(xxxii) absence of hate (§ 33), (xxxiv) absence of covetousness (§ 35), (XXXV) absence of malice (§ 36), (xxxvi) right views 1 (§ 37); (xxxvii) conscientiousness (§ 38), (xxxviii) fear of blame (§ 39); (xxxix, xl) serenity in mind and mental factors (§§ 40, 41), (xli, xlii) lightness in mind and mental factors (§§ 42, 43), (xliii, xliv) plasticity in mind and mental factors (§§ 44, 45), (xlv, xlvi) facility in mind and mental factors (§§ 46, 47), (xlvii, xlviii) fitness in mind and mental factors (§§ 48, 49), (xlix, 1) directness in mind. mind and mental factors in (§§ 50, 51), (li) mindfulness (§ 52), (lii) intelligence (§ 53), (liii) quiet (§ 54) (liv) intuition (§ 55), (lv) grasp (§ 56), (lvi) balance (§ 57). Now these or whatever other incorporeal, causally induced states 2 there are on that occasion-these are states that are good. 1 According to Buddhaghosa the "states" numbered xxxiv-vi are considered as equivalents of those numbered xxxi-iii respectively, but as taken under another aspect. In the prior enumeration the threefold "root of good" is set out; in the latter, reference to the "path of karma " is understood (Asl. 129). 2 This clause has given opportunity to later psychology to intrude. Nine other states, according to the Cy., are here implied as factors in this psychosis, viz. desire (or conation, or intention, chando), resolve (adhimokk ho), attention (ma nasikā r o), equanimity (tatramajjhatta tā), pity [2] What on that occasion is contact (ph asso)? 1 The contact which on that occasion is touching, the being brought into contact, the state of having been brought into touch with this is the contact that there then is. (karuņā), sympathy (mu dita), abstinence from evil conduct in act, speech, and mode of livelihood. And the opening words of this and similar supplementary clauses in the text are coined into a technical term-y e-va-panakā, 66 the orwhatever" [states],--to signify such groups. The Cy. then" defines " the nine: desire, qualified as orthodox desire (dh am machando), to distinguish it from ethically undesirable desire (cf. § 1097, etc.), is the wish to act, the stretching forth the hand of the mind (cf. öpeğis) to grasp the object in idea. Resolve is steadfastness, decision, the being unshaken as a pillar. Attention is movement, direction of the mind, confronting the object. Equanimity-lit., the mean (medium) state-is the being borne along evenly, without defect or excess, without partiality. Pity and sympathy are described in § 258 et seq. The last three give those three factors of the Eightfold Path unrepresented in the analysis of the thought (Asl. 132, 133). It is not without interest to note that in this later supplementary category all the purely psychological states are wholly, or at least mainly, volitional or emotional, as if it had come to be felt that the older analysis had imperfectly represented this side. 1 Touch or contact must be understood in a very general sense, as the outcome of three conditions: an impingeing or reacting sentient organ, an impingeing or reacting agency conceived as external to the sentient organ, and impact or collision (M. i, 111; iii, 281; S. ii, 72; iv, 32, etc.). The similes in Mil. 60 of the rams and the cymbals are quoted in the Cy. The eye and its object are the usual illustration, but the representative imagination (mano or cittam) and its object are included as proceeding by way of contact, only without impact (s a n ghaṭṭanam). The real causal connexion in every case is mental, even though we speak of an external agency, just as when lac melts with heat we speak of hot coals as the cause, though the heat is in the lac's own tissue (Asl. 109). "Contact" is given priority of place, as standing for the inception of thought and as being the sine quâ non of all the allied states, conditioning them much as the roof-tree of a storied house supports all the other combinations of material (ibid. 107). [3] What on that occasion is feeling (vedanā) ? 1 The mental pleasure, the mental ease, which, on that occasion, is born of contact with the appropriate element of representative intellection; 2 the pleasurable, easeful sensation which is born of contact with thought; 3 the pleasurable, easeful feeling which is born of contact with thought this is the feeling that there then is. [4] What on that occasion is perception (s a ñ ñ ā ) ? 4 66 1 Vedana is a term of very general import, meaning sentience or reaction, bodily or mental, on contact or impression. Sensation is scarcely so loyal a rendering as feeling, for though ved a na is often qualified as born of the contact" in senseactivity, it is always defined generally as consisting of the three species pleasure (happiness), pain (ill), and neutral feeling— a hedonistic aspect to which the term "feeling" is alone adequate. Moreover, it covers representative feeling. This general psychical aspect of ve danā, as distinct from sensations localized bodily-e.g. toothache-is probably emphasized by the term "mental" (ceta sika m) in the answer. The Cy. points out that by this "mind-dependence (= cittanissitattam) bodily pleasure is eliminated (Asl. 139). It also illustrates the general scope of veda nā by the simile of a cook who, after preparing soups and currys for his lord, tastes each critically to test them, the lord partaking of whichever he pleases. The cook represents all the associated states in the thought-complex, each functioning in one specific Vedana, the master, " enjoys the essence (taste) of the object" as a whole. way. 2 Tajjā-manoviññāṇadhātu. Tajjā is paraphrased by a nucchavikā, sarūpā. Cf. A. i, 207; S. iv, 215; M. i, 190, 191; Mil. 53. On the remainder of the compound term, see § 6. And on the hedonistic expressions in the answer, see § 10. 