Sophia

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-019-00749-5

A Pāli Buddhist Philosophy of Sentience: Reflections

on Bhavaṅga Citta

Sean M. Smith 1

# Springer Nature B.V. 2020

Abstract
In this paper, I provide a philosophical analysis of Pāli texts that treat of a
special kind of mental event called bhavaṅga citta. This mental event is a
primal sentient consciousness, a passive form of basal awareness that individ-
uates sentient beings as the type of being that they are. My aims with this
analysis are twofold, one genealogical and reconstructive, the other systematic.
On the genealogical and reconstructive side, I argue for a distinction between
two kinds of continuity that are at work in explaining the temporal structure of
experience in Pāli Buddhist philosophy. Call these two forms of continuity
‘diachronic’ and ‘affective-motivational’ continuity, respectively. In my analysis
of these two forms of continuity, I will focus on the coherence of bhavaṅga
citta in its Abhidhammic context. My contention is that the commentarial
account of bhavaṅga citta has the resources to explain diachronic continuity
but struggles to give a fully workable account of affective-motivational conti-
nuity. I argue that the novel view of mental continuity offered by the early
twentieth century Burmese monastic exegete Ledi Sayadaw (1846–1923) offers
another intriguing account of mental continuity, one that can help to explain
affective-motivational continuity. Systematically speaking, in spelling out the
dynamics of this distinction between types of mental continuity in connection
with bhavaṅga, I offer a cross-cultural philosophical analysis of the deep
structure of the mind and how affective processes below the threshold of
ordinary habits of attention have a profound conditioning effect on our con-
scious relationship with the world.

Keywords Bhavanga citta . Buddhaghosa . Ledi Sayadaw . Pāli Buddhist philosophy .

Consciousness . Sentience

* Sean M. Smith
sean.smith@hawaii.edu

1
Department of Philosophy, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, 2530 Dole Street, Sakamaki D-301,
Honolulu, HI 96822-2383, USA
 S. M. Smith

Introduction

In this paper I provide a philosophical analysis of Pāli texts that treat of a special kind of
mental event called bhavaṅga citta. This mental event is a primal sentient conscious-
ness, a passive form of basal awareness that individuates sentient beings as the type of
being that they are. My aims with this analysis are twofold, one genealogical and
reconstructive, the other systematic.
On the genealogical and reconstructive side, I argue for a distinction between two
kinds of continuity that are at work in explaining the temporal structure of experience in
Pāli Buddhist philosophy. Call these two forms of continuity ‘diachronic’ and ‘affec-
tive-motivational’ continuity, respectively. In my analysis of these two forms of
continuity, I will focus on the coherence of bhavaṅga citta in its Abhidhammic context.
My contention is that the commentarial account of bhavaṅga citta has the resources to
explain diachronic continuity but struggles to give a fully workable account of
affective-motivational continuity. I argue that the novel view of mental continuity
offered by the early twentieth century Burmese monastic exegete Ledi Sayadaw
(1846-1923) offers another intriguing account of mental continuity, one that can help
to explain the affective foundations of the continuity of mind. The view that I extract
from my reading of Ledi is very similar to the Yogācāra account of ālaya-vijñāna
(Waldron 2003).
This reconstructive work is not historically idle. In spelling out the dynamics of this
distinction between types of mental continuity in connection with bhavaṅga, I offer a
cross-cultural philosophical analysis of the deep structure of the mind and how affective
processes below the threshold of ordinary habits of attention have a profound condi-
tioning effect on our explicitly conscious relationship with the world. This analysis
motivates a systematic argument regarding the role that primal sentient consciousness
plays in the proper functioning of our mental lives, call it the argument for affective-
motivational continuity (AM). The argument looks like this:

& AM1. Primal sentient consciousness—the Buddhist philosophers I explore here call
it ‘bhavaṅga citta’—is phenomenal, there is something it is like to have it (Nagel
1974).
& AM2. Primal sentient consciousness helps provide for the affective-motivational
continuity of mind.
& AM3. If primal sentient consciousness is phenomenal and helps provide for the
affective-motivational continuity of mind, then phenomenal consciousness has a
special connection to our orientation and disposition to act or respond to the world.
& AMC. Phenomenal consciousness has a special connection to our orientation and
disposition to act or respond to the world.

My aim is to establish that this argument is sound from within a Buddhist

framework and that the Buddhists give us good, though not definitive, reasons
to think it is true. Thus, my dual focus on genealogical reconstruction on the
one hand, and systematic argument on the other, converge on a single result,
namely the main contribution of this paper, which is to provide an enriched
understanding of the philosophical possibilities inherent in the notion of
bhavaṅga citta.
A Pāli Buddhist Philosophy of Sentience: Reflections on Bhavaṅga...

In §1, I analyze Buddhaghosa’s account of the bhavaṅga citta and consider several
motivations for positing the existence of such a mental event. I also explore the
theoretical role this mental event has in the Abhidhammic system. Then in §2 I show
that there are inchoate indications of something like a bhavaṅga citta mental kind
operating in the suttas. I will then criticize the commentarial account of the bhavaṅga
on philosophical grounds in §3. Specifically, in §3.1 I argue for (AM1) and in §3.2, I
argue for (AM2). Finally, in §4, I turn to an analysis of Ledi Sayadaw's account of the
bhavaṅga citta, wherein I will show that my reading of his account is not susceptible to
the criticisms I lay out for the commentarial view. It is here that I will provide reasons
for endorsing (AM3). I argue that my reading of Ledi’s position offers a more
philosophically consistent version of the Buddhist notion of bhavaṅga citta, one that
is consonant with similar developments in Yogācāra Buddhist philosophy.

Conceptual Analysis of the Commentarial Account of the Bhavaṅga

Citta

The earliest mentions of bhavaṅga citta are in the Paṭṭhāna and Milinda Pañha.1 The
developed account is found in the commentaries on the Abhidhamma- and Sutta-
piṭakas and Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga as well as the later Abhidhammattha
Sangaha by Anuruddha.2 These later texts are the ones that I focus on presently.
The bhavaṅga citta is a subliminal mental event that functions to sustain the causal
continuity of the stream of consciousness when more ordinary sensory-cognitive events
become dormant. Definitionally, the literal rendering of bhavaṅga is a combination of
two Pāli terms bhava and aṅga; the former meaning ‘being’ or ‘becoming,’ the latter
being literally ‘limb.’ Ñāṇamoli Bhikkhu translates bhavaṅga as 'life-continuum' in his
English edition of Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga. In this important text, Buddhaghosa
refers to the bhavaṅga citta as a kind of ‘stream’ that flows in the absence of ordinary
sensory cognitive functions (Vis 458, XIV.114). Peter Harvey's (1995, 161) etymolog-
ical analysis suggests that we should think of bhavaṅga as a kind of primordial
becoming (bhava). The bhavaṅga is only one type of citta among many others. The
term ‘citta’ has multiple meanings. It’s literal rendering is ‘mind,’ ‘consciousness,’ or
‘thought.’ In the context of the practice of satipaṭṭhāna, as it is explained in the suttas
(DN II 290; MN III 78), it refers to the overall affective frame of the mind. In the
Abhidhamma literature it is a general term referring to conscious events. This latter
context is the one I rely on here. A citta is a moment of phenomenal awareness
(Ganeri 2017, 50-56).

1
The Paṭṭhāna and Milinda Pañha were probably composed some time in the 2nd century CE. Buddhaghosa
is thought to have been active during the fifth century CE, thus we can date the Visuddhimagga and the other
commentaries around this time. The Sangaha is thought to have been composed in the eleventh or twelfth
century CE (see Cousins 1981 for more). For a recent and exceptional treatment of Buddhaghosa’s
commentarial approach to the Pāli canon, see Heim (2018).
2
In the main, I will focus on Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga, but I also make reference to the Atthasālinī. I
refer to the commentarial tradition in general in terms of Buddhaghosa’s authorship, but it is important to note
that even though most of these works are attributed to Buddhaghosa, von Hinüber (2000, 151) has argued
convincingly that Buddhaghosa is probably not the sole author of the Atthasālinī. That being said, several
scholars have been content to attribute the Asl to Buddhaghosa (e.g. Heim 2018; Ganeri 2017).
 S. M. Smith

The etymological root and operative metaphors used to describe the bhavaṅga citta
are in tension with the metaphysics of the Abhidhamma. The metaphysics of the
Theravāda Abhidhamma is one of momentary events and not continuous streams
(Collins 1982; 248). Strictly speaking, there are only punctate infinitesimal mental
events. The tension arises from the fact that etymological analysis and the consistent
presence of water-metaphors indicate a temporally extended process, while the devel-
oped metaphysics of the system allows only momentary events. Given that this tension
will be one of the main themes of the paper, I have elected to leave 'bhavaṅga'
untranslated. What is beyond dispute, is that for Buddhaghosa, the bhavaṅga citta is
a primitive factor of mind that is related to basic sentience. It plays the functional role of
guaranteeing the diachronic continuity of the mental continuum.
The need for a diachronic stop-gap is evident from considering a few different
contexts of atypical mental functioning in the Buddhist topography of the mind. Within
the broader context of Indian philosophy as a whole, we can distinguish several types
of conscious mental states. They are, waking, dreaming, dreamless sleep, death and
dying, and pure or luminous conscious states (Thompson 2015). In Theravāda
Abhidhamma, the bhavaṅga citta has an important role to play in all of these types
of experiences.3
Before getting into the details of these different sorts of experiential contexts, some
definitional preliminaries. By ‘diachronic continuity’ I mean the continuity had by
mental states that obtain for a subject across time in virtue of the proper functioning of
the perceptual and cognitive apparatus. When my visual system comes into proper
contact with a visible object, a moment of visual consciousness arises. For our Buddhist
philosophers, this is true of the other four canonical senses as well as a sixth mental
sense. Diachronic continuity of mind is established by the fact that these mental states
arise one after the other through the integrated functioning of their respective sensory-
cognitive systems in causal commerce with a world of objects. The bhavaṅga citta
helps with diachronic continuity by arising when these ordinary processes of sensory-
cognitive coupling with the world (loka) cease. I explore a number of these contexts
presently. Contrast diachronic continuity with what I call ‘affective-motivational’
continuity. This kind of continuity is also diachronically extended but with an important
difference. It is not merely diachronically extended in virtue of the physical basis of
mental processes being in working order. Rather, this kind of continuity structures the
mind according to affective biases, motivations, and habits that condition our percep-
tion of the world. To be sure, this habitual conditioning also has an impact on our
cognitive capacities, the way we deploy concepts, and how perception takes up with its
environment. Yet, I call this kind of continuity ‘affective’ and ‘motivational’ to
illuminate the fact that for our Buddhist philosophers, the mind unfolds in time under
its own influence as much as by its current worldly stimulation. Furthermore, we are
often quite ignorant of this conditioning process, even though it exercises tremendous
influence over what we are motivated to do and how things seem to us. I will develop
this account in some detail in what follows. I turn now to the five experiential contexts
enumerated above.

3
My analysis closely follows Seven Collins’s chapter on bhavaṅga in Selfless Persons (1982, 240 ff.). I will
take some issue with Collins's analyses in §§3.2 and 3.3.
A Pāli Buddhist Philosophy of Sentience: Reflections on Bhavaṅga...

