Chapter 1

• The five aggregates: matter, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness.

• 52 mental factors: the aggreages of feeling and perception are each counted as one factor; the aggreate of mental formations of the Suttas is subdivided into 50 mental factors. 

• The aggregate of matter is divided into 28 types of material phenomena. 

• Nibbāna is the state of final deliverance from the suffering inherent in conditioned existence. 

Ultimate realities (paramattha) are things that exist by reason of their own intrinsic nature (sabhāva). Unlike conventional realities, which are mental constructions, ultimate realities are the final, irreducible components of existence. They are the objective actualities that remain after a correctly performed analysis of experience. They exist "from their own side" (sarūpato) and possess determinate existence independent of the mind’s conceptual processing of data.

The Four Types of Ultimate Reality The Abhidhamma philosophy classifies all ultimate realities into four categories (catudhā paramattha):

1. Consciousness (Citta): The fundamental awareness or knowing of an object.

2. Mental Factors (Cetasika): The fifty-two mental states that arise and perish along with consciousness, performing diverse specialized functions (such as feeling, perception, and volition).

3. Matter (Rūpa): Twenty-eight types of material phenomena that constitute the physical world and the body.

4. Nibbāna: The unconditioned reality, which is the state of final deliverance from the suffering inherent in conditioned existence.

Conditioned vs. Unconditioned The first three ultimates—consciousness, mental factors, and matter—comprise all conditioned realities. They are characterized by their arising, their change while persisting, and their passing away. Nibbāna, the fourth ultimate, is the only unconditioned element; it does not arise through conditions and is not subject to impermanence.

Epistemological Significance Ultimate realities are described as the domain of ultimate or supreme knowledge. While they exist as the concrete essences of things, they are too subtle for an untrained person to perceive directly because ordinary perception is obscured by concepts. It is only through the development of "wise attention" (yoniso manasikāra) that a practitioner can see beyond the "shadows" of conventional entities to grasp these objective actualities.

The Extractive Analogy The manual compares the process of realizing ultimate reality to extracting oil from a sesame seed. Correct analysis and thorough attention allow the meditator to extract the ultimate realities from the conventional realities that normally hide them. For example, by analyzing the conventional concept of a "person," one extracts the ultimate components: the five aggregates, which are further resolved into citta, cetasika, and rūpa.

• citta: consciousness or mind. The focus of the Buddhist analysis of reality is experience, and consciousness is the principal element in experience, that which constitutes the knowing or awareness of an object.  Citi: to cognize, to know. Citta in three ways: as agent, an instrument and as activity (the most adequate). Citta is fundamentally an activity or process of cognizing or knowing an object. It is not a self that performs the act of cognition, but citta or consciousness. 

• "What we ordinarily think of as consciousness is really a series of cittas, momentary acts of consciousness, occurring in such rapid succession that we cannot detect the discrete occasions, which are of diverse types."

• There are four planes of consciousness: the sense sphere, the fine-material sphere, the immateiral sphere, and the supramundane. 

• "The tie between the spheres of consciousness and the correspponding planes of existence is extremely close. 

• Sense-sphere consciousness: the five external sense-objects-visible forms, sounds, smells, tastes, and tangibles. 

• The kāmabhūmi is the sensuous plane of existence, which comprises eleven realms--the four woeful states, the human realm, and the six sensuous heavens. 

• The concept of "world" is threefold: the world of living beings, the physical universe, and the world of formations, that is, the totality of conditioned phenomena, that is, all mundane phenomena included within the five aggregates of clinging. 

• With respect to its nature, consciousness divides into four classes: unwholesome, wholesome, resultant and functional. 

• Unwholesome: mentally unhealthy, morally blameworthy, and producitve of painful results. Wholesome: mentally healthy, morally blameless, and productive of pleasant results. Both constitute kamma, volitional action. Resultants: Those cittas or states of consciousness that arise through the ripening of kamma. Functional: It's neither kamma or kamma resultant. It involves activity, yet this activity is not kammically determinate and thus is not capable of producing kammic results. 

• Consciousness rooted in greed (lobhamūlacittāni). Lobha includes all avrieties of greed ranging from intense passion or cupidity to subtle liking and attachment. 

• Three types of dichotomization: One is the concomitant feeling (vedanā), whether a feeling of joy or equanimity; the second is the presence or absence of wrong view; the third is the consideration whether the citta is prompted or unprompted. 

• Accompanied by joy (somanassasahagata). Accompanied by equanimity (upekkhāsahagata). The word upekkhā  is often used in the Pali texts to signify the lofty spiritual quality of equanimmity or impartiality, the state of mind which cannot be swayed by biases and preferences. Here, however, the word is used simply to mean neutral feeling, a mental feeing which leans neither towards gladness nor dejection. 

• Associated with wrong view (diṭṭhigatasampayutta). The word diṭṭhi means view, and unless it is sepcified by the prefix sammā, "right," it generally refers to wrong view. Dissociated from wrong view: greed operates in them without any accompanying justification provided by a view. 