3 Ceto-samphassajam vedayitam. The latter term (experience) is, more literally, that which is felt, das Empfundene. Ceto, cittam are used interchangeably in the Cy. on these terms (see § 6). The contact is that between idea or object and thought, or the ideating agency, conceived as analogous to the impact between sense-organ and sense-object. In consequence of this contact or presentation, emotional affection arises in consciousness. 4 The apparently capricious way in which the intension of the term sa ñña is varied in the Pitakas makes it difficult The perception, the perceiving, the state of having perceived which on that occasion is born of contact with the appropriate element of representative intellection-this is the perception that there then is. [5] What on that occasion is volition (cetanā)? 66 to assign any one adequate English rendering. In the Mahāvedalla Sutta (M. i, 293) and elsewhere (cf. Mil. 61) it is explained as the relatively simple form of intellection or cognition which consists in the discernment, recognition, assimilation of sensations-e.g. of colours, as blue etc. Such is the process termed in modern English psychology senseperception, except that it is not quite clear that, in Buddhist psychology, as in English, the perception is made only on occasion of sense-stimulation. Cf. also below, p. 72, n. 2. Hence some experts in mediaeval Buddhist metaphysic (Stcherbatzky, MacGovern) prefer the rendering "conception ". Here, if we follow the Cy. (Asl. 110), s a ñ ñ ã means simply that perception which discerns, recognizes and gives classreference to (upaṭṭhita-visaya), the impressions of sense. Its procedure is likened to the carpenter's recognition of certain woods by the mark he had made on each; to the treasurer's specifying certain articles of jewelry by the ticket on each; to the wild animal's discernment in the scarecrow of the work of man. The essence of s a ñ ñ ã is said to be recognition by way of a mark. In this notion of mark and marking lies such continuity of thought as may be claimed for the various uses of the term. The bare fact of consciousness means ability to discriminate--that is, to mark. To mark is to perceive. 1 It is unfortunate that Buddhaghosa does not give a comparative analysis of the two forms, cittam, cetanā, as he does in the case of vitakka -vicara and pīti-sukha m. Under ceta na he expatiates in forcible similes, describing it as a process of activity and toil, and as a co-ordinating, ordering function. He likens it to an energetic farmer, bustling about his fifty-five labourers (the fifty-five co-constituents in the thought-complex) to get in the harvest; to a senior apprentice at the carpenter's, working himself and supervising the tasks of others; to the leader of a warrior band, fighting and inciting. To these notions the definition of Nagasena (Mil. 61) only adds that of preparing (a bhi sankharanam), the other qualifying term being merely a denominative form (as if we should say "thinkifying "). Cittam, together with the terms in which it is described, is discussed in Pt. VII of the Introduction. The volition, purpose, purposefulness, which is born of contact with the appropriate element of representative intellection—this is the volition that there then is. [6] What on that occasion is thought (cittam)? The thought which on that occasion is ideation, mind, heart, that which is clear, ideation as the sphere of mind, the faculty of mind, intellection, the skandha of intellection, the appropriate element of representative intellection-this is the thought that there then is. [7] What on that occasion is application of mind (vitakko)? 1 The discrimination, the application, which on that occasion 1 Vitak ko and vicaro is a pair of terms which it is hard to fit with any one pair of English words. It is very possible that academic teaching came to attach a more pregnant and specialized import to them than was conveyed in popular and purely ethical usage. Cf. M. i, Suttas xix and xx, where vitakka would be adequately rendered by ideas, notions, or thoughts. In Asl. 114, 115, on the other hand (cf. Mil. 62, 63), the relation of the two to cittam and to each other is set out with much metaphor, if with too little psychological grasp. Vitak ko is distinctively mental procedure at the inception of a train of thought, the deliberate movement of voluntary attention. As a king ascends to his palace leaning on the arm of favourite or relative, so mind, or consciousness, ascends to its object depending upon the apprehensive act (vitakko; Asl. 114). Other metaphorical attributes are its impingeing upon, circum-impingeing upon (paryahanam), the object, and, again, bringing it near. Hence in selecting "application in preference to "reasoning", by which vitak ko has often been translated, I wished to bring out this grasping, apprehending, reaching-out act of the mind, this incipient fetch of the consciousness elaborated in the Buddhist scholastic analysis of the term. Yet, just as applied thinking may include "reasoning" or "ratiocination", so vitakk o is, in the reply, described by takko, the term used for ratiocinative procedure, argument, or logic (cf. D. i, 12, 21). "What," asks the Cy., "does one reason about (takkesi)? About a pot, a cart, the distance of anything. Well, vitak ko is a stronger reasoning." |