In the waking state of perceiving and cognizing the world, the bhavaṅga citta arises
at the end of a perceptual cycle, before a new one begins. In the Abhidhammic analysis
of mental functioning, there are a number of discrete events that occur following
sensory or cognitive contact (phassa). These include a kind of basic sensory-
modality specific discernment, followed by degrees of interpretation and recognition.4
Each act of perception or cognition is actually a causally connected cluster of momen-
tary mental events. The bhavaṅga functions as a continuity guarantor that arises
between each event cluster of perceptual-cognitive engagement with the world. As a
visual experience subsides, a series of bhavaṅga citta-s arise, and as an auditory cluster
begins, the bhavaṅga citta-s are disturbed and then cease with the arising of subsequent
sensory modality-specific citta-s. These latter citta-s then provide the informational
basis for subsequent mental activity that work up the basic sensory data into something
robustly cognizable. The bhavaṅga citta is necessary in order to make sure the various
sensory and cognitive event clusters that make up our ordinary waking state are
continuous. According to the Abhidharmikas, there are gaps between each modality-
specific event cluster, the bhavaṅga citta fills these gaps.5
In deep sleep, the situation is different. Buddhaghosa explains that, ‘...as long as
there is no other kind of arising consciousness to interrupt the continuity, they
[bhavaṅga citta-s] also go on occurring endlessly in periods of dreamless sleep, etc.,
like the current of a river’ (Vis 458, XIV.114).6+7 This is the one place where the
bhavaṅga citta occurs in an uninterrupted series. Dreamless sleep is to be contrasted
with drowsiness and dreaming sleep in that that the two latter states are still
‘functioning’ by having intentional objects (cf. Thompson 2015, 110-17). The
following passage from the Milindapañha describes this contrast (Miln VIII, 5):
Great king, he who sees a dream, sees it neither when he is awaking, nor while he is
sleeping. Rather, having fallen into drowsiness, in an interval between these, before
reaching bhavaṅga there one sees the dream. When a [person] has entered drowsiness,
Great King, [their] mind is going to bhavaṅga; a mind that is going to bhavaṅga does

4
See Harvey (1995, 145-6) for a summary and visual representation of this process.
5
Gethin (1994, 29) points out that it’s not entirely clear why perceptual clusters would have gaps in the first
place. Why not just have each cluster be continuous with the next? Why posit a lull between each? Gethin’s
proposal is to think of bhavaṅga citta as individuating subjects as psychologically specific persons and
members of their species. On this reading, there are specifically human bhavaṅga citta-s. The idea here is that
with every act of perception and cognition, the mind relaxes back into a passive state of mind that makes one
the person and type of being that they are. As will become clear, my view is friendly to Gethin’s.
6
The full passage reads: ‘When the rebirth-linking consciousness has ceased, then, following on whatever
kind of rebirth-linking it may be, the same kinds, being the result of that same kamma whatever it may be,
occur as life-continuum consciousness with that same object; and again those same kinds. And as long as there
is no other kind of arising of consciousness to interrupt the continuity, they also go on occurring endlessly in
periods of dreamless sleep, etc., like the current of a river.’ Here, I follow Ñāṇamoli’s (2000) translation
verbatim. In Pāli: paṭisandhiviññāṇe pana niruddhe taṃ taṃ paṭisandhiviññāṇamanubandhamānaṃ tassa
tasseva kammassa vipākabhūtaṃ tasmiññeva ārammaṇe tādisameva bhavaṅgaviññāṇaṃ nāma pavattati,
punapi tādisanti evaṃ asati santānavinivattake aññasmiṃ cittuppāde nadīsotaṃ viya supinaṃ apassato
niddokkamanakālādīsu aparimāṇasaṅkhyampi pavattatiyevāti.
7
All translations from the Pāli are my own, unless otherwise indicated. I provide PTS pagination in my
referencing as is standard and to facilitate reference to extant English translations where necessary. When
citing the Visuddhimagga, I include first the PTS page number followed by the chapter and paragraph numbers
from Ñāṇamoli’s (2000) translation. I have included references to available English translations in my
references at the end of the paper. I have consulted the CST4 edition of the tipiṭaka for the Romanized Pāli
text in conjunction with the Digital Pāli Reader and suttacentral.net.
 S. M. Smith

not operate; a mind that is not operating does not undergo happiness or suffering. There
is no dream for one who is not capable of knowing [these things]. When the mind is
operating it sees a dream. Great King, as in a bewildering darkness, with no light, not
even a shadow appears on a thoroughly clean mirror, even so, Great King, when a mind
enters drowsiness and going to bhavaṅga stays there, this mind is not operating, though
it is embodied. A mind that is not operating does not see the dream. Yet, Great King, as
the mirror, so should the body be understood; as the darkness, so should drowsiness be
understood; as the light, so should the mind be understood.8
There are some philosophical difficulties with this passage. Both Horner (1999) and
Mendis (2001) translate bhavaṅga as ‘unconscious state.’ It is unclear how the term
‘unconscious’ is being used here. Secondly, and more importantly, equating the
bhavaṅga citta with the a ‘bewildering darkness’ (timire andhakāre) where there is
'no light' (appabhāse) is inconsistent with Buddhaghosa’s equation of bhavaṅga citta
with the luminous mind (Asl, 140). I will return to both of these points below. These
difficulties aside, it is important to keep in mind that the bhavaṅga finds an uninter-
rupted continuity of occurrence once the more ordinary sensory-cognitive functions of
mind subside in deep, dreamless sleep.
There is another state in the Buddhist taxonomies of mental events that is very much
like deep sleep in that ordinary sensory-cognitive functions have subsided; this is the
state of cessation of perception and feeling (saññā-vedayita-nirodha).9 In the
Visuddhimagga, Buddhaghosa describes the state of cessation as arising after the
attainment of the fourth immaterial absorption of neither recognition-nor-non-
recognition (nevasaññānāsaññāyatanaṃ): ‘Then after one or two occasions of con-
sciousness, he becomes without consciousness (acittako hoti), he attains cessation
(nirodhaṃ phusati)’ (Vis 707, XXIII.43).10 There seems to be a lack of mental
functioning of any kind in this rarefied state, one which precludes a closer association
of cessation with that of dreamless sleep. This is because in dreamless sleep the
bhavaṅga citta arise and pass away in constant continuity. The issue is complex for
two reasons.11 First, cessation is very close to the realization of nibbāna which is
something that is experienced via the three knowledges of past lives, kammic destiny
and the four noble truths. In Indian philosophy—and here Buddhism is no exception—
consciousness and knowledge are closely linked. Liberating insight is therefore an
experience and cannot occur in the absence of some consciousness. Thus, we
might rightfully question the nature of that consciousness that ceases during

8
yo so, mahārāja supinaṃ passati, na so niddāyanto passati, nāpi jāgaranto passati. api ca okkante middhe
asampatte bhavaṅge etthantare supinaṃ passati. middhasamārūḷhassa, mahārāja, cittaṃ bhavaṅgagataṃ
hoti, bhavaṅgagataṃ cittaṃ nappavattati, appavattaṃ cittaṃ sukhadukkhaṃ nappajānāti, appaṭivijānantassa
supino na hoti, pavattamāne citte supinaṃ passati. yathā, mahārāja, timire andhakāre appabhāse
suparisuddhepi ādāse chāyā na dissati, evameva kho, mahārāja, middhasamārūḷhe citte bhavaṅgagate
tiṭṭhamānepi sarīre cittaṃ appavattaṃ hoti, appavatte citte supinaṃ na passati. yathā, mahārāja, ādāso,
evaṃ sarīraṃ daṭṭhabbaṃ; yathā andhakāro, evaṃ middhaṃ daṭṭhabbaṃ; yathā āloko, evaṃ cittaṃ
daṭṭhabbaṃ.
9
Collins points out that there is a natural tendency to associate meditative cessation and dreamless sleep
(1982, 245). From a more general Indian philosophical context, this association tends to be quite close
(Thompson 2015, 8). Nevertheless, as will become clear presently, the Theravāda texts maintain that there is
good reason to think that these two states are importantly divergent.
10
athekaṃ vā dve vā cittavāre atikkamitvā acittako hoti, nirodhaṃ phusati.
11
For more, See Griffiths (1986, ch. 1).
A Pāli Buddhist Philosophy of Sentience: Reflections on Bhavaṅga...

saññā-vedayita-nirodha. This leads to the second point which is that the ambiguity here
lead some commentators to posit two types of viññāṇa operating here, the presence of one
which might be compatible with the absence of the other (this is a point I return to in §3.1).
The fourth context for the positing of the bhavaṅga citta is death and rebirth.
Leading up to the last cognitive event cluster before death, a bhavaṅga series is
disturbed and then subsides as per the ordinary process of perception and thought.
An important difference is that with the citta that arises after the one that explicitly
registers death as its object, the bhavaṅga arises again in a new life right after the
arising and passing away of the rebirth-linking consciousness (Collins 1982, 244;
Gethin 1994, 20 ff). The function of the bhavaṅga in this context is thus no different
from the process of perception and thought. However, it is informative to think about
the fact that the first moment of citta for any newly arisen being is a bhavaṅga citta.
Thus, there is a certain kind of primal continuity at the level of mere sentience that the
bhavaṅga guarantees, though it does so in a way that is beyond mere physical
continuity as the bhavaṅga is a citta.12 Without some substratum of mind to fill in
the gaps between discrete sensory-cognitive mental event clusters within and between
lives, there would be no way for the kammic burden that drives the arising of
consciousness to do its work. This is a point I will return to in what follows.
Lastly is the notion of the luminous mind, a feature of consciousness prevalent in
many different accounts of mind in Indian philosophy (Thompson 2015). Luminosity
in this context can be understood in two related ways. The first is that it is in virtue of
the luminosity of the conscious mind that knowledge is possible. The conscious mind
illuminates that which is not known such that it can become known. This notion of
luminosity is metaphorical. Secondly, luminosity functions as a literal description of the
mind purified of adventitious mental defilements and rarefied concentration. This is the
result of a process of purification whereby one cultivates proficiency in a series of
contemplative exercises focused on honing the mind's capacity for skillful attention. By
redirecting the mind towards its own functions and developing the capacity for
detachment and calm, the defilements eventually drop away resulting in a quality of
luminosity to arise in the mind. For the Pāli Buddhist philosophers, the mind is both
metaphorically and literally luminous.
There are some tantalizing passages from the Anguttara Nikāya that fit the above
two-fold description of luminous consciousness (cf. Harvey 1995, 166 ff). Consider the
following from the Book of Ones (AN I 10):13

Luminous, bhikkhus, is the mind, but it is defiled by adventitious defilements. The

uninstructed worldling does not understand this as it really is; therefore I say that
for the uninstructed worldling there is no development of the mind.14
Luminous, bhikkhus, is the mind, but it is defiled by adventitious defilements. The
instructed noble disciple understands this as it really is; therefore I say that for the
instructed noble disciple there is development of the mind.15

12
This raises a question as to how this citta should be characterized first-personally which I address in §3.1.
13
This translation follows Bhikkhu Bodhi’s (2012) English edition of the AN.
14
Bpabhassaramidaṃ, bhikkhave, cittaṃ. tañca kho āgantukehi upakkilesehi upakkiliṭṭhaṃ. taṃ assutavā
puthujjano yathābhūtaṃ nappajānāti. tasmā ‘assutavato puthujjanassa cittabhāvanā natthī’ti vadāmī^ti.
15
Bpabhassaramidaṃ, bhikkhave, cittaṃ. tañca kho āgantukehi upakkilesehi vippamuttaṃ. taṃ sutavā
ariyasāvako yathābhūtaṃ pajānāti. tasmā ‘sutavato ariyasāvakassa cittabhāvanā atthī’ti vadāmī^ti.
 S. M. Smith

Recognition of the luminous nature of mind is here identified with the difference
between a developed mind and an undeveloped mind, a noble disciple and an unin-
structed worldling. In order to become a noble disciple, one must achieve some degree
of liberation. From the Buddhist perspective, liberation means attaining to one of four
levels of nobility (ariya). One of the ways this process of liberation is explained in the
Pāli canon is in terms of ten unwholesome qualities or fetters (saṃyojana), clusters of
which are abandoned in a progressive way as one makes progress in contemplative
insight. Therefore, recognition or cultivation of the luminous nature of mind is related
in some deep respect to the realization of the cessation of dukkha, namely nibbāna.16
This luminous mind is explicitly identified with bhavaṅga citta in Buddhaghosa's
commentary on this Nikāya (Collins 1982) and in the Atthasālinī: ‘It [citta] is also
said to be white in the sense of pure. Concerning the bhavaṅga, that is said’ (Asl.
140).17 Whether we read these references to luminosity in terms of the metaphor of
knowledge gained through insight and concentration or as literal descriptions of the
mind’s qualities, such considerations of consciousness and luminosity are important for
criticizing the view that in meditative cessation that is approaching liberation, all
consciousness is extinguished.18 As I mentioned earlier in §1, this view regarding
cessation and consciousness seems to be held by Buddhaghosa when he speaks about
the state of cessation which is ‘without consciousness’ (cf. Vis 707, XXIII.43).
In summary, I have shown that the standard analysis of the bhavaṅga citta is
centered on the issue of the diachronic continuity of mind. However, there remains
the issue of the mind's true nature being occluded by defilements and the means by
which this occlusion can be overcome. This is a normative question that goes beyond
mere diachronic continuity. Understanding how this purificatory process works in
relation to the mind's potential to become liberated is important for the development
of my critical assessment of the commentarial account of the bhavaṅga citta in §3.

