Function of Bhavanga - Bhavanga-citta and the mind-door process

When a sense-door process of cittas begins, the rūpa which has impinged on that sense-door is experienced and when the last citta of that process has fallen away there are bhavanga-cittas again. The object, however, can be experienced through the mind-door. The last two bhavanga-cittas arising before the mind-door-adverting-consciousness (mano-dvārāvajjana-citta) are the bhavanga-calana (vibrating bhavanga) and the bhavangupaccheda (arrest-bhavanga) . Then the mano-dvaravajjana-citta adverts to the object through the mind-door and it is succeeded by seven kusala cittas or akusala cittas (in the case of non-arahats). Summarizing these cittas, they are :

          bhavanga-calana (vibrating bhavanga)

          bhavangupaccheda (arrest-bhavanga)

          mano-dvārāvajjana-citta (mind-door-adverting-consciousness)

          seven akusala or kusala cittas (or, for the arahat, kiriyacittas)

Before the arising of the bhavanga-calana of that mind-door process there are

many bhavanga-cittas arising and falling away. There is no atīta-bhavanga,

past bhavanga, before the mind-door process.

 

When the mind-door process is over, the stream of bhavanga-cittas is

resumed until there is again a process of cittas experiencing an object

through one of the sense-doors or through the mind-door. There are

countless bhavanga-cittas arising all through our life in between the processes

of cittas experiencing an object through one of the sense-doors or through

the mind-door.