Excerpts from, “Kamma and the end of Kamma,” by Ajahn Sucitto

The programmed, conditioned citta generates further programs and conditions; its formative energy (citta-saṇkhāra) runs into our bodies and drives emotions and thoughts. We can feel this programmed process occur in the flush of our skin, the tightening in the stomach, the opening of the chest, or the sinking in the heart. In the case of a bodily reflex, a somatic program/energy, or kāya-saṇkhāra, stimulates instinctive emotion; either that or it follows through on the heart’s signals to trigger reactions – even in cases which don’t pertain to the physical body. The body tightens up when we are in an argument; a loud noise may cause it to jump; a ‘warm’ smile triggers off a flutter in the pulse, and so on. The experiencing body (kāya) and heart are essentially not separate, and at an instinctive reflex level, the bodily intelligence will override the rational. This is important to bear in mind, because even when a memory, or the result of an action, is reasoned with and dismissed, forgotten, or suppressed (‘Oh, never mind; that was years ago,’ etc.), there can still be a bodily and emotive memory-pattern that arises at an unexpected time.

Consequently, in order to clear those effects, you have to meet them in aware embodied presence. The snag is that the citta uses bodily saṇkhāra in its shutting-down strategy; then pieces of that memory get buried under the body’s armouring or numbing programs. So, the ‘voice’ of their memories is silenced. And, as we’re often dealing with or creating inner chatter, we don’t feel and therefore don’t know about these shut-down programs. However, we might notice that our body has areas of numbness and tension that aren’t related to physical causes. Such conditions may indicate that the bodily intelligence has closed over some afflictive or traumatic residues. Another indicator is that one feels overwhelmed, or flattened, or explosive in certain scenarios; problems seem huge, one loses perspective and lashes out, freezes or collapses. This is because when an area that has had intelligence removed from it suddenly opens, the readings and responses aren’t intelligent. We do and say stupid, reckless things. Then we inherit the results of that – and become a self, based on the cycle of blow-up, punish, suppress … and then we repeat the program.

Any form of abuse – physical, verbal, or psychological (mine towards others, others’ towards me, or mine towards myself) – closes down or perverts the heart’s sensitivity. All that creates a pattern that encourages a program. Even unskilful thoughts have that effect; particularly as we can have them many times more than we can carry out physical deeds. If we allow the mind to repeatedly formulate deceit, jealousy, or guilt, that creates a track down which the emotional and psychological energies will run. If you swat annoying insects, or haul fish out of the water with a hook for sport, you may not think this is particularly evil. Indeed, we can do a lot worse.

But with any decisive action we generate a ripple in the citta; repeated, it becomes a pattern that energy flows into, and a saṇkhāra track – a potential for further action – gets established. With any act of harming or abusing, that ripple forms a wave that obliterates respect for life. If it isn’t acknowledged and caused to subside, it can extend its disregard to legitimize killing ‘bad’ people, and any inconvenient others. Genocide was supported by the notion that the indigenous people were sub-human – so they could be treated in the same way that we’ve learned to treat animals. Especially if they were occupying land that we wanted. Sadly, it’s also the case that the State demands that its citizens fight and kill others in a war – and thereby do violence to their own hearts. Whose fault is that?

‘Ignorance’ has to be the answer. Through this, what may have begun as your own impulse, or someone else’s that you followed or reacted to, gets embedded – and creates a track in the citta’s field. Then fresh physical or verbal actions move down that path. To use an analogy: a wild pig, alarmed or excited by something or another, darts through the undergrowth in a forest. It thereby creates a track. Other pigs, and deer, see that track and walk down it. The track widens and becomes established. You’re wandering through the forest, see the track, and, as it represents an easy way through the undergrowth, you also use it. The track becomes a path and eventually a road. Cars drive down it, so that even when the forest is cut down, there is no other way to travel. You’re not familiar with the wider territory. Eventually, because the road is convenient, you build your house beside it.

That’s how it is: the mind keeps running down saṇkhāra tracks that were established through a careless impulse, or by chance, or even by other people. People can still feel chronic guilt over the heedless actions of a decade ago. And we can also harbour grudges, or be running programs of self-disparagement and lack of worth over actions and attitudes that we’ve been the recipients of. Worse still: when it’s bound up with a self-view, an identity gets built next to that track – that failed, evil self is ‘who I am’. In such a case, when we do something, we feel that we’re bound to get it wrong and look out for signs of disapproval. Or on reviewing an action, we decide that our motives were impure. In some cases, tracks get so habitual that the mind loses touch with any fresher possibilities. Whose fault is that?

Wrong question. Through ignorance, saṇkhāra tracks create a self as their source, when the source was really an embedded memory, vipāka. But on account of that pattern, programs arise: people sabotage their well-being with self-disparagement, anxiety or depression, and employ distracting habits to shut off those memories and resonances. This is a set-up for addiction. Drinking, drugs, pornography, gambling, over-eating, binge-shopping, internet addiction, incessant chatter and restless activity: there is a wide range of addictions, some more toxic than others, but “all afflictive, and all contributing to the ‘inadequate self’ they originated from, and deepening that impression.

To sum up: the patterns and programs, good and bad, are the waveforms in the causal field of citta. They are the means through which the mind operates in order to establish how to function in this sensory and psychological world. Furthermore, they formulate a self-image as the holding pattern, the locus of stability. However, as it’s constructed out of dynamic energy patterns, such a locus can’t be very stable. The best the average person can do is maintain a workable series of ‘good-enough’ patterns that keep the show on the road. And yet,

as the citta keeps pulsing and turning, at times it encounters its unresolved patterns or shut-down territory – and the past rises up independently of one’s wishes. Dependent on ignorance, and compounded by responses, impulses and intentions, the past event has laid down a pattern in the citta, and a sense of ‘I am this’ arises through its instinctive re-enactment.

Continued next week:  October 7, 2024