The Origins of the Bhavaṅga Citta

Getting a conceptual grip on the purificatory process demands that we explore the
origins of the bhavaṅga citta in more detail. I will make good on this demand by
looking at how this citta is prefigured in some ambiguous passages in the suttas. There
are two different ways that I want to approach the origins question, one philosophical,
one exegetical. They are really two sides of one genealogical coin. The philosophical

16
It is important to note that in the sutta literature there is no single account of what liberating insight consists
in. There are many overlapping accounts of how the Buddha became enlightened and how he instructs his
disciplines to work for enlightenment. For a philosophically sophisticated analysis of these complexities, see
Shulman (2014). An earlier and important treatment of this topic can be found in Schmithausen (1981).
17
tameva parisuddhaṭṭhena paṇḍaraṃ. bhavaṅgaṃ sandhāyetaṃ vuttaṃ.
18
Ven. Anālayo Bhikkhu points out (in personal correspondence, see also Anālayo 2017) that these references
to luminosity are not present in the āgama parallels. He takes this lack of parallelism to indicate that
luminosity should not be associated with awakening in early Buddhism but only with the later commentarial
tradition. This is plausible if we confine our analysis of luminosity to the literal sense of the mind being
luminous, but perhaps not so if we keep to the figurative sense of luminosity as a metaphor for knowledge.
This is because awakening is preceded by various knowledges and itself is a special kind of knowledge of the
unconditioned element (nibbāna). For an alternative view that preserves the association of luminosity between
the Pāli texts and their Chinese parallels, see Cousins (1981).
A Pāli Buddhist Philosophy of Sentience: Reflections on Bhavaṅga...

approach has been foreshadowed in some of what I have said already. Namely, the
bhavaṅga citta was developed by the Abhidhamma compilers and commentators in
order to fulfill certain functions in the systematic theory of mind that those Theravāda
philosophers were attempting to articulate.19 The most basic of these functions, as we
have seen, is to guarantee diachronic continuity in the chain of mental events that
constitutes a life. This is the kind of continuity of mind that obtains through the proper
functioning of a sensory-cognitive apparatus in causal commerce with a differentiated
world of objects.
The bhavaṅga citta plays this role in a number of different contexts. However, the
extent to which the arising of such a mental event fulfills a functional role in the
Abhidhammic theory of mind is also related to complex questions about what the
Abhidhammic theory of mind is trying to do as a whole. The most straightforward
answer to this latter question is that the Abhidhammic system is trying to philosoph-
ically systematize views contained in the sutta-piṭaka. The relation between these two
strata of texts is often unclear. This fact motivates my exegetical approach to analyze
the bhavaṅga citta in terms of sutta-level ambiguities that may have motivated the
Abhidharmika systemetizers to posit such a citta in order to resolve confusions.
Peter Harvey (1995) points out that there is some reason to think that the suttas have
no place for a citta that is different from the standard six-fold analysis of consciousness
(155-6). The standard six-fold analysis claims that consciousness is exhausted by its
intentional content, which can be specified according to the five sensory modalities and
a sixth cognitive modality (MN I 259-60; Gethin 1994, 14). However, the fire imagery
that dominates analyses of the causal interaction between mind and world in the suttas
(e.g. MN I 483, SN IV 19) is based on a wider context, originating in the Upaniṣads, in
which this particular element has a latent form (Harvey 1995, 156-7; see also
Frauwallner 1973, Vol. I, 45-61). The idea here is that even when the fire element is
not manifest, there is a latent form of fire that continues to persist. Therefore, insofar as
the fire imagery applies to the common six-fold analysis of consciousness also, there
seems to be room for the idea that there is a latent form of consciousness, distinct from
the standard six-fold sensory-cognitive account. This is however not a positive indica-
tion of there actually being a subliminal form of consciousness present in the suttas. It is
merely an exegetical claim that there being such a form of consciousness is not
inconsistent with the Buddhist position insofar as it can be thought of in the context
of Indian philosophy more generally.
In addition to this general departure point for thinking about the bhavaṅga citta in
the context of the suttas, there are three more specific contexts that need to be
considered. These issues are importantly different from the five preceding explanatory
contexts that I explored in the last section. The positing of latent mental functions in
these contexts goes beyond the need to guarantee diachronic continuity to include
issues of motivation, affective bias, and dukkha. For Buddhist philosophy, the
arising of consciousness must be understood in this robustly normative and
soteriological context.

19
As a developed theory, the bhavaṅga citta is clearly a phenomenon of the commentaries. However, there is
quite a bit of evidence to suggest that at least some of its conceptual origins are to be found in the Sutta
material. I will treat of this evidence in the current section. For an argument that there is a developed theory of
bhavaṅga in the pre-commentarial abhidhamma itself, see Cousins (1981).
 S. M. Smith

The first point is related to the ten-point formulation of dependent origination

(paṭicca-samuppāda), the Buddhist view about how the psycho-physical system is
causally integrated with a meaningful world (loka) (DN II 55 ff). The first link of the
ten-point formulation says: viññāṇa-paccaya nāma-rūpaṃ; in English, this means that
the condition for the arising of psycho-physical system (literally: name-and-form) is
consciousness. In the ten-point formulation this link functions in a bi-conditional way.
Not only does nāma-rūpa function as a condition for the arising of consciousness, but
the reverse is also true as well, nāma-rūpa-paccayā viññāṇaṃ (DN II 66):20
Thus I have said: 'Consciousness is the condition for psycho-physicality.' Then
Ānanda this is the way to understand that consciousness is the condition for psycho-
physicality. And if Ānanda, consciousness were not to enter the mother's womb, would
psycho-physicality develop in the mother’s womb?' 'No, Lord.' Or, if Ānanda, con-
sciousness, having entered the mother's womb were to deviate, would psycho-
physicality come to this life?' 'No, Lord.' 'And if Ānanda, the consciousness of one
young in years, a boy or girl, were cut off, would psycho-physicality increase, grow,
and undergo full development?' 'No, Lord.' 'Therefore, Ānanda, just this is the root, the
cause, the origin, the condition of mind-and-body, that is to say consciousness.21
Thus I have said: ‘Psycho-physicality is the condition for consciousness.' Then
Ānanda, this is the way to understand that psycho-physicality is the condition for
consciousness. And if Ānanda, consciousness did not obtain support in psycho-phys-
icality, would there in the future be birth, aging, death, the arising and origin of
suffering?' 'No, Lord.' 'Therefore, Ānanda, just this is the root, the cause, the origin,
the condition of consciousness, that is to say, psycho-physicality. Indeed, to this extent
Ānanda, we can trace birth and decay, death and passing away to be reborn. To this
extent is the way of designation, to this extent is the path to language, to this extent is
the way to conceptuality, to this extent is the sphere of wisdom, to this extent the round
of rebirth occurs and is discovered in this life, that is to say psycho-physicality together
with consciousness which exists [in a state of] mutual conditionality.22
In order to understand how this bi-conditionality relation (aññamaññapaccayatā)
bears on the question of whether or not the commentators had good sutta-based motives
to posit a bhavaṅga citta, we must first understand the nature of nāma-rūpa. In the
Nidānavagga of the Saṃyutta Nikāya, the Buddha defines nāma-rūpa in the following
way: ‘Feeling, recognition, intention, contact, attention: this is called nāma. The four
great elements and the form derived from the four great elements: this is called rūpa.
20
See also, SN II 104 and Thompson (2015, 24)
21
‘viññāṇapaccayā nāmarūpan’ti iti kho panetaṃ vuttaṃ, tadānanda, imināpetaṃ pariyāyena veditabbaṃ,
yathā viññāṇapaccayā nāmarūpaṃ. viññāṇañca hi, ānanda, mātukucchismiṃ na okkamissatha, api nu kho
nāmarūpaṃ mātukucchismiṃ samuccissathā^ti? Bno hetaṃ, bhante^. Bviññāṇañca hi, ānanda,
mātukucchismiṃ okkamitvā vokkamissatha, api nu kho nāmarūpaṃ itthattāya abhinibbattissathā^ti? Bno
hetaṃ, bhante^. Bviññāṇañca hi, ānanda, daharasseva sato vocchijjissatha kumārakassa vā kumārikāya vā,
api nu kho nāmarūpaṃ vuddhiṃ virūḷhiṃ vepullaṃ āpajjissathā^ti? Bno hetaṃ, bhante^. Btasmātihānanda,
eseva hetu etaṃ nidānaṃ esa samudayo esa paccayo nāmarūpassa—yadidaṃ viññāṇaṃ.
22
‘nāmarūpapaccayā viññāṇan’ti iti kho panetaṃ vuttaṃ, tadānanda, imināpetaṃ pariyāyena veditabbaṃ,
yathā nāmarūpapaccayā viññāṇaṃ. viññāṇañca hi, ānanda, nāmarūpe patiṭṭhaṃ na labhissatha, api nu kho
āyatiṃ jātijarāmaraṇaṃ dukkhasamudayasambhavo paññāyethā^ti? Bno hetaṃ, bhante^. Btasmātihānanda,
eseva hetu etaṃ nidānaṃ esa samudayo esa paccayo viññāṇassa yadidaṃ nāmarūpaṃ. ettāvatā kho, ānanda,
jāyetha vā jīyetha vā mīyetha vā cavetha vā upapajjetha vā. ettāvatā adhivacanapatho, ettāvatā niruttipatho,
ettāvatā paññattipatho, ettāvatā paññāvacaraṃ, ettāvatā vaṭṭaṃ vattati itthattaṃ paññāpanāya yadidaṃ
nāmarūpaṃ saha viññāṇena aññamaññapaccayatā pavattati.
A Pāli Buddhist Philosophy of Sentience: Reflections on Bhavaṅga...

Such is nāma, such is rūpa. Bhikkhus, this is called nāma-rūpa’ (SN II 2).23 Essen-
tially, nāma is the three non-conscious mental aggregates, with volition (cetanā) and
attention (manasikāra) standing in for saṅkhāra, combined with the organism's basic
sensitivity to the world (phassa).
The bi-conditionality of nāma-rūpa and viññāṇa suggests a possible equivocation in
the text. Viññāṇa seems to be deployed in two different ways. The first is a kind of
primitive sentience or primal consciousness that functions as the condition for the
arising of nāma-rūpa.24 The second is the more familiar notion of viññāṇa as the
episodic causal upshot of contact between sensory receptors and their objects (Waldron
2003, 12). If the six-fold account of consciousness requires sensory contact as its
condition, then a fully functioning nāma-rūpa must be in place because contact
(phassa) is a constituent of nāma. However, we have seen that there is a form of
consciousness that functions as the condition for the development of nāma-rūpa.
Therefore, some other form of consciousness beyond the six-fold must play this role.
Such a consciousness would clearly correspond to something like the bhavaṅga citta.
The idea that our capacity for sensory-cognitive-affective interaction with the world
(nāma) and the physical form in which those capacities are embodied (rūpa) have a
basic consciousness as their condition is a strong indicator of a primal sentient
consciousness being implicit in this stratum of the texts.
The second context which seems to indicate some kind of latent mental process is
found in the Cūḷavedalla Sutta of the Majjhima Nikāya (I 303). It is here that we will
start to get a grip on the distinction I made at the outset of the paper between diachronic
and affective-motivational continuity of mind. In this discourse an arahant bhikkhunī
called Dhammadinnā is questioned by Visākha, her former husband, on a number of
topics. The most important of these, for our present purposes, is anusaya. This term can
be translated in a number of ways; literally it means ‘sleeping beneath.’ I follow the
fairly wide-spread trend of using ‘latent defilements’ or ‘underlying tendencies.’25 In
the current context of this discourse, both refer to an inherent habit of the mind to
constantly react in a tacit way to occurrent feelings or sensations (vedanā). Whenever a
pleasant feeling arises within the framework of the body or mind, it does so in
dependence on sensory contact (phassa-paccayā vedanā), but in so arising, the occur-
rent feeling-sensation also occasions an underlying sankhāric tendency in the mind.
These tendencies are defined according to how currently occurring feeling tends to
encourage or actively solicit certain types of habitual reactions. These kinds of actions
include aversive behaviors in the face of noxious stimuli, like recoiling from a heat
source when burned and attempts to appropriate, consume, or otherwise get close to
stimuli that make one feel pleasant. Thus, Dhammadinā explains that, ‘...the underlying

