Supramundane Cittas

Supra­mun­dane con­scious­ness tran­scends the world of the five aggre­gates of cling­ing and leads to lib­er­a­tion from the cycle of birth-and-death (sam­sara) and to the attain­ment of Nib­bana. There are four stages of enlight­en­ment — stream-entry, once-return­ing, non-return­ing and ara­hantship. Each stage involves two types of cit­ta, path cit­ta and fruition cit­ta. All eight supra­mun­dane cit­tas take Nib­bana — the only uncon­di­tioned real­i­ty — as their object. The func­tion of path cit­tas is to erad­i­cate (or per­ma­nent­ly sub­due) defile­ments. The func­tion of fruition cit­tas is to expe­ri­ence the lib­er­a­tion made pos­si­ble by the cor­re­spond­ing path cit­ta. Path cit­tas are clas­si­fied as whole­some, fruition cit­tas as resultant.

Each path cit­ta aris­es only once and lasts only for one mind-moment. The cor­re­spond­ing fruition cit­ta ini­tial­ly aris­es imme­di­ate­ly after the path cit­ta and lasts for 2 – 3 mind-moments. Sub­se­quent­ly, the fruition cit­ta can be repeat­ed, and with prac­tice made to last for many mind-moments.

The path and fruition stages are achieved via the med­i­ta­tion method called devel­op­ment of insight (vipas­sana). This type of med­i­ta­tion involves strength­en­ing the capac­i­ty for wis­dom. By sus­tained atten­tion to the vary­ing phe­nom­e­na of mind and mat­ter, the med­i­ta­tor learns to dis­cern their true char­ac­ter­is­tics of imper­ma­nence, suf­fer­ing and non-self.

Stream-entry path cit­ta (sota­p­at­ti) is the gate­way to the irre­versible path to lib­er­a­tion from sam­sara. The stream is the Noble Eight­fold Path with its eight fac­tors: right view, right inten­tion, right speech, right action, right liveli­hood, right effort, right atten­tion, and right con­cen­tra­tion. A per­son who has reached this stage is sure of attain­ing final lib­er­a­tion in a max­i­mum of sev­en lives.

The func­tion of the stream-entry path cit­ta is to cut off the first three fet­ters — wrong view of self, doubt in the Bud­dhist teach­ings, and cling­ing to rit­u­als and cer­e­monies. This cit­ta also cuts off those forms of greed, hatred and delu­sion that are strong enough to lead to a degrad­ed rebirth. Like­wise, the cit­ta per­ma­nent­ly elim­i­nates five oth­er cit­tas, name­ly the four mun­dane unwhole­some cit­tas root­ed in greed and asso­ci­at­ed with wrong view, as well as the mun­dane unwhole­some cit­ta root­ed in delu­sion and asso­ci­at­ed with doubt.

Once-return­ing path cit­ta (sakadaga­mi) sub­dues the gross­er forms of sense desire and ill will, but it does not erad­i­cate them com­plete­ly. The per­son who has reached this stage will be reborn in the sense world only once more before attain­ing final liberation.

Non-return­ing path cit­ta (anaga­mi) elim­i­nates all forms of sense desire and ill will; it also per­ma­nent­ly elim­i­nates the two mun­dane unwhole­some cit­tas root­ed in hatred. The per­son who has reached this stage will nev­er again be reborn in the sen­su­al plane. If ara­hantship is not achieved with­in the same life­time, the per­son will be reborn in the fine-mate­r­i­al realm and reach the goal from there.

Ara­hantship path cit­ta (ara­hat­ta) destroys the five sub­tle fet­ters: desire for fine-mate­r­i­al exis­tence, desire for imma­te­r­i­al exis­tence, con­ceit, rest­less­ness, and igno­rance. It also elim­i­nates the remain­ing types of mun­dane unwhole­some cit­tas — the four root­ed in greed with­out wrong view and the one root­ed in delu­sion asso­ci­at­ed with rest­less­ness. An ara­hant is a com­plete­ly lib­er­at­ed per­son, one who has elim­i­nat­ed all defile­ments. Ara­hantship path cit­ta is the cit­ta that leads direct­ly to full liberation.

Fruition cit­tas: Each fruition cit­ta aris­es auto­mat­i­cal­ly imme­di­ate­ly after its respec­tive path cit­ta, which as men­tioned is only expe­ri­enced once. After that, the med­i­ta­tive expe­ri­ence of the fruition cit­ta can arise many times. Fruit cit­tas are clas­si­fied as resul­tant cit­tas. There are no supra­mun­dane func­tion­al cittas.