Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Chapter Four
means literally “thinking”; the prefix vi gives it a strengthened sense, so that vitakka means pronounced or decisive thinking.1
The word vitakka is often found in the suttas in various contexts all suggestive of this meaning of thought. It appears in several places as the final term in a sequence preceded by feeling (vedanā) and perception (saññā). Thus referring to himself, the Buddha states that he is aware in every case of the arising, persistence, and passing away of feelings, perceptions, and vitakkas:
Here, Ananda, in the Tathāgata feelings are understood as they arise, as they remain present, as they pass away; perceptions are understood as they arise, as they remain present, as they pass away; applied thoughts (vitakkā) are understood as they arise, as they remain present, as they pass away.2 (Wr. tr.).
Vitakka takes the same objects as perception. It is divided into six classes by way of its objects; thus there are thoughts about forms, thoughts about sounds, thoughts about smells, thoughts about tastes, thoughts about tangibles, and thoughts about ideas.
Because vitakka has the same objects as perception, but follows the latter in the account of the cognitive process, it is clearly a development and advance beyond the perceptual function. This is borne out by the MadhupiLYika Sutta where vitakka is shown following perception in the process by which mental impediments (papañca) come to obsess the mind. The great disciple Mahākaccāyana explains that in dependence on the sense faculties and their objects consciousness arises. The meeting of the faculty, object, and consciousness is contact (phassa). In dependence on contact feeling arises. Then: “What one feels one perceives; what one perceives one thinks about; what one thinks about becomes an impediment.”3 (Wr. tr.).
The understanding of vitakka as thought is further supported by an important passage from the Culavedalla Sutta. Here the wise bhikkhunī Dhammadinnā describes vitakka and vicāra as “activity of speech” (vacisa.khāra), giving as the reason: “Having first had applied thought and sustained thought, one subsequently breaks out into speech, therefore applied thought and sustained thought is activity of speech.”4 (Wr. tr.). The commentary defines “activity of speech” as that which “causes, creates, or activates speech,”5 (Wr. tr.), and classifies as activities causing speech vitakka, vicāra, and the wholesome and unwholesome volitions motivating verbal expression. The sub-commentary to the sutta explains that vitakka and vicāra are said to activate speech because “the mind without vitakka and vicāra is unable to make a verbal sound.”1
1. “Balavatara takkassa etaJ nāmaJ.” Dhs.A., p. 187.
2. “Idha Ānanda Tathāgatassa viditā vedanā uppajjanti, viditā upa::hahanti, viditā abbhattaJ gacchanti;
viditā saññā, viditā vitakkā uppajjanti. viditā upa::hahanti, viditā abbhattaJ gacchanti.” MN. 3:124.
3. “YaJ vedeti taJ sañjānāti, yaJ sañjānāti taJ vitakketi, yaJ vitakketi taJ papañceti.” MN. 1:111-12.
4. Pubbe kho āvuso vitakketvā vicāretvā pacchā vācaJ bhindati. Tasmā vitakka vicārā vacīsaKkhāro.”
MN. 1:301.
5. “VācaJ saKkharoti karoti nibbatteti ti vacisaKkhāro.” MN.A. 2:263.
(Wr. tr.). Since the inner verbal formulation of ideas precedes and governs their articulation through the apparatus of verbal expression, the key factors in the thinking process are also the mainsprings of intelligible speech.
The thought element in vitakka again comes to light in the use of the doubly augmented word parivitakka to mean “reflection” or “ratiocination.” We frequently see in the texts an individual sitting in solitude give rise to a chain of parivitakkas, reflections or reasonings in his mind, which he then expresses outwardly at a later time. Thus, for example, when the Buddha was considering the difficulties the average person would meet in understanding the Dhamma, it is said: “Then as the Lord was meditating in seclusion a reasoning arose in his mind thus...”2 “Reflections on reasons”
(akaraparivitakka) is further mentioned as one of the inadequate grounds for adopting a belief rejected in the famous passage of the Kālāma Sutta.3
Elsewhere the Buddha speaks of eight thoughts of a great man (mahāpurisā vitakkā), which he recommends to his disciples. These are the thoughts that the Dhamma is 1. for one who wants little.
2. for one who is contented.
3. for the secluded, 4. for the energetic, 5. for one who is mindful, 6. for the composed, 7. for the wise, and
8. for one who delights in freedom from impediments.4
Here the identification of vitakka with thought appears quite explicit.
Nevertheless, although vitakka does function as an essential ingredient in discursive thinking, it would be premature to equate it flatly with verbally formulated thought. The reason for this qualification is that vitakka also occurs in states of consciousness where thought formulation is not in evidence, as for example in the consciousness of the first jhāna, in the supramundane consciousness of the noble path, as well as in more primitive types of bare sense cognition. Thence the question arises as to whether vitakka has a more elemental meaning than verbalized thinking, and if so, what that meaning is.
The answers to these questions are provided by the Abhidhamma, building upon a suggested solution already found in the suttas. The suttas use the word sa.kappa –
1. “Na hi taJ vitakka vicārarahitacittaJ vacighosaJ nibbattetuJ sakkoti.” Dhammapāla, [Majjhima Nikāya )īka] [vols. 1-2] Mulapa55āsa (īkā; [vol. 3:] Majjimapa55āsa (īkā… Uparipa55āsa (īkā. [Pāli Text in Burmese script]. 3 vols. (Rangoon, Burma: Buddhasāsana Samiti, 1960-61], 2:383 (hereafter cited as MN.T.).