23
vedanā, saññā, cetanā, phasso, manasikāro—idaṃ vuccati nāmaṃ. cattāro ca mahābhūtā, catunnañca
mahābhūtānaṃ upādāyarūpaṃ. idaṃ vuccati rūpaṃ. iti idañca nāmaṃ, idañca rūpaṃ. idaṃ vuccati,
bhikkhave, nāmarūpaṃ.
24
In contemporary discussion, this kind of mentality has been called 'the feeling of being alive'. This latter
term refers to a general sense of awareness, often thought to be grounded in our sense of affective bodily
subjectivity (Craig 2010; Damasio 1999; Thompson 2007). The comparison here is apt insofar as both notions
refer to a basic sentience. The comparison is a stretch insofar as for Buddhist philosophers, primal viññāṇa is
not physical in any way. From an abhidhammic perspective, it would probably be fair to call the Buddhists
event or trope dualists. However, the contemporary notion of the 'feeling of being alive' is intrinsically linked
to the body.
25
For a systematic analysis of the concept of anusaya in Pāli Buddhism see Smith (2019).
 S. M. Smith

tendency to lust underlies pleasant feeling. The underlying tendency to aversion

underlies painful feeling. The underlying tendency to ignorance underlies neither-
painful-nor-pleasant feeling’ (MN I 303).26 Such tendencies have not yet been aban-
doned in the mental continuum even though they are not occurrently active with regard
to a subject's present mental state. Secondly, in spite of their non-active nature, anusaya
are capable of becoming active and thus arising as explicit afflictions (kilesa-s) when a
suitable cause is present (Bodhi 1995, 1243, fn. 473). If that is right, then anusaya have
no other role to play except to tacitly condition citta-s, whether bhavaṅga or otherwise.
Importantly, this eradication of the anusaya is the equivalent of achieving the cessation
of dukkha (AN IV 9). From a Buddhist soteriological perspective, the refinement and
purification of mind is necessary because of its conditioning by anusaya. Thus, the
continuity of mind is not merely diachronic, the mind is not continuous through time
just because mental states arise one after the other on the basis of a well-functional
system of perception and cognition. Rather, the mind is continuous in time because of
the subtle conditioning influence of our affectively biased dispositions.
The third example of viññāṇa beyond the six-fold base is viññāṇam anidassanam
(MN I 326; DN I 211). Discussion of this special mental event arises in the context of
the Buddha explaining his capacity to discern something that is beyond the ‘allness of
the all.’ ‘All’ (sabbe) here refers to the world of sensory-cognitive objects and our
faculties for perceiving them. Beyond these there is a, ‘Consciousness without charac-
teristic, limitless, luminous in every respect’ (MN I 330).27 This passage is also
produced in the Kevaṭṭa Sutta in response to the following question (DN I 223):

Where do water, earth, fire, and air find no firm footing?

Where do long and short, small and great, beautiful and ugly –
Where do 'name-and-form' utterly cease?28

The answer here is again the same (DN I 223). There is a form of consciousness that is
beyond the province of nāma-rūpa. Further, this consciousness seems to be implicated
in an achievement that allows one to see through the totality of conditioned phenom-
ena. Therefore, it is likely to be associated with that mind state of a fully liberated being
who is experiencing nibbāna (cf. Bodhi, 1995, fn. 513, pp. 1249 ff.).29 Taking this
seeming association between luminous consciousness and liberation to the furthest
possible extent, Miri Albahari (2006, 2011) has attempted to argue for an identification
between nibbāna and an ownerless ‘witnessing consciousness.’ She takes passages of
the sort that I have identified here as evidence for such an identification. While her
views are intriguing, I am not fully convinced by her argument because it does not

26
This translation follows Bodhi (1995): vedanāya rāgānusayo anuseti, dukkhāya vedanāya paṭighānusayo
anuseti, adukkhamasukhāya vedanāya avijjānusayo anusetī^ti
27
viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ anantaṃ sabbato pabhaṃ
28
kattha āpo ca pathavī, tejo vāyo na gādhati | kattha dīghañca rassañca, aṇuṃ thūlaṃ subhāsubhaṃ | kattha
nāmañca rūpañca, asesaṃ uparujjhati ||
29
Norman (1987) points out that it is likely that pabhaṃ or ‘luminous’ is transformed from pahaṃ, ‘to give
up’. Anālayo (2017) argues that the explicit association of luminosity and consciousness can be questioned
from the standpoint of trying to articulate the early Buddhist position. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the
Buddhaghosa took this association to be absolutely central. My thanks to Anālayo Bhikkhu for discussion on
this matter.
A Pāli Buddhist Philosophy of Sentience: Reflections on Bhavaṅga...

sufficiently distinguish nibbānic consciousness from higher-levels of jhānic absorption,

the latter of which are explicitly contrasted with nibbāna in a number of places (most
notably, in the Udāna—Ud 8.1 and 8.3).30
In conclusion, it is worth noting again an important asymmetry between
these three examples of latent mental processes that indicate something like a
notion of bhavaṅga citta operating in the suttas and the fivefold context for the
positing of bhavaṅga citta that we explored in §1. In the case of the five-fold
criteria, the functional role of the bhavaṅga citta is to provide a stop-gap in the
diachronic continuity of the mental continuum. When ordinary sensory-
cognitive functioning subsides, the bhavaṅga citta begins to function, when
ordinary sensory-cognitive functioning starts to operate again, the bhavaṅga
citta subsides. By contrast, the sentience reading of viññāṇa, the reality of
anusaya, and the notion of viññāṇam anidassanam demonstrate that from a
Buddhist soteriological perspective, there is more than mere diachronic conti-
nuity operating in the temporal structure of the mind. In addition to diachronic
continuity, the mind is also motivationally continuous and affectively deep in
virtue of its capacity to carry kammic charge and its potential to be purified of
unwholesome mental defilements. This affective-motivational continuity of mind
influences the course of our states of consciousness regardless of the content
afforded us by the functioning of our perceptual-cognitive apparatus. However,
since the bhavaṅga citta operates when this kind of ordinary functioning has
been temporarily suspended, it is worth thinking more carefully about how the
bhavaṅga citta can be understood in connection with the three contexts I have
explored here.

Philosophical Problems with the Commentarial Account

of the Bhavaṅga Citta

In this section, I engage in a critical analysis of the standard account of bhavaṅga citta
contained in the Abhidhamma commentaries. By doing so, I start to make good
on the need to understand the nature of bhavaṅga citta in connection with the
sutta-based motivations I canvassed in the last section. To begin, I explore three
ambiguities regarding the kind of mental event it is. Specifically, I address the
following questions regarding how to categorize bhavaṅga: a) is it conscious or
unconscious? b) is it phenomenally conscious or not? And finally, c) is it
intentional or not? These exegetical questions will help me to further explain
the difference between diachronic and affective-motivational continuity of mind
and to level my criticism of the standard account. In so doing, I also contrast
my approach to a prevalent reading of the standard view of bhavaṅga favored
by Collins (1982). This criticism will then motivate my consideration of Ledi
Sayadaw's view of the bhavaṅga citta in §4. I argue that my reading of Ledi’s
account is not susceptible to the criticisms I will lay out for Collins’s version
of the standard view.

30
There is more that could be said here but I cannot delve into this issue further because of constraints of
space and relevance.
 S. M. Smith

Is Bhavaṅga Citta Phenomenally Conscious?

In this subsection, I will provide some reasons internal to the Buddhist philosophical
dialectic to think that (AM1) is true. Recall that this premise of the (AM) argument is:

AM1. Primal sentient consciousness—the Buddhist philosophers I explore here

call it ‘bhavaṅga citta’—is phenomenal.

Bhavaṅga citta is often translated as sub- or un-conscious but is also a citta associated
with the luminosity of the mind in the commentaries. So, we can ask the more specific
question, is bhavaṅga citta conscious or unconscious? In order to understand the
answer to this latter question, we must define our terms. I propose a contemporary
taxonomy that is commonly used by philosophers of mind to differentiate between two
important senses of 'conscious': namely, Block's (1995) distinction between phenom-
enal consciousness and access consciousness. These two senses of 'conscious' will help
us get clear about the actual nature of bhavaṅga citta and to resolve some outstanding
questions regarding luminosity and the development of mind in Buddhist philosophical
psychology.
Access consciousness is a dispositional notion that refers to information being
poised for use in different forms of cognitive processing. A mental state is access
conscious or cognitively accessed if its content is one or all of the following: poised for
use as a premise in an inference, poised for use in the rational control of action, and/or
poised for rational control of speech (Block 1995; 231). By contrast, a mental state is
phenomenally conscious if and only if there is something it is like for a subject to be in
that state (Nagel 1974). As Block puts it, ‘P-conscious states are experiential...The
totality of the experiential properties of a state are Bwhat it is like^ to have it’ (Block
1995; 230).31 How does this important distinction relate to the bhavaṅga citta? In order
to answer this question, we must understand a second distinction between mental states
that are conscious and unconscious.
As I mentioned, the bhavaṅga citta—as well as its Mahāyana counterpart, the ālaya-
vijñāna—are often characterized as ‘unconscious’ mental states (cf. Waldron 2003,
Collins 1982, and both Norman’s 1999 and Mendis’s 2001 translations of the
Milindapañha). Unconscious in what sense? What kind of consciousness is being
denied to such states? From the texts we have examined so far, it is not obvious. For
example, Collins claims: ‘Certainly, the bhavaṅga is a mental but not conscious
phenomenon’ (1982, 243).32 We should understand the unconscious nature of
bhavaṅga in terms of access. During periods of bhavaṅga citta ordinary sensory and

31
What this distinction actually amounts to is not agreed upon by philosophers. Some think this distinction
marks a difference between kinds of mental states and how they are individuated (Chalmers 1996). Others think
that the difference is superficial and that phenomenality can ultimately be reduced to access (Dennett 1991). In
the case of access consciousness, mental states are individuated according to their causal role in the information
processing of a mind-realizing system like the human brain. By contrast, with phenomenal consciousness, such
mental states are individuated by the way it feels to have them for subjects that experience the world in virtue of
being in such states. A fuller analysis of these important notions is beyond the scope of this paper.
32
Collins goes on to differentiate his ambiguous notion of unconscious from a Freudian use of the term. The
main conceptual axis he uses to effect this distinction is one between motivation and mere continuity. He
claims that the bhavaṅga citta has no motivational role to play, which makes it importantly distinct from its
Freudian counterpart. I will have an occasion to return to this point in §3.3.
A Pāli Buddhist Philosophy of Sentience: Reflections on Bhavaṅga...

cognitive processing has subsided completely. However, insofar as bhavaṅga is a citta,

it is discerning and luminous. As Harvey explains: ‘One cannot see bhavaṅga as
Bunconscious^ ...for although it occurs in dreamless sleep, it is seen as having an
object, and as being a form of discernment or citta’ (1995, 161).33 Therefore, it would
be an error to say that it is unconscious in the phenomenal sense of the term
‘conscious.’ We should read references to the ‘unconscious’ in Buddhist accounts of
the bhavaṅga citta in terms of access consciousness.
In spite of many contemporary philosophers defining consciousness as that which
ceases with deep sleep and begins again upon waking (Searle 2000), this is not how
Indian philosophers tended to see the phenomenon, and certainly not Buddhaghosa.
The idea that we are phenomenally conscious in deep sleep is a commonly held view in
Indian philosophy (Thompson 2015). If there is a subtle form of phenomenal awareness
that persists through deep sleep, then we would be forced to identify it with the
bhavaṅga citta because it is this citta and no other that is solely responsible for the
continuity of mind during deep sleep (Vis 458, XIV.114).
In moving forward, I will use the terms ‘unconscious,’ ‘subconscious,’ ‘latent,’ and
‘subtle’ to refer to the idea that there are mental states, specifically bhavaṅga citta-s, that
are phenomenally conscious but not normally access conscious. This is not to say that
such states cannot be made access conscious. It might be possible that certain states that
would otherwise remain outside the purview of cognitive access might be in principle
accessible. Indeed, one way of construing much of the soteriological thrust of Indian
philosophy in general, and especially Buddhist philosophy, is precisely in these terms:

One way to think about the Indian yogic idea of subtle consciousness is to see it
as pointing to deeper levels of phenomenal consciousness to which we don’t
ordinarily have cognitive access, especially if our minds are restless and untrained
in meditation. According to this way of thinking...much of what Western science
and philosophy would describe as unconscious might qualify as conscious, in the
sense of involving subtle levels of phenomenal awareness that could be made
accessible through meditative mental training.
(Thompson 2015, 8)

This is the framework that I will take on in moving forward. I turn now to the questions of
whether or not and how we should understand the intentional structure of bhavaṅga citta.

