[Buddha-l] Does 'momentariness' remove emotion from citta?

[Dharmachari Mahabodhi]

Dan,

Margaret Cone made a similar point, that citta is saraga (connected with lust) not merely raga (lust.)  
I take your point.

> Mind *with* hate, as "with* hate.

> Mind is accompanied by the cetasika "hate." Mind itself is not hate.

The way I see mind is that it takes a variety of forms or shapes.  If there is something pressing to think about it thinks.  If it is feeling something strongly the result is emotion.  It can be distracted, in jhana, mindful, kind, insightful, enlightened, the whole gamut of responses a human being can have, and this is why it is justified to render it 'heart-mind' and not 'thought,' which is unrepresentative of that range of responses, unless by thought you mean some technical term connected with the theory of momentariness, but ordinary non-technical practitioners will not take that as a technicality, they will take it literally and think that citta bhavana is the manipulation of their thoughts and not, crucially, also the transformation of their emotions.

> Here perhaps you are showing the implicit assumption that elicited the 

> question in the first place. You seem to think that only emotion 

> "motivates," 

I didn't say that.  In fact I am making the point that how we think about citta (or view of it) motivates our actions in dealing with it.   If we don't think mind includes emotions, we won't think we need to transform them when we try to transform mind - we will tend to overlook the brahmaviharas for instance.   This constitutes a kind of 'inaction' in relation to the emotions.  With a different wrong view (if say we saw citta as 'emotion' / the process of emotion') we would probably end up being inactive in relation to our thoughts - we would neglect reflection.  It is a case of inclusivity, of including both emotions and thoughts in our view of citta.  How could the complete transformation of the human being be otherwise.

> And perhaps another assumption you hold -- Abhidhamma = egghead useless 

> intellectualism. 

> Abhidhamma gets very bad press, and most academic Buddhologists, not to 

> mention practitioners, try to avoid it like poison. So making up negative 

> impressions of what it is, or doesn't do, without really exploring it 

> carefully hardly seems like a shining example of ehipassika.

I don't have it in for the Abhidhamma, laying things out analytically can be very helpful - we are more likely to recognize the mental states we are in, but I am just curious about things I have noticed that I find it hard to make sense of - like the labeling of emotions as thoughts - this is my attempt to explore it carefully.

> The suttas do use the mind as mirror metaphor. Mind is "with lust", mind 
> itself is not lust. It is colored, flavored, surrounded by lust, momentarily 
> enveloped in an atmosphere of lust -- but precisely because it itself is not 
> lust, or hate, etc., one can calm down instantaneously, snap out of it.

Or you could say there are always other possibilities to mind, because of the nature of conditionality.
> 
> >> Citta apperceives emotions, thoughts, ideas, mental activities of all 
> >> sorts. In itself, it is dispassionate --- hence those who translate it without "heart"
> >> are more faithful to the traditional understanding.

I don't understand your logic.  Why should citta be translated as 'thought' if thought, like emotion, is just one of its 'attributes.' 

Is the bodhicitta dispassionate?


Mahabodhi
Triratna Buddhist 
Order
07973 699750

www.mahabodhi.org.uk



> From: vasubandhu at earthlink.net
> To: buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
> Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2011 11:39:18 -0500
> Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Does 'momentariness' remove emotion from citta?
> 
> Mahabodhi,
> 
> >I think you are missing my point.  Isn't it the case that in the Pali 
> >Suttas there is just citta, there is no 'cetasika, the momentary content of 
> >the apperceptive vector.'
> 
> In fact, the term cetasika occurs dozens of times in the Tipitaka, and fully 
> consistent with how it gets further refined in the Abhidhamma. You are 
> imagining an "original" meaning of citta that is simply modern imagining. 
> The passage you quoted in your previous message is a perfect example of how 
> this works, even without the word cetasika appearing:
> 
> You wrote:
> "Satipatthana Sutta 'the monk sees a mind with hate as with hate..'"
> 
> Mind *with* hate, as "with* hate.
> Mind is accompanied by the cetasika "hate." Mind itself is not hate.
> 
> 
> >> Think of it this way. Citta is like a mirror -- the surface is simply 
> >> what
> >> it is, and reflects whatever colors, shapes, etc. appear before it.
> 
> >This isn't the view in the Suttas.  How is a 'mind with lust' a mirror? 
> >Isn't this a later view?
> 
> The suttas do use the mind as mirror metaphor. Mind is "with lust", mind 
> itself is not lust. It is colored, flavored, surrounded by lust, momentarily 
> enveloped in an atmosphere of lust -- but precisely because it itself is not 
> lust, or hate, etc., one can calm down instantaneously, snap out of it.
> 
> >> Citta apperceives emotions, thoughts, ideas, mental activities of all 
> >> sorts. In
> >> itself, it is dispassionate --- hence those who translate it without 
> >> "heart"
> >> are more faithful to the traditional understanding.
> 
> >I disagree with this interpretation of citta because it leads to inaction, 
> >and the Buddha criticized views that led to inaction.
> 
> Here perhaps you are showing the implicit assumption that elicited the 
> question in the first place. You seem to think that only emotion 
> "motivates," hence mental conditions that are not emotions will not 
> motivate, and hence lead to inaction. That is NOT the Buddhist view. Ditthi, 
> papanca, avijja, etc. are prime motivators...
> 
> >And that would be a valid reason to criticize the Abhidhamma - if the 
> >theory of momentariness led to inaction.
> 
> And perhaps another assumption you hold -- Abhidhamma = egghead useless 
> intellectualism. Might I recommend Bhikkhu Dhammajoti's _Sarvastivada 
> Abhidharma_ (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, 2009) as a corrective to 
> that misimpression? Or perhaps Andrew Olendzki's Unlimiting Mind: The 
> Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism, which I ran into onto amazon 
> the other day
> http://tinyurl.com/49ehpdm
> Browsed it a bit online (amazon let's you "look inside").
> 
> Abhidhamma gets very bad press, and most academic Buddhologists, not to 
> mention practitioners, try to avoid it like poison. So making up negative 
> impressions of what it is, or doesn't do, without really exploring it 
> carefully hardly seems like a shining example of ehipassika.
> 
> Seems like something necessary, so that one notices little but important 
> things, like the difference between "hate" and being "with hate."
> 
> Dan
> 
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