Ahetuka Cittas which are Unknown in Daily Life - Panca-dvaravajjana-citta

As we have seen, there are altogether eighteen ahetuka cittas. Of these eighteen ahetuka cittas fifteen are vipākacittas and three are kiriyācittas. Kiriyācittas are different from akusala cittas and kusala cittas and from vipākacittas. Akusala cittas and kusala cittas are cittas which are cause; they can motivate ill deeds and good deeds which are capable of producing their appropriate results. Vipākacittas are cittas which are the result of akusala kamma and kusala kamma. Kiriyācittas are cittas which are neither cause nor result. 

 

One type of ahetuka kiriyācitta is the 'five-door-adverting-

consciousness', in Pāli: pañca-dvārāvajjana-citta. When an object

impinges on one of the five senses, there has to be a citta which adverts or

turns towards the object through that sense-door. When visible object

impinges on the eyesense, there has to be the adverting-consciousness which

adverts to visible object through the eye-door, the eye-door-adverting-

consciousness (cakkhu-dvārāvajjana-citta; ''cakkhu'' means ''eye''), before

there can be seeing-consciousness (cakkhu-viññāna). When sound impinges

on the earsense, the ear-door-adverting-consciousness (sota- dvārāvajjana-

citta; ''sota'' means ''ear'') has to advert to the sound through the ear-door

before there can be hearing-consciousness (sota-viiññāna). The pañca-

dvārāvajjana-citta merely turns towards the object which impinges on one of

the five senses. It turns, for example, towards the visible object or sound

which impinges on the corresponding sense-organ, but it does not see or

hear. The pañca-dvārāvajjana-citta is an ahetuka kiriyācitta, it arises without

hetu (root); there is not yet like or dislike when this citta arises. The pañca-

dvārāvajjana-citta is succeeded by one of the dvi-pañca viññānas, which is

vipākacitta.

 

Each citta which arises in the process of cittas experiencing an object has its

own function. 

 

The cittas which experience an object through one of the sense-doors do not

know anything else but that object. When one, for example, is reading, the

citta which sees experience only visible object and it does not know the

meaning of the letters. After the eye-door process has been completed visible

object is experienced through the mind-door and then there can be other

mind-door processes of cittas which know the meaning of what has been

written and which think about it. Thus, there are processes of cittas which

experience an object through one of the senses and processes of cittas which

experience an object through the mind-door.