Is Bhavaṅga Citta Intentional?

In the fourteenth chapter on the five aggregates of the Visuddhimagga, Buddhaghosa

mentions that, ‘When the rebirth-linking consciousness has ceased, then, following on
whatever kind of rebirth linking it may be, the same kinds, being the result of the same
kamma whatever it may be, occur as life-continuum consciousness with that same
object…’ (Vis 458, XIV.114)34. This citation clearly states that the bhavaṅga citta has
33
This final remark about bhavaṅga citta having an object is a bit quick. The question of whether or not
bhavaṅga is properly an intentional mental state with an object is a difficult question. I address it below.
34
This translation follows Ñāṇamoli (2000): paṭisandhiviññāṇe pana niruddhe taṃ taṃ
paṭisandhiviññāṇamanubandhamānaṃ tassa tasseva kammassa vipākabhūtaṃ tasmiññeva ārammaṇe
tādisameva bhavaṅgaviññāṇaṃ nāma pavattati
 S. M. Smith

an object, in this case, that which is associated with death in the previous life.
In the other contexts we have explored, we have seen that the bhavaṅga citta
doesn’t have any proper intentional object because the sensory-cognitive system
that would put consciousness in touch with an object is not functioning.
Therefore, if bhavaṅga is intentional, it is a special kind of intentionality. There
are two questions that arise at this point. One is: what kind of object should we
understand bhavaṅga citta to have? Second: what is the nature of the inten-
tional relation that the occurrence of bhavaṅga citta facilitates to that object? In
this subsection, I address these questions by engaging with Rupert Gethin’s
(1994) important work on bhavaṅga citta. As will become clear, my account is
largely sympathetic with his.
These questions about the nature of the object of bhavaṅga and the intentional
relation its occurrence establishes to the object, are not easy to answer given that the
bhavaṅga citta is so subliminal and operates only when more ordinary functions of
mind are dormant. Gethin points out that with the stop-gap conception of bhavaṅga
comes a tendency to think of it, ‘…as a kind of blank, empty state of mind—a type of
consciousness that has no content’ (Gethin 1994, 12). Since the above quote explicitly
gives bhavaṅga an object in the context of rebirth-linking, it follows, for example, that
Griffiths is wrong to claim that ‘…bhavaṅga is a type of consciousness that operates
with no object’ (Griffiths 1986, 36 cited by Gethin 1994, 12, fn 3). In contrast to this
view, Gethin emphasizes the functional continuity of bhavaṅga with other moments of
citta. To that end he claims that bhavaṅga must be understood as, ‘…sharing the same
properties as other types of consciousness (citta); bhavaṅga is not something different
from consciousness, rather it is consciousness operating in a particular mode (ākāra) or
consciousness performing a particular function or task (kicca)’ (Gethin 1994, 13). I
agree with Gethin’s critical remarks about Collins (1982) and Griffiths (1986). I also
agree with his claim that bhavaṅga is an operation of consciousness (citta) and should
therefore not be considered unconscious. However, I take issue with Gethin’s attempt to
explain the intentional structure of bhavaṅga citta as being functionally isomorphic
with other moments of citta.
The main evidence put forth in favor of this claim about the intentionality of
bhavaṅga ‘sharing the same properties of other types of citta’ is the following. First,
Gethin notes that from a general Abhidhammic perspective, citta is defined as an
intentional mental state. Specifically, citta is that which ‘cognizes an object’ (Asl, 63;
Gethin 1994, 14).35 Since bhavaṅga is a citta, it follows that it has an object. The
argument here proceeds from general principles about citta. Gethin then cites the
passage from Vis 458, XIV.114 that I quoted above regarding the role of bhavaṅga in
rebirth linking as a specific example of Buddhaghosa claiming that bhavaṅga has an
intentional object. However, getting clear about the nature of this object is important
because it will bear on how we characterize the intentionality of bhavaṅga. Regarding
the proper object of bhavaṅga in the context of rebirth linking, there are a few options
available. Perhaps it is some kind of repressed memory of the previous life, or some
kind of felt bodily sense of one’s own mortality. In either case, the bhavaṅga citta does
not have an object in the ordinary sense. If that is so, then we must ask what kind of
intentionality can be attributed to it.

35
ārammaṇaṇ cintetī ti cittaṃ
A Pāli Buddhist Philosophy of Sentience: Reflections on Bhavaṅga...

One way to get some clarity about this is to look to some important distinctions
made by Phenomenologists like Husserl and Merleau-Ponty who distinguish between
‘object intentionality’ on the one hand and ‘horizontal’ (Husserl 1928/2008, §37) or
‘motor intentionality’ (Merleau-Ponty 1945/2012, 112-113) on the other. This distinc-
tion maps a difference in the ways that our minds are related to the world. Object
intentionality is the way in which token mental states represent the properties of
particular things that come within our perceptual and cognitive purview. Horizontal
intentionality is that form of world-directedness that enables particular moments of
object intentionality to arise through the temporal flow of life. Merleau-Ponty imagines
this horizontal intentionality in an embodied way that makes the world available to the
particular forms of action available to us through our form of embodiment. I suggest
that it is a mistake to think of bhavaṅga citta as being object-intentional as other
moments of citta are. In this respect, I am rejecting Gethin’s isomorphism proposal. My
reasoning is that the object of bhavaṅga is highly atypical and only arises in a context
where the sensory-cognitive architecture necessary to bring about object-intentional
relations to the world has become dormant. Further, like Gethin, I agree that, ‘…it is the
nature of bhavaṅga that defines in general what kind of being one is—it gives one’s
general place in the overall scheme of things’ (Gethin 1994, 19). Further, since the
object of bhavaṅga has to do with one’s past-life, ‘…bhavaṅga does not simply define
what one is, but defines precisely who one is’ (ibid). However, I think that the best way
to model is claim is to think of the intentionality of bhavaṅga in terms of a horizontal-
motor intentionality that defines the scope of a life for an individual rather than as a
kind of object-intentionality.
This more robust conception of bhavaṅga draws some interesting parallels
with contemporary philosophy of consciousness as well. Philosophers like
Zahavi (2005) and Strawson (2015) describe consciousness as being pre-
reflectively self-aware or self-intimating. The idea here is that in addition to
our experiences putting us in touch with a world, we are also primitively,
though not introspectively, self-aware through our experience of the world.
Insofar as the bhavaṅga is a kind of primal basal awareness that gives us
knowledge of the kind of being we are and who we are, it seems to have this
kind of reflexivity. However, there are two interesting questions that arise here.
First, it looks like the kind of knowledge afforded by bhavaṅga citta has a
degree of narrative stitched into it. If so, then is the knowledge we have in
virtue of being aware in this way autobiographical and semantic? In his
important book on Buddhaghosa, Jondardon Ganeri (2017) takes this route.
He defines the bhavaṅga citta as a kind of ‘untasked thought’ which, ‘...con-
sists in a residue of Binnate^ autobiographical semantic information’ (Ganeri
2017, 22). I disagree that this is the correct way to think of bhavaṅga. It is not
a proposition that possesses auto-biographical content because bhavaṅga is far
too subliminal to have this kind of representational architecture. It operates in
the absence of the functioning of the sixth consciousness. For a mental state to
have articulate semantic content, it would need to be processed by the mind-
door (mano-viññāṇa).36 By contrast, in following Gethin’s desire to construe

36
For an extended critical analysis of Ganeri’s (2017) account of Buddhaghosa’s philosophy, see Smith
(forthcoming).
 S. M. Smith

the occurrence of bhavaṅga as properly individuating a sentient being as the

type of being it is, bhavaṅga is better thought of as a kind of primal sentience
that makes the organism the kind of organism it is rather than a kind of
thought it has about itself. In this way, I understand the reflexivity of bhavaṅga
citta as being similar to the view that just by being conscious of an object,
sentient beings come to have a self-awareness that is logically and temporally
pre-reflective: ‘Pre-reflective experience is logically prior to reflection, for
reflection presupposes something to reflect upon; and it is temporally prior to
reflection, for what one reflects upon is a hitherto unreflected experience’
(Thompson 2007, 250). Since this citta is a special kind, one that operates
passively when ordinary sensory-cognitive functioning has subsided, it is not
clear that it inherits the full complex intentional structure of those citta-s that
are part of the ordinary clustering of experience. In either case, my objections
to the standard account championed by Collins and Griffiths do not hang on
the correctness of Gethin’s treatment. However, it is worth nothing that the
primary texts are ambiguous enough to motivate serious disagreement among
scholars about how robust the intentional structure of this particular citta is. I
locate myself between those who claim this citta has no intentional structure
whatsoever and those that think its intentional structure is straightforwardly
isomorphic with other ordinary forms of citta.

From Diachronic to Affective-Motivational Continuity

Here I argue for the second premise of the main argument of the paper. Namely, primal
sentient consciousness helps provide for the affective-motivational continuity of mind.
I will do so by way of criticizing Collins’s reading of bhavaṅga citta in his important
book Selfless Persons (1982).
In his reading of the Abhidhamma view, Collins (1982) distinguishes between
descriptive and topographical accounts of mental events. A mental event E is descrip-
tive in nature if we are obliged to assume it exists or are able to infer its existence by
observable effects. A mental event E2 is topographical if it has reality in its own right,
not just as a posit, but as a ‘province of its own.’ One way to think about this is that
such a ‘province’ of the mind is capable of being experienced from the first-person
perspective through the cultivation of careful attention. Collins goes on to claim that:
‘Insofar as the Buddhist concept of bhavaṅga might be thought of as being part of a
topographical account of mind, it is so only in relation to a systematic account of
perception, and not of motivation’ (Collins 1982, 244). The reason that Collins thinks
this is that he confines his analysis of the functional role of bhavaṅga to the five-fold
analysis considered earlier. On this view, this citta is a kammically inert stop-gap and
nothing more. I think that if we expand our account to include the three aspects
considered at the end of §2, that this reading will be seen as untenable and (pardon
the pun), under-motivated.
The process of perception and cognition in Buddhist philosophy is insepa-
rable from the motivations and affective biases that influence the mind (Davis
and Thompson 2015). The arising of consciousness at any given moment is the
immediate causal upshot of contact (phassa) at a sensory receptor and reactive
saṅkhāric processes that motivate and give kammic charge to each moment of
A Pāli Buddhist Philosophy of Sentience: Reflections on Bhavaṅga...

