Glossary
Thana = functioning place
Patisandhi = rebirth
Bhavanga = subconsciousness
Avajjana = advertence
Sampticchana = receiving
Santirana = investigating
Vottappana = determining
Javana = impulsion
Tadalambana = registering
Cuti = dying
Vatthu = event
Cavani = falling
Skein = a length of thread or yarn, loosely coiled and knotted (especially into a figure of eight); a tangle, a confusion.
Last week we studied the 14 functions performed by various citta. We learned that every citta performs at least one type of function.
Today we will learn about thana (functioning place). Dr Mehm Tin Mon writes in his book “The Essence of Buddha Abhidhamma” (1995: pp, 120, 121):
As we need a place or office to carry out a particular job, so citta needs places to perform their functions. It is the body-substance of each citta which serves as the place of performing its function.
The ‘body-substance of each citta’ refers to the citta itself. So the place of function of citta is the same as the citta.
There are 10 thana (functioning places) because 5 related functions (i.e. 5 sense-impressions) are performed in turn in a single thana called ‘panca-vinnana thana’:
patisandhi-thana = 19 patisandhi citta
bhavanga-thana = 19 bhavanga citta
avajjana-tana = 2 avajjana citta
panca-vinnana thana = 10 dvi-pancavinnana citta
sampaticchana-thana = 2 sampaticchana citta
santirana-thana = 3 santirana citta
votthappana-thana = mano-dvaravajjana citta
javana-thana = 55 javana citta
tadalambana-thana = 11 tadalambana citta
cuti-thana = 19 cuti citta
Today’s topic for the Abhidhamma class ties in with the chapter titled “Description of the Soil in which Understanding Grows” in the Visuddhimagga, written by Bhadantacariya Buddhaghosa (Chapter XVII). The following is a small part of this chapter.
…When in the past becoming a man near to a natural or violent death is unable to bear the onset of the unbearable daggers of the [painful] feelings that end in death as they sever the ligatures of the joints in all the limbs, his body gradually withers like a green palm leaf lying in the glare of the sun, and when the faculties of the eye, etc., have ceased and the body faculty, mind faculty, and life faculty remain on in the heart-basis alone, then consciousness, which has as its support the heart-basis still remaining at that moment, either occurs contingent upon some kamma classed as ‘weighty, ‘repeated’, performed ‘near’ [to death] or previously 1 in other words, the formation that has obtained the remaining conditions, or contingent upon the objective field made to appear by that kamma, in other words, the sign of the kamma or sign of the destiny 2.
And while it is occurring thus, because craving and ignorance have not been abandoned, craving pushes it and the conascent formations fling it forward 3 on to that objective field, the dangers in which are concealed by ignorance.
And while, as a continuous process 4, it is being pushed by craving and flung forward by formations, it abandons its former support, like a man who crosses a river by hanging on to a rope tied to a tree on the near bank, and, whether or not it gets a further support originated by kamma, it occurs by means of the conditions consisting only in object condition, and so on. (Visuddhimagga, XVII, 163)
The former of these [two states of consciousness] is called ‘death (cuti) because of falling (cavani), and the latter is called ‘rebirth-linking (pati-sandhi)’ because of linking (pati-sandhana) across the gap separating the beginning of the next becoming.
But it should be understood that it has neither come here from the previous becoming nor has it become manifest without the kamma, the formations, the pushing, the objective field, etc., as cause (Visuddhimagga, XVII, 164).
An echo, or its like, supplies
The figures here; connectedness
By continuity denies
Identity and otherness.
(Visuddhimagga, XVII, 165)
And here let the illustration of this consciousness be such things as an echo, a light, a seal impression, a looking-glass image, for the fact of its not coming here from the previous becoming and for the fact that it arises owing to causes that are included in past becomings.
For just an echo, a light, seal impression, and a shadow, have respectively sound, etc., as their cause and come into being without going elsewhere, so also this consciousness (Visuddhimagga, XVII, 166).
And with a stream of continuity there is neither identity nor otherness. For if there were absolute identity in a stream of continuity, there would be no forming of curd from milk. And yet if there were absolute otherness, the curd would not be derived from the milk. And so too with all causally arisen things. And if that were so there would be an end to all worldly usage, which is hardly desirable. So neither absolute identity nor absolute otherness would be assumed here (Visuddhimagga, XVII, 167).
There is no one, even in a dream, who has got out of the fearful round of rebirths, which is ever destroying like a thunderbolt, unless he has severed with the knife of knowledge well whetted on the stone of sublime concentration, this Wheel of Becoming, which offers no footing owing to its great profundity and is hard to get by owing to the maze of many methods (Visuddhimagga, XVII, 334).
And this has been said by the Blessed One.: ‘This dependent origination is profound, Ananda, and profound it appears. And, Ananda, it is through not knowing, through not penetrating it, that this generation has become a tangled skein, a knotted ball of thread, root-matted as a reed bed, and finds no way out of the round of the rebirths, with its states of loss, unhappy destinies, …perdition’ (Digha Nikaya ii, 55).
Therefore, practising for his own and others’ benefit and welfare, and abandoning other duties,
Let a wise man with mindfulness
So practice that he may begin
To find a footing in the deeps
Of the Dependent Origin.
The seventh chapter concluding “The Description of the Soil in which Understanding Grows” in the treatise on the development of understanding in the Path of Purification composed for the purpose of gladdening good people (Vissuddhimagga, XVII, 334).
Bibliography
Brown, Lesley (editor), (1993), "The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary", Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Buddhaghosa, Bhadantacariya, (no date), “The Visuddhi Magga”, translated from the Pali by Bhikkhu Nanamoli, Singapore Buddhist Meditation Centre, Singapore
Mon, Dr. Mehm Tin (1995), “The Essence of Buddha Abhidhamma”, Publisher Mehm Tay Zar Mon, Yangon.
The printed version of this paper is written in the Titus font. This font displays diacritical marks and can be downloaded from website http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/framee.htm?/unicode/unitest2.htm.
The Titus font is recommended by the Pali Text Society and works with the digital Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary at website http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/pali. Please note that in order to display diacritical marks on your computer, you need to have special fonts such as the Titus font installed on your machine.
Our Reference: LAN 2 I:/abhi061.rtf
1Of ‘near’ kamma:... is that performed next to death, or which is conspicuous in the memory then, whenever it was performed.
2“Sign of the kamma” is the even (vatthu) by means of which a man accumulates kamma through making it the objective at the time of accumulation. Even if the kamma was performed as much as a hundred thousand aeons ago, nevertheless at the time of its ripening it appears as kamma or sign of kamma. The “sign of the destiny” is one of the visual scenes in the place where rebirth is due to take place. It consists in the visual appearance of flames of fire, etc., to one ready to be reborn in hell, and so on as already stated.
3Owing to craving being unabandoned, and because the previously-arisen continuity is similarly deflected, consciousness occurs inclining, leaning and tending towards the place of rebirth linking. The “conascent formations” are the volitions conascent with the impulsion consciousness next to death. Or they are all those things that begin with contact. They fling consciousness on to that place of rebirth-linking, which is the object of the kamma and so on. The meaning is that they occur as the cause for the establishment of consciousness on the object by rebirth-linking as though flinging it there’.
4‘As a continuous process consisting of death, rebirth-linking, and the adjacent consciousnesses'.