[sybe07]

Hi All,

In a citta vitthi after the Pancadvaravajjana moment there arises a certain vinnana, for example cakkhu vinnana or sota vinnana. I have seen some teachers refer to this as a moment of ‘primary consciousness’.

I wonder, this kind of vinnana is this allready defiled with a sense of I or Me? Is there at that moment a sense of an I who sees or hears? Or is this moment a kind of ‘pure’ awareness in the sense that there is not yet a subject-object division or other anusaya related defilements?

Siebe

[Lal]

This is a very complex subject.

But I think the key point is that we NEVER experience a single citta.
In a pandvara citta vithi there are 17 citta. Then it is followed immediately by three manodvara citta vithi; see, “Citta Vithi – Processing of Sense Inputs“.

Then if the subject is of interest, there will be many many more sequences of the above in rapid succession. Millions of them can occur in a split second.

It takes at least 10 milliseconds (hundredth of a second) for us to register a picture in our mind according to scientists; see #7 of “Citta and Cetasika – How Vinnana (Consciousness) Arises“.

So, what we experience is the cumulative effect of millions of citta vithi.

We NEVER experience the cakkhu vinnana that arises first. By the time we have the experience, they are contaminated due to our gati. What we experience is vinnanakkhandha, not citta or even vinnana.

[sybe07]

Thanks Lal, Yes, i have thought about that too.

still we can come to a kind of experience which is not defiled, right? Then in the seeing there is only the seeing, in the hearing only the hearing etc. There are no likes or dislikes or even a subject/object split.

Is what an arahant experiences still vinnanakhandha?

[Lal]

“still we can come to a kind of experience which is not defiled, right? Then in the seeing there is only the seeing, in the hearing only the hearing etc. There are no likes or dislikes or even a subject/object split..”

When we see an object, whether we generate likes/dislikes depends on the object AND our gati.

One may not generate any like/dislike if the object is of no interest. We see so many things in a given day, but like or dislike only a fraction of them.

However, if we do experience like or a dislike, that happens very fast. It happens with mano sankhara, due to our gati automatically; see, my response to “Difference between Tanha and Upadana“.

[Author]

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