consciousness. In the terms of contemporary cognitive science, we can under-

stand saṅkhāra-s as, ‘...implicit and habitual processing routines that shape how
we perceive and behave and that typically escape explicit, cognitive awareness’
(Davis and Thompson 2013, 588). The continuity of mind in Buddhist thought
is irreducibly motivational and affectively biased. This is because the mental
continuum, and the world of meaning that it is kammically bound up with, are
tied together in a knot of existential angst that is at the heart of the problem of
dukkha.
What we perceive is not separate from what we crave. This inseparability
stems from the fact that our cravings direct and condition our intentions
(cetanā). What we intend is a function of what we feel ourselves to need.
Our intentions determine what we do, we act on the basis of what we intend.
Our actions in turn shape what we perceive, the world only shows up for us as
seeming a certain way a consequence of how we are situated in it. This is
probably at least part of the reason why the suttas sometimes portray the
Buddha as equating cetanā with kamma (e.g. AN II 415). It is our intentions
that actively shape our present and our future on the basis of habits we’ve
accumulated in the past. When our intentions are conditioned by craving, then
our futures will be fraught with dukkha because craving is the cause of dukkha
(SN V 420).
Consider the following epithet from the Buddha, it is the opening remark of
the Lokantagamana Sutta: ‘Bhikkhus, I say that the end of the world cannot be
known, seen, or reached by traveling. Yet, bhikkhus, I also say that without
reaching the end of the world there is no making an end to suffering’ (SN IV
93).37 In response to this, Ānanda provided the following further explanation to
a group of perplexed bhikkhus: ‘That in the world by which one is a perceiver
of the world, a conceiver of the world-this is called the world in the Noble
One's Discipline’ (ibid)38. The loka or world with which we are engaged is not
one that is separable from our powers of perception and cognition. Indeed,
Ānanda expands this when developing his explanation by applying it to the six-
fold basis of perception and cognition (saḷāyatana):39

And what, friends, is that in the world by which one is a perceiver of the world, a
conceiver of the world? The eyes are that in the world by which one is a perceiver
of the world, a conceiver of the world. The ear ... The nose ... The tongue ...The
body ... The mind is that in the world by which one is a perceiver of the world, a
conceiver of the world. That in the world by which one is a perceiver of the
world, a conceiver of the world - this is called the world in the Noble One's
Discipline (SN IV 95).40

37
This translation and the two below from the same sutta follow Bodhi (2000): Bnāhaṃ, bhikkhave,
gamanena lokassa antaṃ ñāteyyaṃ, daṭṭheyyaṃ, patteyyanti vadāmi. na ca panāhaṃ, bhikkhave, appatvā
lokassa antaṃ dukkhassa antakiriyaṃ vadāmī^ti.
38
yena kho, āvuso, lokasmiṃ lokasaññī hoti lokamānī—ayaṃ vuccati ariyassa vinaye loko.
39
Cited by Coseru (2015, 229)
40
kena cāvuso, lokasmiṃ lokasaññī hoti lokamānī? Cakkhunā kho, āvuso, lokasmiṃ lokasaññī hoti lokamānī
Sotena kho, āvuso…ghānena kho, āvuso…jivhāya kho, āvuso...kāyena kho, āvuso…manena kho, āvuso
lokasmiṃ lokasaññī hoti lokamānī.
 S. M. Smith

Passages such as this one have led some contemporary philosophers to liken the
Buddhist model of mind-world interaction to Husserl’s notion of the Lebenswelt or
life-world (Varela et al. 2001; Coseru 2012, 2015; Husserl 1970). The overlap here
consists in the fact that the world that we perceive as outside of ourselves is still deeply
connected to us in virtue of the organization of our living body and the sensory-
cognitive-affective interactions it affords.41 Such interactions are inseparable from the
kammically active mental activities that drive our physical, verbal, and mental actions.
Consider another example of this self-world entanglement, Dhammadinā’s three-
fold analysis of saṅkhāra-s in her discussion with Visākha: ‘Indeed, friend Visākha in
and out breathing are the bodily formation; applying and sustaining the mind are the
verbal formation; recognition and feeling are the mental formation’ (MN I 301).42 It is
important to bear in mind here that saṅkhāra-s (along with phassa), are the condition
for the arising of all consciousness. Such conditions ramify through all levels of the
organism, from speech and abstract cognition all the way down to life-regulation
processes like respiration.43 The latter of these is an absolutely central gateway for
meditative development, precisely because of the way in which it provides the con-
templative with a point of experiential access to the complex and reciprocal causal
dynamics that exist between the living body and the latent reactive processes of the
mind (saṅkhāra, anusaya) that cause consciousness to arise (cf. MN II 79,).
A third point returns to our previous discussion of the luminous mind (AN I 10).
Recall that Buddhaghosa identifies this luminous mind with the bhavaṅga citta (Asl,
140). Recall also, that the luminous mind is, 'defiled by adventitious defilements.’ In a
lengthy footnote to his translation of this passage, Bhikkhu Bodhi points out that there
is a tension at work here in the claim that the mind is both pure and luminous as well as
defiled (by that which is adventitious). The tension arises because elsewhere it is also
claimed that there is no first beginning to ignorance and craving (AN V 113-120).

41
The Abhidharmikas would of course have no objection to this reading of the basic thrust of Buddhist
soteriology. The issue at hand is whether their fully worked out taxonomy of causally connected mental events
is capable of adequately explaining the Buddhist view when it is framed in this way. I am arguing that they
cannot. However, there is textual evidence against my claim. For example, the seventh book of the canonical
Pāli Abhidhamma, the Paṭṭhāna enumerates twenty-four types of causal conditions (paccya) that certainly are
concerned with affective-motivational continuity. However, all the mentions of the bhavaṅga citta that we find
in the Paṭṭhāna are very precise about the kinds of paccaya associated with it. Specifically, the bhavaṅga only
seems to enter into the anantara-paccaya or ‘succession’ condition (Cousins 1981, 40-41). This kind of
relation seems to be devoid of the kind of affective and motivational connections that I am concerned with
here. Further, even though a proper consideration of the totality of the conditional relations (not just the ones
that pertain to bhavaṅga), of the Paṭṭhāna surely shows that the Abhidhamma commentators were concerned
with what I am calling ‘affective-motivational’ continuity of mind, it is not clear that a) their specific work on
how this continuity is at play with respect to bhavaṅga can be made fully workable and b) this Abhidhamma
view of punctate mind-moments can do the work of explaining the non-linear dynamics of kamma. I return to
these points below.
42
Bassāsapassāsā kho, āvuso visākha, kāyasaṅkhāro, vitakkavicārā vacīsaṅkhāro, saññā ca vedanā ca
cittasaṅkhāro^ti.
43
Anālayo (2006) points out that the notion of saṅkhāra appears in at least three different contexts in the
suttas. The first is as the fourth of the five aggregates, the second is as the second link in the twelve-point
formulation of dependent origination — it is here, that saṅkhāra is mentioned explicitly as being a condition
for the arising of consciousness — and third, as a general notion for anything conditioned. I understand these
differences in terms of emphasis and context rather than as kinds. Thus, even though the threefold schema I
cite from MN I 301 does not explicitly mention the conditional relation between saṅkhāra and consciousness,
it is common sense that when saṅkhāras arise at the level of body, speech, or mind, subsequent moments of
consciousness will be conditioned by those reactions.
A Pāli Buddhist Philosophy of Sentience: Reflections on Bhavaṅga...

Therefore, it seems like ignorance and craving are fundamental features of the mind
present in the beginningless cycles of saṃsāric time. The question is whether our
Buddhist philosophers can have it both ways.
The commentaries allege that the defilements occur only at the kammically active
stage of javana. This is the stage in the perceptual process that comes after the arising
of bhavaṅga, advertence to the object impinging on the relevant sensory receptor, and a
sensory-modality specific moment of consciousness (see Ganeri 2017, ch. 10). The
javana stage is where the arising of citta-s becomes explicitly morally valenced. In the
commentary on §8 of chapter III of the Abhidhammattha Sangaha, Bhikkhu Bodhi and
Rewata Dhamma explain: ‘The javana stage is the most important from an ethical
standpoint, for it is at this point that wholesome or unwholesome citta-s originate’
(Bodhi 1999, 124). The orthodox Abhidhamma explanation of the tension between
intrinsic luminosity and beginningless defilement is that the latter is located exclusively
at the level of javana, leaving the bhavaṅga undefiled and kammically neutral.
However, this is problematic as clearly the potential for defilement must be carried
on in each successive stage of mental goings-on so that such potential may or may not
be actualized by presently occurring causes. Since the bhavaṅga citta is the first
moment of consciousness that arises in a new life, it must contain within it the latent
defilements that were the cause of the previous life not being fully emancipated from
saṃsāra. Therefore, a strict separation between the two seems like a poor starting place.
Bhikkhu Bodhi’s explanation tries to circumvent this difficulty in the following way
(Bodhi 2012, 1597-8, fn. 46):

...luminosity is an innate characteristic of mind, seen in its capacity to illuminate

its objective field. This luminosity, though inherent, is functionally blocked
because the mind is 'defiled by adventitious defilements' (āgantukehi upakkilesehi
upakkiliṭṭthaṃ). The defilements are called 'adventitious' because, unlike the
luminosity, they are not intrinsic to the mind itself...these defilements can be
removed by mental training. With their removal, the mind's intrinsic luminosity
emerges - or, more precisely, becomes manifest.

I do not think this explanation works on its own. It stands in too stark a contrast with
the functional profile of bhavaṅga citta. The bhavaṅga citta is what individuates a
sentient being both at the level of kind and individual; this citta makes us the kind of
thing we are and who we are (Gethin 1994, 19). Beings exist as the finite beings they
are because of their kamma. It is unclear how such a mind moment could be both
intrinsically pure and individuate sentient beings as the kammically bound beings they
are. Philosophically speaking, the view seems less problematic when we emphasize the
metaphorical reading of luminosity. Recall that luminosity can be understood figura-
tively as a way of describing the epistemic function of consciousness on the one hand,
and as a literal description of the mind’s character on the other. It is perfectly consistent
to claim that the bhavaṅga citta’s intrinsic nature is to know by providing the sentient
being with basal awareness of both who and what they are while at the same time
acknowledging that this basal awareness can become literally luminous through
development.
The arising and passing away of bhavaṅga citta-s cannot be understood in isolation
from the deep motivational psychology that animates the arising of conscious states of
 S. M. Smith

various kinds. This is because even if we locate the defilements of the mind at the level
of javana, we must still account for their latent potentiality, potentialities that are made
kammically active at this stage of the perceptual process: ‘It is in the javana phase that
the defilements, dormant in the subconscious bhavaṅga, infiltrate mental activity and
defile the mind’ (ibid). Therefore, insofar as the arising of conscious states are
conditioned by reactive complexes and such conscious states themselves are a condi-
tion for the arising of the nāma-rūpa, we cannot divorce the question of diachronic
continuity from kammically active motivational and affectively biased reaction com-
plexes. This means that it is impossible for bhavaṅga citta-s to be intrinsically
undefiled and luminous, in the emancipated sense of the latter term. There is no level
in the mind at which the occurrence of a mental event is merely a stop-gap. The
affectively biased kammic charge of past experience must be borne by whatever mental
event is arising at a given time. Therefore, it makes more sense to deny intrinsic
luminosity to bhavaṅga citta-s and instead affirm the idea that this luminosity can
develop with training (Anālayo 2017). Consider a diamond and its crystalline beauty.
Does it make sense to attribute that luminous quality to the carbon molecules that spent
millions of years being compacted by appropriate conditions to yield the diamond? Of
course, not. Similarly, it makes more sense to affirm that consciousness is by its nature
something conditioned and biased which can then be refined and emancipated by a
proper course of training.44

From Affective-Motivational Continuity to Diachronic Unity

A further problem now arises, namely, in virtue of what can we claim that defilements
are ‘dormant’ in the bhavaṅga citta? In addition to diachronic continuity and syn-
chronic unity, we must also embrace some form of diachronic unity in the mind. I think
this is necessary if the temporally distended associative complexes that condition the
arising of consciousness are to be properly understood. If this claim is right, then the
idea that the bhavaṅga citta or something like it is only a stop-gap that arises only when
other mental factors shut down becomes problematic on a philosophical level.
The necessity of some form of diachronic unity to stabilize the non-linear patterns of
affective bias in the motivational substratum of mind can be seen by considering the
role that kamma plays in conditioning the present moment. This is put succinctly by
William Waldron in the following passage: ‘The paths our continued embodied exis-
tence take are directed by the accumulated results of our past actions, which are
continually reinforced—which increase and Bgrow^—by our afflicted activities in the
present, which themselves are deeply informed by the underlying currents of our
various dispositions’ (Waldron 2003, 24). Moreover, if we think of these processes
within the framework of the stream metaphor for consciousness (Vis 458, XIV.114;
James 1890/1950), we can follow Waldron further. Extending the stream metaphor,
Waldron continues: ‘...contoured by these banks [of saṅkhāric dispositions], our stream
of consciousness continuously flows with both the bubbling surface of its swift
churning waters and the deeper, hidden currents flowing beneath its surface—both of
which subtly yet continuously make their mark upon the contours of that very riverbed

