Sense Door or Mind Door

Discussion of Abhidhamma and related Commentaries
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Ceisiwr
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Sense Door or Mind Door

Post by Ceisiwr »

I'm a bit confused about the explanation of cognition in the Abhidhamma. Is it possible to be aware of dhammas at the 5 sense doors, or are they only known when they reach the mind door?
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
SarathW
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Re: Sense Door or Mind Door

Post by SarathW »

This is a great question.
The way I understand, according to Abhidhamma, the consciousness is given a name based on a state of mind in a given time. End of the day it is the same consciousness performing a different function. It is something like, we can call the same person, father, son, police officer, lover or meditator, etc based on the role of that person.
In the case of five senses, they can perform only certain functions. For instance eye can diffrenciate the color blue red etc. But eye can't differentiate an object as a man or a woman etc. It is the function of the mind.
This process is clearly explain in Abhidhamma using seventeen thought moments.
========
Mind in its passive and active forms
The mind occurs in both passive and active modes. The passive gives way to the active when a stimulus is received through one of the sense doors. The passive state of mind is called bhava"nga, cuti, or paa.tisandhi, according to the occasion.

Bhava"nga. The bhava"nga citta, mentioned earlier, is the primary form of mind. It flows from conception to death except when interrupted by a stimulus through one of the sense doors. When a stimulus enters, consciousness becomes active, launching into a thought process (citta viithi). Thought processes have been analyzed in great detail in the Abhidhamma.

A complete thought process, occurring through the physical sense doors, is made up of seventeen thought moments (citta kha.na). These are:

A bhava"nga that flows by in a passive state when one of the five physical sense organs comes in contact with its object (atiita bhava"nga).
A bhava"nga that vibrates for one thought moment (bhava"nga calana).
A bhava"nga that cuts off the flow (bhava"nga upaccheda).
A citta that turns towards the object through the sense door that has been stimulated (pañcadvaara-vajjana).
The appropriate sense consciousness; in the case of the eye, for example, eye consciousness (cakkhu viññaa.na).
Next a thought moment — the sampa.ticchana citta — which has the function of receiving the object.
When the object has been received another thought moment, called the santiirana citta, arises, performing the function of investigating the object.
The act (kamma) itself, especially if it was a weighty one.
9 to 15.
The object having been determined, the most important stage from an ethical standpoint follows. This stage, called javana, consists of seven consecutive thought moments all having an identical nature. It is at this stage that good or evil is done, depending on whether the cittas have wholesome or unwholesome roots. Therefore, these javana thought moments have roots and also produce new kamma.
16 and 17.
Following the seventh javana the registering stage occurs, composed of two thought moments called tadaalambane. When the second registering citta has perished, the bhava"nga follows, flowing on until interrupted by another thought process.
These thought moments follow one another in extremely rapid succession; each depends on the previous one and all share the same object. There is no self or soul directing this process. The process occurs so rapidly that mindfulness has to be alert and brisk to recognize at least the determining thought moment — the vottapana — so that one can govern the javana thought moments by wholesome volition.

When the mind-door receives a mind-object, the sequence of events is a little different from that occurring through the physical senses. The mind-door-adverting citta is the same type of citta as the determining moment — the votthapana — that arises in a sensory process. This mind-door-adverting thought moment can cognize an object previously seen, heard, smelt, tasted or touched, thus making memories possible. Since the mind-object here has already been received and investigated, these functions need not be performed again and the mind-door-adverting thought moment gives way immediately to the javanas. These are, again, of great ethical significance. For example, unpleasant words previously heard can suddenly come to mind and, unless proper mindfulness (sammaa sati) is practiced, call up javana cittas rooted in hatred, i.e., unwholesome kamma.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/aut ... #causality
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
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robertk
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Re: Sense Door or Mind Door

Post by robertk »

End of the day it is the same consciousness performing a different function
That needs unpicking.
Each citta ( vinnana, consciousness) is a new and different one.
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robertk
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Re: Sense Door or Mind Door

Post by robertk »

Ceisiwr wrote: Fri Oct 02, 2020 7:25 am I'm a bit confused about the explanation of cognition in the Abhidhamma. Is it possible to be aware of dhammas at the 5 sense doors, or are they only known when they reach the mind door?
What is known directly is the nimitta, the sign of the reality.
Awareness in the sense of sati-samjanna is aware of the immediately past object and
until vipassana nana the sense doors and mind door is all mixed up, not clear.
At vipassana nana the difference between mind door and sense door is directly known.
SarathW
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Re: Sense Door or Mind Door

Post by SarathW »

robertk wrote: Fri Oct 02, 2020 8:47 am
End of the day it is the same consciousness performing a different function
That needs unpicking.
Each citta ( vinnana, consciousness) is a new and different one.
Agree.
But to be precise, it is not new but it is not past consciousness either.
Vinnana paccya Namarupa.
Namarupa paccaya Vinnana

This is a chicken and the egg question.
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
User1249x
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Re: Sense Door or Mind Door

Post by User1249x »

Mind precedes all dhamma; Mind directs them, they are mind-made.

