Ven. Acariya Mun - Spiritual Biography + photos

conditions, they tend to proliferate without limit. On the other hand,
when no conditions arise at all, only the citta’s inherent quality of
knowing is apparent.
Still, the essential knowing of the average person’s mind is very
different from the essential knowing of an Arahant. The average per-
son’s knowing nature is contaminated from within. Arahants, being
khïõãsava, are free of all contamination. Their knowing is a pure and
simple awareness without any adulteration. Pure awareness, devoid
of all contaminants, is supreme awareness: a truly amazing quality of
knowing that bestows perfect happiness, as befits the Arahant’s state
of absolute purity. This Supreme Happiness always remains constant.
It never changes or varies like conditioned phenomena of the world,
which are always burdened with anicca, dukkha, and anattã. Such
mundane characteristics cannot possibly enter into the citta of some-
one who has cleansed it until it is absolutely pure.
The citta forms the very foundation of saÿsãra; it is the essence
of being that wanders from birth to birth. It is the instigator of the
cycle of existence and the prime mover in the round of repeated birth
and death. Saÿsãra is said to be a cycle because death and rebirth
recur regularly according to the immutable law of kamma. The citta
is governed by kamma, so it is obliged to revolve perpetually in this
cycle following kamma’s dictates. As long as the citta remains under
the jurisdiction of kamma, this will always be the case. The citta of
the Arahant is the sole exception, for his citta has completely tran-
scended kamma’s domain. Since he has also transcended all conven-
tional connections, not a single aspect of relative, conventional reality
can possibly become involved with the Arahant’s citta. At the level of
Arahant, the citta has absolutely no involvement with anything.
Once the citta is totally pure, it simply knows according to its
own inherent nature. It is here that the citta reaches it culmination;
it attains perfection at the level of absolute purity. Here the contin-
uous migration from one birth to the next finally comes to an end.