44
This line of reasoning of course cuts against many developments in later Buddhist philosophy, but it is
enough to show that it is philosophically consistent with this stratum of texts.
A Pāli Buddhist Philosophy of Sentience: Reflections on Bhavaṅga...

and its banks...’ (ibid). The limited diachronic unity of the mind is constructed by the
simultaneous (not serial) operation of multiple forms of consciousness—bhavaṅga
citta-s and sensory-cognitive citta-s—that are jointly sufficient for the instantiation of
a meta-stable first-personal perspective that is meaningfully related to a world (loka) of
value, meaning, and suffering (dukkha).
The nature of our present experience is a product not just of the sensory contact with
present objects but also of latent reactive tendencies that condition the way in which our
perception and cognition of the world is tinged by our preferences and habits. Our
current experience does not oscillate back and forth between these two conditions, one
moment of consciousness arising in dependence on a sankhāric reaction complex, one
arising due to causal contact with an object in the world. Our sankhāric dispositions
motivate our perceptual attention and this conditions the kinds of things we see.
Reciprocally, current perception primes subsequent goal formation by conditioning
our expectations. Thus, the two conditions for the arising of consciousness (saṅkhāra
and phassa) cannot be completely disentangled in the way a purely Abhidhammic
reading of bhavaṅga citta seems to demand. Even in the absence of explicitly defiled
intentions, one is still not free from dukkha because of the underlying tendencies in the
mind (anusayas): ‘If, bhikkhus, you do not intend, and you do not elaborate, but you
still have an underlying tendency [towards something], then this becomes an objective
basis for the abiding of consciousness. When there is an objective basis, there is a
support for the establishing of consciousness...Such is the origin of this whole suffering
of the aggregates’ (SN II 65).45 It is only once the anusaya-s are fully eradicated
through contemplative development that one is truly freed form dukkha.
The capacity of the underlying tendencies to occasion an occurrent defiled mental state
means that there must be overlapping continuities at different levels of the mind. Our
surface level sensory and cognitive states are conditioned by contact (phassa) and by the
latent dispositions (anusaya-s). When sensory contact is of a suitable form, often the latent
dispositions can become manifest. The potential for this transition from latent to manifest
demands different levels of mental processing that overlap. Causal contact at a sensory
receptor is not sufficient to explain sensory-cognitive consciousness, because the content
of such states is affectively encoded by our latent motivations. Overlap occurs because
sensory experience changes moment to moment but our motivations undergird that
experience in the face of such change. This overlap seems sufficient for at least some
kind of diachronic unity in the mind. Instead of the bhavaṅga citta filling a kind of stop-
gap, it should be seen to arise in conjunction with other more typical sensory and cognitive
modes of consciousness, the former occasioned by latent defilements, the latter occasioned
by occurrent sensory-cognitive objects and receptor stimulation. Thus, the type of unity I
have in mind is a resultant unity. It is not to say that the mind is one unchanging thing. But
rather, that it’s various layers of processing work together in a dynamic way to construct an
emergent and relatively invariant organismal perspective through which the world is
meaningfully disclosed. Clearly this view is not the standard Abhidhamma view, but it
makes more sense of the way that deep affective-motivational continuity impacts mere
diachronic continuity in a Buddhist theory of mind. As we shall see in the following
section, Ledi Sayadaw can be read as having a view very much like this.

45
no ce, bhikkhave, ceteti no ce pakappeti, atha ce anuseti, ārammaṇametaṃ hoti viññāṇassa ṭhitiyā.
ārammaṇe sati patiṭṭhā viññāṇassa hoti… evametassa kevalassa dukkhakkhandhassa samudayo hoti.
 S. M. Smith

Ledi Sayadaw's Account of the Bhavaṅga Citta

Perhaps at this juncture it might seem unclear as to how Buddhist the position I
have been articulating is. Isn’t a diachronically unified mental stream a self or
soul (atta)? I think not. The position I am developing can be construed as
thoroughly Buddhist. For assistance in making that argument, I turn to modern
Burma.
Ledi Sayadaw (1846-1923) was a scholar monk of great repute both for his
achievements as a contemplative and as an Abhidhamma philosopher (Braun
2013). His numerous manuals (dipani) form an impressive corpus of philosoph-
ical engagement with the tipiṭaka (Ledi 2001). In their commentary on the
Abhidhammattha Sangaha, the Bhikkhu Bodhi and Rewatta Dhamma point out
numerous places where Ledi's commentarial engagement diverged from more
orthodox interpretations of a number of technical issues regarding how to
properly characterize certain wholesome and unwholesome states (e.g. Abhi-s
I, 6, Bodhi 1999, 38-9; Braun 2013, 45 ff.). Additionally, in Burma, it was
Ledi Sayadaw who first started to teach householders the contemplative tech-
nique of vipassanā which was arguably one of the most significant events in
the advent of Buddhist modernism and the subsequent development of house-
holder lineages of meditation that have become a mainstay of contemporary
Buddhism (Braun 2013; McMahan 2008). To my knowledge, in spite of his
prowess as a free-thinking Abhidhamma scholar and contemplative, Ledi's
thought on the bhavaṅga citta has not been widely discussed. This is not
surprising, as his view is quite strange and very different from the one I have
been engaging with thus far. Even so, Ledi’s particular conception of the
bhavaṅga citta has had a palpable impact on how vipassanā is taught in the
householder tradition that he founded. In spite of some curious inconsistencies
in his exegesis, I will show that a certain reading of his account is able to deal
with some of the difficulties I raised for the account I looked at in the previous
section. I note here that I am hardly in a position decisively resolve the kinds
of tensions that animate Abhidhammic philosophical psychology. Further, Ledi
is a very late voice in the Pāli tradition whose own view suffers from
difficulties that I will also address. Even so, my aim in this section is to show
that my reading of Ledi’s view offers philosophical resources for the
Abhidhammic program that are worthy of serious consideration.
The relevant text for Ledi's idiosyncratic view on the bhavaṅga citta is contained in
the Uttamapurisa Dipani or Manual of the Excellent Man (UD). It is an extended
response to a series of nine questions put forth by a lay-devotee named Maung Thaw.
The second chapter contains an analysis of the five aggregates. It is here that Ledi
explains his interpretation of the bhavaṅga citta. In the following passage Ledi lays out
his account. After explaining why I think his is a good account, I will explore two
subsequent confusions that make his exegesis as a whole more unstable. Here is the
passage in full:

There is an ever-present process called 'the element of apprehension' (manodhātu)

depending on the heart-base, which is so pure as to be lustrous. The mind-base is a
functional state of subconsciousness (bhavaṅga). When a visible object contacts
A Pāli Buddhist Philosophy of Sentience: Reflections on Bhavaṅga...

the eye, the impact is simultaneously felt at the mind-base. So when one is looking
at the moon, the image of the moon appears at both the eye-base and the mind-base
simultaneously. When the viewer turns away from the moon, the image on the eye
disappears instantly, but the image on the mind-base disappears rather slowly.
(Ledi UD, 49)46

In this passage, we see that Ledi follows Buddhaghosa in identifying the luminous
mind with the bhavaṅga citta. However, this is where his convergence with
commentarial orthodoxy ends. There are two important divergences here that bear on
issues discussed in the previous section. By providing an explanation of these diver-
gences, I have two purposes in mind. The first is to show how philosophically
interesting and tenable my reading of this small piece of Ledi’s account is. Second, I
want to provide reasons to endorse the last premise of the argument of this paper. That
premise comes in the form of a conditional which takes the conjunction of the two
previous premises as its antecedent:

AM3. If primal sentient consciousness is phenomenal and helps provide for the
affective-motivational continuity of mind, then phenomenal consciousness has a
special connection to our orientation and disposition to act or respond to the world.

In order to earn the consequent of this conditional, I need to explain why the antecedent
is a sufficient condition for the desired conclusion. By explicating the dual manner in
which my reconstruction of Ledi’s account differs from the Abhihammic orthodoxy, I
can begin to provide such an explanation.
The first divergence between Ledi’s account in this short paragraph and the
commentarial orthodoxy is the former’s claim of simultaneity. For Ledi, the bhavaṅga
citta is constantly arising in response to occurrent sensory and cognitive input. It is not
just a stop-gap that arises in their absence. The 'subconscious' mind is always feeling
the impact of sensory-cognitive perturbations. By positing a subliminal mind that is
constantly reacting to sensory-cognitive input, we can start to make sense of how the
latent affective-motivational continuity of the mind is always at work, in conjunction
with the causal impact of intentional objects on sensory receptors, to realize our
occurrent stream of experience. Our latent dispositions condition our expectations
and intentions which in turn condition how and what we see when contact (phassa)
occurs.
The second divergence is temporal. According to Ledi, the arising and passing away
of the bhavaṅga citta happens at a more distended temporal interval than ordinary
sensory-cognitive moments of consciousness. In the latter case, the presence of the
object is necessary for the sensory state to persist. When the object that occasioned the
citta disappears, that citta also subsides. However, in the case of the bhavaṅga citta it is
a purely mental phenomenon (cf. Abhi-s III, 12). This means that this citta does not
depend on the presence of external objects for its existence. For Ledi, this lack of
dependence on the presence of a sensory object means that such a citta persists for a
longer period of time than its episodic sensory-cognitive correlate. This is a helpful

46
I follow U Tin OO’s (2000) English translation of Ledi’s work from the Burmese. I have included the
relevant Pāli words for ease of reference to previous discussion that treats of these concepts.
 S. M. Smith

divergence from the standard Abhidhamma account which posits that all forms of citta
arise and pass away in a momentary fashion with the same temporal interval. Such a
divergence provides a basis for understanding how the impact of a previous experience
can continue to condition a present one.
Consider the situation in which someone has verbally insulted you in the presence of
your friends. The event has come and gone but the emotional impact of the insult
continues to have an impact on you. So severe was the verbal assault that for the
remainder of the day you are in a bad mood and perceive your friends in a suspicious
way, why didn't they come to your defense? In addition to your continuing stream of
thought and perception there is a reactionary process initiated by the insult that directs,
motivates, and conditions your subsequent mental states. The continuation of the
conscious experience is buoyed by both occurrent sensory and cognitive stimuli in
addition to sankhāric reactions instigated by your previous public encounter with the
person who insulted you. Edmund Husserl's example of hearing a melody is another
helpful case (Husserl 1928/2008; Thompson 2007). When you hear a melody, you do
not hear a series of notes, one after the other. The coherence of the present moment
depends on an immediately retained past and a forward-looking anticipation of the
future. This is how a temporally extended experience of listening to music can make
sense to us in the face of the fact that it is constantly changing.47
The overlap between Ledi Sayadaw’s account of the bhavaṅga citta and the
Yogācāra notion of ālaya-vijñāna is staggering. Indeed, on my reconstruction, Ledi
looks more like a Yogācāra philosopher than he does a Thervādin exegete. The
Yogācāra school of Mahāyana Buddhism distinguished itself philosophically through
two related claims. The first was an endorsement of some kind of idealism, the claim
that reality was ‘mind-only’ (citta-mātra).48 The second was to add two levels of
conscious processing to the already established six-fold analysis of consciousness that
was proper to Buddhist literature that preceded it. The most foundational of these two
new forms of consciousness was the storehouse (ālaya-vijñāna), a receptacle for un-
ripened karmic seeds (bīja). In addition to this eighth consciousness, there is also a
seventh appropriating consciousness (manas-vijñāna), a form of awareness that habit-
ually and mistakenly takes the ākaya- vijñāna to be the self.49
The motivation for the Yogācāra to posit something like the ālaya-vijñāna arises out
of need to solve the ‘abhidharma problematic’ (Waldron 2003). This problematic
resolves around the question of how to explain karmic potentiality and the non-linear
ways in which these potentials become manifest in the lives of sentient beings. This