2. I. B. Horner, trans. The Book of the Discipline (Vinaya-Pi(aka), Vols. 1-3: (Suttavibhanga), vol. 4:
(Mahāvagga), vol. 5: (Cullavagga), vol. 6: (Parivāra), [Sacred Books of the Buddhists Series, vols. 10-11, 13-14, 20, 25], 6 vols. (London: Luzac & Co., 1951-72), 4:6 (hereafter cited as BD.). “Atha kho bhagavato rahogatassa patisallīnassa evaJ cetaso parivitakko udapādi.” Vinp. 1:4.
3. AN. 1:189.
4. AN. 5:385.
usually translated “thought,” “intention,” or “aim” – as an interchangeable equivalent of vitakka. In one passage of the Mahācattarīsaka Sutta the Buddha defines sammā-sa.kappa, the “right intention” occurring in the supramundane path, by a chain of synonyms inclusive of vitakka.1 The DhammasaKgaLi, in its analysis of the states, picks up these synonyms and gives a definition of wholesome vitakka identical in all respects with the sutta definition except that it omits the phrases limited to the supramundane path.
The ratiocination, the conception (vitakka), which on that occasion is the disposition [intention], the fixation, the focussing, the application of the mind, right intention – this is the “conception” (vitakka) that there then is.2
The DhammasaKgaLi A::akathā elaborates upon these terms as follows:
“Intention” (sa.kappa) conveys the sense of thorough-designing. And fixation is the applying the selective mind to the object. Next, “focussing” is a term for “strong fixation,” intensified by a prefix. Then, “uplift of mind”
[application of the mind] is the elevating or setting up of consciousness on to an object. And “right intention” is intention which is praiseworthy, which has won to a moral state because of its veracity and progressiveness.3
The explicative phrase which reveals most about the actual nature and function of vitakka is the expression cetaso abhiniropanā, “the application of mind,” which is explained as the lifting or mounting of consciousness onto the object. The Dhammasa/ga5i A((akathā singles out this aspect as the primary characteristic of vitakka and illustrates it with a brief analogy:
Its [main] characteristic is the lifting of consciousness on to the object; having an object, it lifts consciousness up to it. As someone depending on a relative or friend dear to the king ascends the king’s palace, so depending on initial application the mind ascends the object. Therefore it has been said that initial application lifts the mind on to the object.4
This function of applying the mind to the object seems to be the unifying element underlying the different modes in which vitakka occurs, giving it a single quality despite the diversity of its applications. In the processes of discursive thinking, thought-conception, and imagination the operation of vitakka may be more conspicuous than in other cognitive processes. But wherever it occurs its directive function is at work,
1. MN. 3:73.
2. Psy. Ethics, pp. 10-11. “Yo tasmim samaye takko vitakko, saJkappo, appanā, byappanā, cetaso abhiniropanā, sammā saJkappo, ayaJ tasmiJ samaye vitakko hoti.” Dhs., p. 18.
3. Expositor, 1:189. “Balavatara takkassetaJ nāmaJ. Su::hu kappanavasena saJkappo. EkaggaJ cittaJ ārammaLe appetīti appanā. DutiyapadaJ upasaggavasena vaYYhitaJ. Balavatarā vā appanā byappanā.
ĀrammaLe cittaJ abhiniropeti cetaso abhiniropanā. Yathāvatāya niyyānikatāya ca kusalabhāvappatto pasattho saJkappoti sammāsamkappo.” Dhs.A., p. 187.
4. Expositor, 1:151. “SvāyaJ ārammaLe cittassa abhiniropanalakkhaLo. So hi ārammaLe cittaJ āropeti.
Yathā hi koci rājavallabhaJ ñātiJ vā mittaJ vā nissāya rājagehaJ ārohati. EvaJ vitakkaJ nissāya cittaJ ārammaLaJ ārohati.” Dhs.A., p. 157.
becoming especially prominent in the first jhāna, where discursive thought has subsided but vitakka remains.
In an illuminating discussion, Shwe Zan Aung shows how the directing of the mind and its concomitants to an object is the elemental meaning of vitakka, applicable in every case where its operation is discernible. Aung explains:
[In cognition of sense objects] the element of vitakka is present as a directing of concomitant elements to a sensible object. In imagination vitakka directs to an image; in conception, to an idea; in symbolical conception, to a concept; in judgments (vinicchaya-vīthi), to a proposition; in reasoning (takkavīthi), alluded to, but not discussed in my Essay (it belongs to the province of logic), to a syllogism or an inference. In doubt, vitakka is a directing now to one object, now to another, back again, etc. In distraction vitakka is a directing of mind to several objects one after another. In first jhāna, vitakka is a directing of mind to the ‘after-image’ etc., and in transcendental consciousness, vitakka is a directing of mind to nibbāna, the Ideal. So engaged it is called sammā-sa.kappa, perfect aspiration.1
A problem seems to arise from the fact that, according to the abhidhammic system of analysis, vitakka is not a universal concomitant of consciousness. It is not present in every state of consciousness. So the question arises how, in those states of consciousness devoid of vitakka, the mind can be mounted onto its object. The commentary to the Majjhima Nikāya answers that when vitakka is absent the mind is directed upon its object through its own nature (attano dhammatāya), without dependence on other states.2 At the level of the second jhāna, after vitakka has subsided, the mind remains focussed on its object even more intensely than before, despite the absence of vitakka.
The Majjhima Nikāya subcommentary explains that a state of mind without vitakka can mount upon the object by the power of vitakka itself through the force of previous experience. Just as a person who has become familiar with a king can enter his dwelling freely without hesitation, so the mind which has gained experience of the object by means of vitakka can remain focussed on the object even after vitakka has left the mind.3