• Unprompted (asankhārika). The word sankhāra means prompting,, instigation, inducement or the application of an expedient. This prompting may be imposed by others, or it may originate from within oneself; the means employed may be bodily, verbal, or purely mental. Unprompted: the consciousness which arises spontaneously, without prompting or inducement by expedient means. 

• The wrong view does not arise simultaneously with hate, in the same citta, but at an earlier time in a different type of citta.

• Displeasure (domanassa) is the experience of unpleasant feeling, aversion (paṭigha) is the mental attidute of ill will or irritartion (included in the aggregate of mental formations. 

• The wrong view does not arise simultaneously with hate, in the same citta, but at an earlier time in a different type of citta.

• Displeasure (domanassa) is the experience of unpleasant feeling, aversion (paṭigha) is the mental attidute of ill will or irritartion (included in the aggregate of mental formations. 

• Vicikicchā: doubt, perplexity, skepticism or indecisiveness. 

1. One consciousness, accompanied by joy, associated with wrong view, unprompted. Eg: With joy, holding the view that there is no evil in stealing, a boy spontaneously steals an apple from a fruit stall.

2. One consciousness, accompanied by joy, associated with wrong view, prompted. Eg: With joy, holding the view that there is no evil in stealing, a boy steals an apple through the prompting of a friend.

3. One consciousness, accompanied by joy, dissociated from wrong view, unprompted. Eg: With joy, but without any wrong view, a boy spontaneously steals an apple from a fruit stall.

4. One consciousness, accompanied by joy, dissociated from wrong view, prompted. Eg: With joy, but without any wrong view, a boy steals an apple through the prompting of a friend.

5. One consciousness, accompanied by equanimity, associated with wrong view, unprompted. Eg: With neutral feeling, holding the view that there is no evil in stealing, a boy spontaneously steals an apple from a fruit stall.

6. One consciousness, accompanied by equanimity, associated with wrong view, prompted. Eg: With neutral feeling, holding the view that there is no evil in stealing, a boy steals an apple through the prompting of a friend.

7. One consciousness, accompanied by equanimity, dissociated from wrong view, unprompted. Eg: With neutral feeling, but without any wrong view, a boy spontaneously steals an apple from a fruit stall.

8. One consciousness, accompanied by equanimity, dissociated from wrong view, prompted. Eg: With neutral feeling, but without any wrong view, a boy steals an apple through the prompting of a friend.

9. One consciousness, accompanied by displeasure, associated with aversion, unprompted. Eg: With hatred, a man murders another in a spontaneous fit of rage.

10. One consciousness, accompanied by displeasure, associated with aversion, prompted. Eg: With hatred, a man murders another after premeditation.

11. One consciousness, accompanied by equanimity, associated with doubt. Eg: A person, due to delusion, doubts the enlightenment of the Buddha or the efficacy of the Teaching as a way to deliverance.

12. One consciousness, accompanied by equanimity, associated with restlessness. Eg: A person is so distracted in mind that he cannot focus his mind on any object.

• The word ahetuka means without roots. These types do not contain any of the three unwholesome roots, nor do they contain the three bright roots. Those cittas which lack roots are weaker than those which possess them. Three groups: unwholesome-resultants, wholesome-resultants, and functional consciousness. 

• Unwholesome-resultant consciousness. The impact of the object on the first four sense faculties is weak and thus the associated feeling is neutra. In the case of unwholesome-resultant body-consciousness, the object's impact on the body faculty is strong, and thus the accommpanying feeling is bodily pain. 

• Receiving consciousness: When a sense object impinges on a sense faculty at one of the five sense doors, e.g. a visible form on the eye, first there arises a citta adverting to the object. Immediately after this, eye-consciousness arises seeing that form. This act of seeing lasts only for a single mind-moment. Immediately thereafter arises a citta which apprehends or "receives" the object that had been seen by eye-consciousness. 

• Investigating consciousness: Its function is to investigate or examine the object that had just been cognized by the sense consciousness and apprehended by the receiving consciousness. The receiving consciousness and the investigating consciousness arise only in the five sense doors, and both are results of past kamma. 

• Consciousness resulting from wholesome kamma is twofold: one accompanied by neutral feeling, arisen in regard to a moderately desirable object, and one accompanied by joy, which arises when the object is especially desirable. 

• They perform tasks which do not have any kammic potency. 

• Five-sense-door adverting consciousness. It simply turns to the object, thereby enabling the sense consciousness to arise in immediate succession. 

• Mind-door adverting consciousness: When it occurs in a five-door process it is called the votthapanacitta, determining consciousness. It succeeds the investigating consciousness. In a mind-door process, a cognitive process that occurs through the internal ideation faculty. Its function is to advert to the object appearing at the mind door. 

• Smile-producing consciousness: This is a citta peculiar to Arahants, including Buddhas and Paccekabuddhas. Its function is to cause Arahants to smile about sense-sphere phenomena. Arahants may smile with one of the five cittas--the four beautiful sense-sphere functional cittas and the rootless smile-produing consciousness. 

