CONSCIOUSNESS ENLARGED Venerable U Thittila Published by Abhidhamma-Förderverein e.V. Consciousness Enlarged Venerable U Thittila Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com 2nd edition 2019 Published by Abhidhamma-Förderverein e.V. c Abhidhamma-Förderverein e.V. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license as found here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. It allows you to share, copy and redistribute this material in any medium or format, and adapt, remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, under the following terms: • Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any rea- sonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. No additional restrictions—You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits. Cover design by: Fikret Yildirim Printed by: Digitaldruck Leibi, Neu-Ulm Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Contents Foreword Talk One, Part One 1 Introduction to the Abhidhammatthasangaha˙ . 1 Two Streams of Transmission .............. 2 Ven. Anuruddha, the Author ............... 6 The Chapters in Brief ................... 8 Talk One, Part Two 12 Homage .......................... 12 Prologue .......................... 13 Verse 1 .......................... 14 Four Ultimate Realities . 15 Verse 2 .......................... 17 Divisions of Consciousness . 20 Verse 3 .......................... 20 Talk Two, Part One 24 The M¯atik¯a ........................ 25 Kusala and Akusala .................... 28 The Roots ......................... 30 Verse 4 .......................... 31 Greed ........................... 33 Feeling ........................... 36 Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Talk Two, Part Two 38 Neutral Feeling ...................... 38 Associated with, and Dissociated from, Wrong View . 39 Wrong View ........................ 40 Conceit .......................... 41 Four Denotations of States . 42 Uninstigated and Instigated . 44 Factorial Consciousness . 45 The Resultant Appearance of Connecting . 47 Talk Three, Part One 50 Causal Relationship .................... 51 Dependent Origination . 51 Consciousness Accompanied by Hatred . 59 Verse 5 .......................... 59 Talk Three, Part Two 63 Hatred ........................... 63 Dullness and Delusion . 67 Verse 6 .......................... 67 Distraction ........................ 72 Verse 7 .......................... 74 Verse 8 .......................... 75 Talk Four, Part One 77 Action and Resultant ................... 77 The Cognitive Process . 81 Consciousness and its Concomitants . 82 Verse 9 .......................... 88 Talk Four, Part Two 90 Verse 10 .......................... 91 Resultants ......................... 92 Hammer and Anvil .................... 98 Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Talk Five, Part One 103 Rootless-Inoperative Integral-Conscious States . 104 Verse 11 . 105 Five-Door-Adverting Consciousness . 107 Bhavanga˙ . 108 Mind-Door-Adverting Consciousness . 109 Smile Causing Consciousness . 112 Verse 12 . 114 Verse 13 . 115 Talk Five, Part Two 117 The Buddha’s Teaching is Analytical . 118 Avijj¯a . 122 Verse 14 . 125 Talk Six, Part One 129 The Good Roots . 129 Good States and Bad States Cannot Coexist at the same Time . 131 The Good Roots are not Non-Action . 135 Denotations of the Good Roots . 138 Talk Six, Part Two 141 Characteristic of the Plane of Sense Desire . 141 Good Productive Integral Conscious States . 143 Javana . 144 Verse 15 . 146 Two- and Three-Rooted Skilful States . 149 Do Good States also Lead to Rebirth? . 153 Talk Seven, Part One 155 The Great Resultants . 159 Verse 16 . 159 Inoperative States . 161 Verse 17 . 164 Summary . 165 Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Verse 18 . 165 Verse 19 . 166 Verse 20 . 168 Talk Seven, Part Two 170 Sublime consciousness . 170 The Five Hindrances . 172 Mahaggata States . 175 Jh¯ana . 178 Verse 21 . 180 Verse 22 . 181 Verse 23 . 182 Verse 24 . 184 How the Jh¯anas Suppress the Hindrances . 184 Talk Eight, Part One 187 The Five Constituents of Jh¯ana . 188 Suppression of the Wish for Sense Desire . 189 Suppression of Ill Will . 194 Suppression of Sloth and Torpor . 196 Talk Eight, Part Two 200 Suppression of Distraction and Remorse . 200 Suppression of Doubt . 203 Where the Battle Lies . 205 Putting Aside Jh¯ana Factors . 207 Verse 25 . 212 Talk Nine, Part One 213 Consciousness Characteristic of the Formless Plane . 213 Infinity of Space . 214 Infinity of Consciousness . 216 Nothingness . 217 Neither Perception Nor Non-Perception . 221 Verse 26 . 223 Verse 27 . 224 Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Verse 28 . 225 Verse 29 . 226 Verse 30 . 226 Talk Nine, Part Two 229 Nibb¯ana . 231 The Soil in Which Understanding Grows . 232 States Which are to be Abandoned . 238 Talk Ten, Part One 243 The Paths and Fruitions . 244 Verse 31 . 244 Verse 32 . 245 Verse 33 . 245 Verse 34 . 246 Talk Ten, Part Two 258 Learners . 261 Adepts . 265 Verse 35 . 270 Verse 36 . 