Sankhara is conditioned and creates the conditioned, mind is also conditioned.

The term mind is conjoined with the term sakhara and also with feeling, perception and vinnana [therefore there is a term manocittavinnana]

When we talk creation & conception of conditioned reality, we can sometimes talk about conception of the form element, sometimes we can't because it isn't conceived in arupa jhana.

“And why, bhikkhus, do you call them fabrications? ‘They fabricate the conditioned,’ bhikkhus, therefore they are called fabrications.

And what is the conditioned that they fabrications?

They fabricate conditioned form as form;
they fabricate conditioned feeling as feeling;
they fabricate conditioned perception as perception;
they fabricate conditioned fabrications as fabrications;
they fabricate conditioned consciousness as consciousness.

Form is therefore conceived as form and that reality that then exists can be thought about in terms of what can be established as a truth or reality.

When analyzing that which one can think about, one would always delineate elements of contact, vinnana, sanna & sankhara but form is sometimes conceived & sometimes not conceived wheas conception itself is always mental and is a range of conditioned reality which is discerned as it persists.

Mind is conditioned, it arises as one thing & ceases as another. There is the conditioned and it's discernment is included in the conditioned, it is discerned as changing as it's persistence is affirmed as it comes into play.
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robertk
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Re: Sense Door or Mind Door

Post by robertk »

SarathW wrote: Fri Oct 02, 2020 9:59 am
robertk wrote: Fri Oct 02, 2020 8:47 am
End of the day it is the same consciousness performing a different function
That needs unpicking.
Each citta ( vinnana, consciousness) is a new and different one.
Agree.
But to be precise, it is not new but it is not past consciousness either.
Vinnana paccya Namarupa.
Namarupa paccaya Vinnana

This is a chicken and the egg question.
Well it is actually new, albeit conditioned by past cittas.

Guhatthaka-suttaniddeso: Upon the Tip of a Needle




1. "Life, personhood, pleasure and pain
- This is all that's bound together
In a single mental event- A moment that quickly takes place.

2. Even for the devas who endure
For 84,000 thousand kalpas
- Even those do not live the same
For any two moments of the mind.

3. What ceases for one who is dead,
Or for one who's still standing here,
Are all just the same heaps
- Gone, never to connect again.

4. The states which are vanishing now,
And those which will vanish some day,
Have characteristics no different
Than those which have vanished before.

5. With no production there's no birth;
With "becoming" present, one exists.
When grasped with the highest meaning,
The world is dead when the mind stops.

6. There's no hoarding what has vanished,
No piling up for the future;
Those who have been born are standing
Like a seed upon a needle.

7. The vanishing of all these states
That have become is not welcome,
Though dissolving phenomena stand
Uncombined through primordial time.

8. From the unseen, things come and go.
Glimpsed only as they're passing by;
Like lightning flashing in the sky
- They arise and then pass away."

Kathaṃ ṭhitiparittatāya appakaṃ jīvitaṃ? Atīte cittakkhaṇe jīvittha,
na jīvati na jīvissati; anāgate cittakkhaṇe jīvissati, na jīvati na jīvittha; paccuppanne cittakkhaṇe jīvati, na jīvittha na jīvissati.

“Jīvitaṃ attabhāvo ca, sukhadukkhā ca kevalā;
ekacittasamāyuttā, lahuso vattate khaṇo.
“Cullāsītisahassāni, kappā tiṭṭhanti ye marū;
natveva tepi jīvanti, dvīhi cittehi saṃyutā.
“Ye niruddhā marantassa, tiṭṭhamānassa vā idha;
sabbepi sadisā khandhā, gatā appaṭisandhikā.
“Anantarā ca ye bhaggā, ye ca bhaggā anāgatā;
tadantare niruddhānaṃ, vesamaṃ natthi lakkhaṇe.
“Anibbattena na jāto, paccuppannena jīvati;
cittabhaggā mato loko, paññatti paramatthiyā.
“Yathā ninnā pavattanti, chandena pariṇāmitā;
acchinnadhārā vattanti, saḷāyatanapaccayā.
“Anidhānagatā bhaggā, puñjo natthi anāgate;
nibbattā ye ca tiṭṭhanti, āragge sāsapūpamā.
“Nibbattānañca dhammānaṃ, bhaṅgo nesaṃ purakkhato;
palokadhammā tiṭṭhanti, purāṇehi amissitā.
“Adassanato āyanti, bhaṅgā gacchanti dassanaṃ;
vijjuppādova ākāse, uppajjanti vayanti cā”ti.

Evaṃ ṭhitiparittatāya appakaṃ jīvitaṃ
User1249x
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Re: Sense Door or Mind Door

Post by User1249x »

In short;
When contact at a sense door is delineated then in that contact at mind base is delineated, the former is included in the scope of the latter as a variant classification.

Eye/ear/nose/tongue/body/intellect-consciousness is implicated in all states of contact, of these, five are always associated with form.

Consciousness arises as one thing and ceases as another. Form is one end, name is another end and consciousness is the middle.
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