• All cittas excluding those that evil and the rootless. 

• The beautiful includes resultant and functional cittas that possess beautiful mental factors. 

• 59 or 91. 

• Three principles of dichotomization: feeling, presence or absence of knowledge and the dyad of unprompted and prompted. 

• Wholesome or meritorious because they inhibit the defilements and produce good results. 

• These cittas do not arise in Arahants, whose actions are without kammic potency. 

• These eight cittas are kammic effects of the sense-sphere wholesome cittas. Both the rootless wholesome-resultants and the rooted resultants are produced by the same eight wholesome cittas, but the two sets differ in their qualities and functions. 

The eight wholesome sense-sphere cittas do not arise in Buddhas and Arahanats. Kriyā, functional cittas, merely perform their functions without leaving any kammic deposit. Because a Buddha or an Arahant has eradicated all traces of ignorance and craving,the causes of rebirth, there is no way  his good actions could generate future results. 

• Sense-sphere consciousness with roots becomes threefold as wholesome, resultant, and functional. There are 24 types of consciousness. These three groups are often referred to as the mahākusalas, mahāvipākas, and mahākiriyas--the great wholesome cittas, the great resultants, and the great functionals. 

• Fine-material plane of existence, the realms in which gross matter is absent and only a subtle residue of matter remains. 

• Jhānas, high attainments in the development of concentration (samādhi). The Pali word jhāna: "to contemplate" and "to burn up." They closely contemplate the object and they burn up the adverse states opposed to concentration (the five hindrances: sensual desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and doubt). 

• The object of the jhāna-consciousness is a mental image called the counterpart sign. This sign is considered a conceptual object, but it generally arises on the basis of a visible form, and hence these jhānas pertain to the fine-material sphere. 

• First jhāna wholesome consciousness. Five mental factors. Initial application (vitakka): the mental factor that mounts or directs the mind to the object. It has the special task of inhibiting the hindrance of sloth and torpor. Sustained application (vicāra): the sustained application of the mind on the object. It serves to temporarily inhibit the hindrance of doubt. Zest (pūti): delight or pleasurable interest in the object. The term is often translated as rapture, a rendering which fits its role as a jhāna factor but may not be wide enough to cover all its nuances. It inhibits the hindrance of ill will. Happiness (sukha): plaeasant mental feeling. This sukha, also rendered as bliss, is born of detachment from sensual pleasures; it is therefore explained as unworldly or spiritual happiness. It counters the hindrance of restlessness and worry. Pūti is a conative factor belonging to the aggregate of mental formations, while sukha is a feeling belonging to the aggregate of feeling. One-pointedness (ekaggatā): a pointed state. It temporarily inhibits sensual desire. 

• Second jhāna wholesome consciousness. Intermediate jhāna in which vitkka has been eliminated while vicāra remains. 

• All cittas of the fine-material sphere are associated with knowledge. They have three roots, non-greed, non-hatred, and non-delusion. 

• The base of infinite space. The base of infinite consciousness. The base of nothingness. The base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. 

• The cittas of the arūpajjhānas all have the same two jhāna factors as the fifth rūpajjhāna, namely, equanimity and one-pointedness. 

• All the eighty-one types of consciousness are termed lokiyacitta, mundane consciousness, because they pertain to the three worlds--the sensuous world, the fine-material world, and the immaterial world. 

• Four stages of enlightenment: stream-entry, once-returning, non-returning, and Arahantship. Each stage involves two types of citta, path consciousness and fruition consciousness. All supramundane cittas take as object the unconditioned reality, Nibbāna, 

• The path consciousness has the function of eradicating defilements; the fruition consciousness has the function of experiencing the degree of liberation made possible by the corresponding path. 

• Each path consciousness arises only once, and endures only for one mind-moment. 

• The paths and fruits are attained by the method of meditation called the development of insight. 

• Path consiousness of stream-entry. The stream (sota) is the Noble Eightfold Path. It flows uninterrupted from the arising of right view to the attainment of Nibbāna. 

• The path consciousness of stream-entry has the function of cutting off the first three fetters--"personality view" or wrong views of self, doubt about the Triple Gem, and clinging to rites and ceremonies in the belief that they can lead to liberation. It further cuts off all greed, hatred, and delusion strong enough to lead to a sub-human rebirth. One is assured of reaching final deliverance in a maximum of seven lives, and of never being reborn in any of the woeful planes of existence.

• Paht consciousness of once-returning. This citta attenuates the grosser forms of sensual desire and ill will. 

• The path consciousness of non-returning cuts off the fetters of sensual desire and ill will. 

• The path of Arahantship destroys the five sublte fetters--desire for fine-material and immaterial existence, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance. 

• The supramundane jhānas take as their object Nibbāna, the unconditioned reality. 

• The supramundane jhāna of the path eradicate defilements so that they can never again arise.