall thoughts, thoughts of planning, thoughts of scheming, thoughts of imagination. They don't have the actual physical object to start with. It is the mental image, mental recall, mental creation. So it happened right at the mind door. That's why it's called mind door adverting consciousness. The same thing, they have two functions. Just like let's say you're an accountant at your work. So your title is accountant. But for some reason there are new courses coming up, and your company sent you to go and to go and attend the night classes for that course. So every evening you have to go to the class and attend to get a special credit for it. In the class, you are a student. Daytime you are an accountant. At nighttime you are a student. Still you. The same consciousness, just like that. When it is doing the determining work, it's a determining consciousness. When it is doing the mind or adverting function, it's called mind door adverting consciousness. That's why this particular consciousness has two names wearing different hats when they are doing a different function. That is number two of the group three. The last one is called smile producing consciousness. And it is associated with pleasant feeling. When you smile, that is when you're happy, when it is pleasant. Smile producing consciousness. In Pali is called somanassa sahagata hasituppāda-citta. Somanassa is like pleasant. Sahagata is accompanied with, accompanied with pleasant feeling. Hasituppāda is smile producing. Smile producing consciousness associated with pleasant feeling. Rootless functional consciousness. It arises only in Buddhas and Arhants. In Buddha and Arahants, they smile, but of course, as soon as smile there's a pleasant feeling, but it doesn't transform into wholesome kamma or unwholesome kamma. That's why it is kariya functional. This kariya is you can find in this group and there are many other groups you can find them. That's why we need to specify which group it belongs to. This group is ahetuka, rootless functional consciousness. So seven plus eight plus three, eighteen. Two associated with pleasant feeling from mental source. Pleasant feeling arising from mental source. And one is associated with pleasant feeling from the physical source. Its called suhka. Somanassa is mental source. Sukha is physical source. And the other one is associated with unpleasant feeling. Two is somanassa, pleasant feeling, from mental source. One is unpleasant feeling from physical source, and one is pleasant feeling from the physical source. These are the factors that are used to differentiate one consciousness to the other. So this concludes the 18 rootless consciousness. So far we have discussed 12 akusala, unwholesome consciousness, and eighteen ahetuka, rootless consciousness. We have covered 30 of them. So, may all of you be able to understand theoretically how each consciousness is classified and defy, understand intellectually, and in some cases apply to the practice or the experience of your meditation. For those who want to pursue wisdom in a deeper way, this is the way. But for enlightenment, to be free from suffering, you don't need these details, but direct experience and the general understanding. Depending on your pursuit, follow your own path. May all of you be able to pursue the path of freedom in your own way and attain liberation as soon as possible. Thank you very much.