13 August 2002, Abhidhamma class No. 8
Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.
33 Brooking Street, Upwey, Victoria Australia
Prepared by John D. Hughes, Anita Hughes, Evelin Halls and Pennie White
Your assumption is that your merit consumption for learning Abhidhamma at our Centre will be the same as it is today, over the next nine years. This assumption is problematic in three ways – the current state of the world, the current state of education and the current state of work patterns.
The state of the world (loka) is deteriorating in kali-yuga, for example, the effects of pollution, global warming, population pressures, wars against the Evil Axis, the El Nino effect, the ageing population, salinity, AIDS, the need to replace the old sewerage system and the need to provide clean drinking water will cause an increase in the taxes you must pay.
It is unlikely that sufficient money can be generated to maintain the high Australian education standards. Assumptions underlying educational funding are about to change as funds dry up. At present, the average number of years a five-year old child spends in education is 20 years in Australia – this is the highest recorded in the OECD countries and is non-sustainable.
The Encyclopaedia Book of the Year 2001, under the heading of Social Indicators for Australia, gives educational attainment (1995) as the population between 15 to 64 years old with no formal education 0.3 %; incomplete secondary education 36.3 %; completed secondary education 17.8 %, post-secondary, technical or other certificate/diploma 33.7 %; university 11.9 %.
The third part deals with present work patterns. What happens when the current batch of post-secondary educated persons enter the work force with the current work patterns of job displacement as a norm?
The tendency is for highly skilled successful persons to be much in demand, work long hours for more money, and less skilled persons to work part-time. Last year, more part-time than full-time jobs were created in Australia. It is estimated that those in the present work force will have 11 retrenchments towards new working positions over their working career. The average time to find a suitable new job is 8 to 10 months after retrenchment. Only the self-employed persons have job security. Two years of starting a business 28 % of self-employed persons are out of business and 13 % last 10 years in self-employment.
We look forward to improving our facilities, for example, obtaining broadband access, improving our library storage space, providing more ergonomic furniture for each Member attending our classes, improving heating and cooling facilities, and providing a Wide Area Network (WAN) to Members’ home terminals to give more background information.
We see the reality that merit consumption will increase over the next nine years, therefore it is imperative you focus on merit production to sustain your Abhidhamma learning.
Although the Abhidhamma classes are free, your ability to pay for broadband Internet access to connect to our information systems will not be cheap. Home ADSL is offered from $49.95 per month, terms, conditions and connection fees apply.
Your ability to fund the production of several colour photos every week could cost you $100 per week. If you were to fund such activities over nine years your chances of reading and writing would improve, somewhat.
As the classes develop, optimum learning could cost you $200 per week. An income generation plan for the next nine years is a requisite for sustaining your optimised Abhidhamma learning.
It is hard to practice charity if you are poor.
The OECD report (Encyclopaedia Britannica Year Book 2001) titled “Literacy in the Information Age” compared 20 nations in terms of their reading and calculating skills of people between the ages of 16 – 65 years.
Literacy was rated on a five-level scale varying from “very poor” (level 1) to “higher-order information processing skills” (levels 4 and 5).
The report concluded in the countries studied, between one-quarter and three-quarters of adults failed to achieve a literacy of level 3, considered by experts as a minimum skill level for coping with the demands of modern life and work.
We think it unlikely, if you were at literacy level 3 you could learn Abhidhamma.
By the end of the decade the average adult within the age range of 25 to 34 had participated for one year in continuing education.
In the year 2000 approximately 40 % of young people could look forward to entering a post secondary school program equivalent to a bachelor’s degree. The World Conference on Education of 1500 delegates held in Dakar, Senegal in 2000, found that there were 880 million adults who were illiterate and an estimated 130 million children (mainly girls) that had no access to primary education.
To be literate for the rest of this life and next life is essential.
What causes must we make now to have the conditions for education and learning to arise in future lives (over the next 10 years)?
In our Abhidhamma study we will use vast amounts of merit in education processes.
To be able to generate sufficient merit for the next nine years (your future life) to receive Abhidhamma education you ought to:
1.offer A4 paper to the Centre
2.pay for ink cartridges
3.offer printed material to the Centre
4.offer printed material from our websites and photographs to fellow Members
Our computers depreciate and are upgraded every 2 to 3 months. We use one cartridge every 3 weeks (4000 sheets per cartridge) at a commercial rate of approximately $55 per cartridge. Our operators’ time in writing, producing and publishing weekly Abhidhamma lessons is within a 24 hour period. The usual office overhead costs apply (heat, light, gas, and power).
Our Abhidhamma writers have literacy skill levels between 4 and 5 (higher order information processing skills). We assume our present writers in education will be able to make sufficient merit in educational processes to continue to write.
We ought to support our present writers to stay at literacy levels 4 and 5 by:
1.Creating, maintaining a fine environment for Members to read, write, research and learn within.
2.Support the production of fine food for all Members.
3.Maintain a suitable chi flow in all areas by maintaining cleanliness of the air, not cluttering the areas and providing sufficient flower and water offerings to our two resident Practitioners, Devas and Devatas.
4.Financing and supporting the means of production of our educational materials. We cannot use other materials for our websites because of copyright and we cannot afford to pay royalties to authors and publishers.
We give access to our educational products on Internet at no charge, except your own equipment and printing expenses. For example, we estimate one of our average colour photographs printed on “coated high-resolution” paper from a bitmap images costs about $8 to $10. At present we cannot afford to give too many copies of our in-house produced photographs.