47
It is important to note that in this context, Husserl's explanatory target is somewhat different from ours.
Husserl is here analyzing the intentional structure of occurrent conscious experience, while we are talking
about the diachronic unity of the mind. However, both points converge on the idea that our present experience
of the world is deeply tied up with our capacity to retain and be influenced by the recent past.
48
There is considerable scholarly disagreement about what this ‘idealism’ consists in. For an attempt to
construe Yogācāra idealism as a kind of transcendental Phenomenology, see Anacker (2013) and Lusthaus
(2002). For a Kantian idealistic reading, see Garfield’s (1997) excellent commentary on Vausbandhu’s
Trisvabhāvanirdeśa. For a defense of a more robust idealistic reading of Yogācāra focused on Vasubandhu’s
Viṃśikā, see Kellner and Taber (2014).
49
Schmithausen (1987) is the locus classicus for contemporary scholarship on the ālaya-vijñāna. Waldron
(2003) is also exceptional for it emphasizes the continuity of the Yogācāra philosophical project with the Pāli
tradition. I rely on this text extensively in the present section. For an astute analysis of Vasubandhu’s
contributions evolution toward and contributions to Yogācāra philosophy, see Gold (2015).
A Pāli Buddhist Philosophy of Sentience: Reflections on Bhavaṅga...

was one of the primary motivations for the Yogācāra philosophers to innovate in such a
radical way by adding new forms of conscious awareness to their conceptual
schemas.50 As William Waldron points out, ‘…the ālaya-vijñāna is portrayed as a
kind of basal consciousness which persists uninterruptedly within the material sense-
faculties during the absorption of cessation (nirodha-samāpatti)’ (2003, 92). Ledi’s
emphasis on the simultaneous functioning of the bhavaṅga citta at a more distended
temporal interval than its sensory-cognitive correlates mirrors the Yogācāra emphasis
on the contrast between ālaya-vijñāna and pravṛtti-vijñāna. This latter term denotes all
forms of consciousness besides the ālaya-vijñāna which are united in being forms of
‘manifest cognitive awareness’ (Waldron 2003, 93). Both the bhavaṅga citta and the
ālaya-vijñāna are not manifest because they do not depend on the causal contact of
sensory objects with sensory receptors to arise. They operate in the background and are
tacitly conditioned by this ordinary causal commerce with the world without being
dependent on it for its origination. This is the special form of connection referred to in
(AM3) between our experience and our orientation towards the world. It is important to
note in this regard that these forms of awareness are also not ‘cognitive’ in that they
lack explicit intentional objects. Rather, both notions represent a kind of primal
sentience which is the condition for the arising of more ordinary forms of sensory-
cognitive consciousness.
Philosophically speaking, by positing a layer of mental processing with an extended
interval of arising and passing away, one that undergirds and is constantly reacting to
ordinary sensory-cognitive states, Ledi's account of the bhavaṅga citta allows the
possibility for a coherent phenomenology of present experience, one that embraces
the immediate past and future. From the point of view of the analysis of mental events
in the Abhidhamma commentarial literature, Ledi’s account seems highly heterodoxical
because it rejects the notion of every mental state having the same short duration and
that such events arise one at a time in a serial manner. In opposition to this view, we see
the claim that the subliminal mind is constantly arising and passing away with a more
distended temporal interval that allows it to retain and react to the content of ordinary
sensory-cognitive moments of awareness. Without this substratum, it is unclear how the
deep motivational complexes that animate and drive the arising of consciousness can
carry their kammic charge.
As we have seen, there is an important distinction between the latent and the
manifest in kammic continuity, and this continuity goes beyond the dependence of a
token conscious state on the proper functioning of a perceptual-cognitive apparatus and
the diachronic continuity of mind this causal commerce between subject and world
provides. Contained within the diachronic relations that connect each mental state are
the prior dispositions, inclinations, preferences, and habits of previous states. Conscious
moments arise as a result of both these motivational impulses as well as current
sensory-cognitive stimulation. If mental continuity is explained only in terms of one
event arising in succession after another, these deeper levels of sankhāric reactivity that
persist in latent forms becomes quite opaque. Since this is the case, from within the
Buddhist philosophical framework I have been articulating, we are in a position to
derive the conclusion of the argument:

50
That being said, in the opening chapter of his Mahāyānasaṃgraha (Msg), Asaṅga argues that the Yogācāra
view of eight consciousnesses is part of the original teaching of the Buddha (cf. Keenan 2003, 13 ff).
 S. M. Smith

AMC. Phenomenal consciousness has a special connection to our orientation and

disposition to act or respond to the world.

The philosophical import of conclusions such as this are substantial. Many contempo-
rary philosophers have struggled with the so-called ‘hard problem’ of consciousness
(see Chalmers 1996). This problem can be stated in the form of several questions like
‘why is there consciousness?’, ‘what does consciousness do?’, or ‘what is conscious-
ness for?’ These are notoriously difficult questions to answer. Some philosophers try to
reduce consciousness to the workings of other cognitive functions like attention (Prinz
2011). Others try to eliminate consciousness entirely as a kind of conceptual user
illusion (Dennett 1991). Still others attempt to provide a metaphysical picture of the
world in which consciousness is a fundamental existent (Chalmers 2003). The Buddhist
position that I have been reconstructing offers a partial solution. The claim on offer here
is that it is in virtue of our capacity to feel ourselves as being the kinds of beings we are
that we are in a position to act in the world in specific ways. This is the ‘special
connection’ referred to in the argument. By being conscious of the world, we are able to
know and act in it in ways we could not if we were not conscious (Thompson 2007,
231).
Before concluding, I need to flag two confusions that arise in Ledi's thinking about
this topic. The first is a kind of slip that he makes back into a more standard account of
bhavaṅga citta. Shortly after the aforementioned passage, Ledi claims: ‘When con-
sciousness arises, subconsciousness disappears...Just as darkness reasserts itself when a
flash of lightning disappears, consciousness ceases and subconsciousness reasserts
itself at the heart-base the moment the [image of the] moon gets out of the eye’ (Ledi
UD, 53). One way of reading this is to say that when Ledi claims that the mind element
is a function of subconsciousness he is making a claim about an additional form of
consciousness on top of the seven he is already working with (six sensory-cognitive
consciousnesses and the bhavaṅga citta). Rather than referring to bhavaṅga citta
specifically, he could be read as claiming that the mental element that is its function
is another kind of consciousness. If that’s so, then Ledi’s view is even closer to
Yogācāra Buddhist philosophy than it might already seem. On this reading, Ledi would
seem to be working with eight kinds of consciousness rather than just seven. Either
way, Ledi’s view is importantly different from Buddhaghosa’s view on account of his
positing a temporally extended mental kind that integrates the content of sensory-
cognitive moments of consciousness.51
A second confusion is the following: ‘When a person is asleep,52 the mind is in a
state of subconsciousness (bhavaṅga). This very subtle state of mind is always present
in a living being, hovering around the heart-base like clear water oozing from a spring.
It is an inert state of mind below the threshold of consciousness. So it cannot motivate
the sense organs to function, either in bodily, verbal or mental action. It cannot advert
to mental objects’ (Ledi UD 51-2, emphasis mine). This passage is in blatant contra-
diction with the twofold interpretation of the sutta material that I have been developing.

51
Additionally, the metaphor equating the bhavaṅga with darkness is inapt because of Buddhaghosa’s
previous identification with the mind's luminosity. Though, this identification seems in line with the passage
from the Milinda Pañha cited earlier (Mil VIII, 5).
52
I am assuming (charitably), that Ledi is here referring to dreamless sleep.
A Pāli Buddhist Philosophy of Sentience: Reflections on Bhavaṅga...

The first part of this interpretation tries to show that we need a subliminal mental kind
to account for latent kammic potentiality and that this mental kind has an impact on the
arising of subsequent moments of consciousness. Ledi seems to reject both points. 53
I have been arguing at length in favor of the first, namely that our capacity to purify
our own minds by eradicating our unwholesome anusaya-s means that there must be
more to the mind than a series of discrete events, one after the other and that such latent
processes kammically condition consciousness. This point has been developed in
contrast with the types of analysis typical of the Abhidhamma commentaries. However,
regarding the second part of my interpretation, it is worth mentioning that Ledi seems
to be rejecting a point contained in the normal definition of the bhavaṅga citta, one
with which I am inclined to agree. For example, in the Abhidhammattha Sangaha, the
adverting consciousness is directly tied to the bhavaṅga citta (Abhi-s III, 8). Indeed,
according to this account, the arresting of the bhavaṅga citta is due to its disturbance by
a sensory-cognitive object that causes the adverting citta to arise. Therefore, the
bhavaṅga citta is not inert because it is sensitive to sensory-cognitive impingement,
and its disturbance and arrest are the direct causal antecedent for the arising of the
adverting citta.
The full significance of these inconsistencies cannot be developed here. However, it
is curious that Ledi seems to diverge radically from the commentarial orthodoxy in one
paragraph and then return to it in the next. This waffling leads to two plausible
exegetical confusions. First, it seems likely that Ledi is taking his inspiration from
material that comes far later than the Pāli commentarial literature. Second, it seems that
like Buddhaghosa, Ledi’s account contains gaps, inconsistencies, and philosophical
tensions. It is not my task at this juncture to iron out such tensions. I am content to take
one part of Ledi’s account as an inspiration for advancing an interpretation of the
bhavaṅga citta that attempts to address some of the philosophical concerns that I have
been engaging with in this paper.

Conclusion

I began with a fairly detailed outline of the functional role of the bhavaṅga citta in the
Theravāda commentarial literature on the Abhidhamma. I then explored three related
contexts in the suttas that seemed to indicate something like a bhavaṅga citta but with
the additional conceptual baggage of recruiting the complex motivational psychology
that undergirds the arising of consciousness. I tried to use this additional baggage to
create a difficulty for an important reading of bhavaṅga citta that reflects a more or less
standard Abhidhammic view of mental functioning (Collins 1982; Griffiths 1986). I
53
One might object that we should not take Ledi's account too seriously in that it is obviously tailored to the
needs of a householder and therefore his answers are probably not philosophically mature and have been
neutered for the benefit of those who might end up reading it. I think this objection would be misplaced. It is
true that Ledi had a special relationship with the lay community of Buddhist devotees. However, this
relationship was one of rigorous tutelage. Not only did he introduce many householders to the depths of
Buddhist contemplative practice, but he was also largely responsible for the lay study of the abhidhdamma-
piṭaka. In the case of the Uttamapurisa Dipani, part of his stated reasons for such a thorough, book-length
response was the precision and depth of the questions themselves. Thus, I think it safe to say that Ledi's
answers in this manual represent his considered views. Though, this of course does not speak to the
inconsistencies I mentioned above (Braun 2013).
 S. M. Smith

argued that in addition to diachronic continuity that the anusaya complexes that operate
at a subliminal level in the mind entail that there is a limited and constructed form of
diachronic unity to the mind that precludes the kind of momentariness indicated by the
philosophically mature Abhidhamma philosophy.
I then turned to Ledi Sayadaw's analysis of the bhavaṅga citta. In spite of some
glaring inconsistencies in the text, I think that there is something tantalizing in Ledi's
brief account, one that shares much more with the ālaya-vijñāna of the Yogācāra school
of Indian Buddhism than it does with accounts of the bhavaṅga citta found in the
Theravāda Abhidhamma commentarial literature (Lusthaus 2002, Waldron 2003).
What this isomorphism between Ledi’s reading of bhavaṅga citta and the Yogācāra’s
approach to ālaya-vijñāna suggests is that there is a reading of the Buddhist philo-
sophical position that sees the most fundamental mode of conscious awareness as an
embodied sentience that is constantly perturbed by reactions and affective biases. This
reading of the Buddhist view offers a nuanced account of the different ways in which
affect conditions experience at the deepest levels of mental processing, one that has a
deep and long-standing influence on our habits of action, speech, and thought.54

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This paper has had a very long gestation process from first conception to publication. I owe many debts of
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