270 Talk Eleven, Part One 272 89 and 121 Consciousnesses . 272 Verse 37 . 272 Verse 38 . 280 Verse 39 . 282 Verse 40 . 282 Verse 41 . 284 Verse 42, Stanza 1 . 285 Verse 42, Stanza 2 . 286 Verse 43 . 287 Talk Eleven, Part Two 288 A General Survey . 288 A Story of S¯ariputta and Moggall¯ana . 289 Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com The Truth of Suffering . 296 The Truth of the Cause of Suffering . 297 The Truth of the Cessation of Suffering . 298 The Truth of the Way Leading to the Cessation of Suf- fering . 299 The Vortex . 303 The Mango Simile 307 Tables 311 Charts 319 Bibliography 336 About the Author 339 About Abhidhamma Förderverein e.V. 341 Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Foreword This is the transcript of a course on consciousness, citta, as laid out in Abhidhammatthasangaha,˙ the traditional primer on Ab- hidhamma in the Therav¯ada Buddhist world. It was given by the Burmese Sayadaw U Thittila in England, probably in 1983. The Sayadaw, then in his 87th year, gave a comprehensive verse-by-verse explanation of the material. In its masterly ex- planations, conversational tone, and lucid style it is a sound in- troduction to the subject, and—by Abhidhamma standards—a fun read. Sayadaw was one of the very few learned Burmese Monks who spoke English and also travelled abroad in the 20th Century. Sadly, it appears that Sayadaw U Thittila only gave this one course on the first chapter of the Abhidhammatthasangaha˙ and never covered the remaining ones. But Sayadaw digressed of- ten to make clear fundamentals necessary for understanding the topics at hand, and so—in the end—a big part of Abhidhamma is covered. Anyway,we would be very grateful for any hints leading to the discovery of other unpublished manuscripts by Sayadaw U Thittila. In case you can help in this matter, please contact Abhidhamma-Förderverein at [email protected] As the Abhidhamma otherwise is a very difficult subject to approach, I feel very glad that this primer is released in print and online for the benefit of those interested. Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Because the course was also released on cassette we kept the chapter titles as they were, but references to the P¯ali canon and elsewhere were updated to more recent translations. Loads of thanks go to ven. Anandajoti and ven. Dham- manando for identifying the author, ven. Agganyani and Josephine Tobin, who kindly did the proofreading, Jan Vasatko, who very ably rearranged the charts, as well as to Abhidhamma- Förderverein for their support. The digital version of this book can be downloaded at http://www.abhidhamma.com/Consciousness_Thittila.pdf. The first nine chapters of the original audio course can also be found in the audio section at http://www.abhidhamma.com. Manfred Wierich Hamburg September 2018 Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Talk One, Part One Introduction to the Abhidhammatthasangaha˙ This is the first of a series of talks in which the aim is to speak of, 1. and to enlarge upon to some extent by way of explanation, the book entitled Abhidhammatthasangaha.˙ It is a book, which for many hundreds of years has, in Buddhist countries of the East, been considered as the one manual, which, for the acquiring of a basic knowledge of the technicalities of the Buddhist Teaching, should, above all others, be studied first. In the history of Buddhist literature, Abhidhammattha- 2. sangaha˙ is a comparatively modern work in so far as it is only eight or nine hundred years old. As an important work of Bud- dhist scholarship, and as a manual or primer of Buddhist teach- ing, it is, though, a book with a great ancestry and long lineage. As a summary of basic teaching, it stands in the direct line of scriptural and exegetical material, extending from the time of the Enlightenment of the Buddha by way of his teaching to his followers, then from teacher to pupil within the monastic order, and on through the centuries to the date of its composition, and from thence until the present day. As a small and incisive source of knowledge it may therefore 3. be considered as a kind of gem, in that within its small compass it exhibits brilliance, form, and durability, wherein by its brilliance it represents the Buddha; by its form the nature and exactness of his teaching, the Dhamma; and by its durability his monastic Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com1 order, the Sangha.˙ But first, to enlarge a little upon its ancestry and lineage, to show through what channels its substance has come, and how those channels were formed. 4. According to Western calculations, based on comparative historical research into the regnal years of the ancient kings of India and Sri Lanka, the Buddha attained to his Enlightenment in or about the year 528 B.C.E. On the other hand, Buddhist tra- ditions of the eastern countries say that the Enlightenment took place at the time of full moon in the month of Ves¯akh (Kason, or May), sixty-one years earlier than that, in the year 589 B.C.E.