It is imperative that students of Abhidhamma print and download key photographs from our website at their own expense and distribute them to others as Dana.
This will provide a sound basis for future access to such photographs for the next nine years. This is one factor needed to working towards continuity of attendance at Abhidhamma classes.
We now learn the Ahetuka Cittas, which are the second group of Kamavacara Cittas – consciousness mostly experienced in the sense sphere (Kama-loka).
There are 54 Kamavacara Cittas, which are divided into three classes:
1.Akusala cittas = immoral consciousness (12)
2.Ahetuka cittas = rootless consciousness (18)
3.Kama-sobhana cittas = beautiful consciousness in the sense-sphere (24)
Over the last three lessons we have learnt the Kama-sobhana cittas, which comprise of 8 Maha-kusala cittas, 8 Maha-vipaka cittas, and 8 Maha-kiriya cittas.
The Maha-kiriya cittas (Great Functional Consciousness) arise in Arhats when they perform wholesome deeds and they bear no kammic result.
We recommend you learn the Pali names mentioned. The translations here are short and precise and will help you to understand the translations.
Ahetuka Cittas
(Rootless Consciousness)
Hetu = mula = cause or root-condition
Akusala-hetu = unwholesome roots (lobha, dosa, moha)
Kusala-hetu = wholesome roots (alobha, adosa, amoha)
There are 18 Ahetuka Cittas and they bear no kamma result. They are divided into 3 groups:
1.The 7 Akusala-vipaka cittas are unwholesome resultant cittas that arise as the inevitable result of akusala cittas.
2.The 8 Ahetuka kusala vipaka cittas are wholesome and rootless resultant cittas that arise as the inevitable results of kusala cittas.
3.The 3 Ahetuka kiriya cittas are rootless functional consciousnesses.
Of the seven Akusala-vipaka cittas the first 5 are known as Panca-vinnana, 5 cittas that are aware of the 5 senses. These 7 Akusala-vipaka cittas are:
1.Upekkha-sahagatam cakkhuvinnanam
(eye-consciousness accompanied by indifference)
2.Upekkha-sahagatam sotavinnanam
(ear-consciousness accompanied by indifference)
3.Upekkha-sahagatam ghanavinnanam
(nose-consciousness accompanied by indifference)
4.Upekkha-sahagatam jivhavinnanam
(tongue-consciousness accompanied by indifference)
5.Dukkha-sahagatam kayavinnanam
(body-consciousness accompanied by painful feeling)
6.Upekkha-sahagatam sampaticchana-cittam
(receptive-consciousness accompanied by indifference)
7.Upekkha-sahagatam santirana-cittam
(investigating-consciousness accompanied by indifference)
The 8 Ahetuka kusala vipaka Cittas are:
1.Upekkha-sahagatam cakkhu-vinnanam
(eye-consciousness accompanied by indifference)
2. Upekkha-sahagatam sotavinnanam
(ear-consciousness accompanied by indifference)
3. Upekkha-sahagatam ghanavinnanam
(nose-consciousness accompanied by indifference)
4. Upekkha-sahagatam jivhavinnanam
(tongue-consciousness accompanied by indifference)
5. Sukha-sahagatam kayavinnanam
(body-consciousness accompanied by indifference)
6. Upekkha-sahagatam sampaticchana-cittam
(receptive-consciousness accompanied by indifference)
7. Upekkha-sahagatam santirana-cittam
(investigating-consciousness accompanied by indifference)
8.Somanassa-sahagatam santirana cittam
(investigating-consciousness accompanied by joy)
In the Abhidhamma Teaching you are in contact with disagreeable senses in account with your own past according to your own past akusala-kamma (unwholesome deeds) and at these instances akusala vipaka cittas will arise in the cognition process.
On the other hand you are in contact with agreeable senses on account of your own past kusala-kamma (wholesome deeds) and at these instances kusala-vipaka cittas will arise in the cognition process.
All the akusala-vipaka cittas and the ahetuka kusala vipaka cittas, being comparatively weak as they are not aware of the senses as good or bad yet, are accompanied by neutral feeling; the exceptions are that the two body kayavinnana cittas are accompanied by either painful or pleasant feeling and the somanassa-santirana citta, which arises when the sense is excellent, is accompanied by joy.
The 3 ahetuka kiriya cittas are:
1.Upekkha-sahagatam pancadvaravajjana-cittam
(five-door adverting consciousness accompanied by indifference)
2.Upekkha-sahagatam manodvaravajjana-cittam
(mind-door adverting consciousness accompanied by indifference)
3.Somanassa-sahagatam hasituppada-cittam
(smile-producing consciousness accompanied by joy)
The functions of the first two in the process of cognition is that the mind adverts consciousness towards the sense. For example, the Pancadvaravajjana citta works like a wave-length selector of a radio. Because of it we can take note of the senses one after one. When the sense or thought object appears at the mind-door, it is manodvaravajjana, which adverts the consciousness towards the sense.
The third process, which is the Hasituppada-citta can arise only in Buddha and Arhats when they smile.
References:
Encyclopaedia Brittanica Year Book 2001, p. 548.
Mon, Dr. Mehm Tin, 1995, “The Essence of Buddha Abhidhamma”, published by Mehm Tay Zar Mon, Dagon, Yangon, pp. 20 to 35.
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