The Foundations of Buddhism

The Abhidharma 215

at the cultivation of happy and balanced states of mind as the

basis for the gaining of the understanding that liberates the mind

by rooting out greed, aversion, and delusion.

The consciousness process, karma, and rebirth

For the Theravadin Abhidharma there are two basic modes of

the mind: the mind that is involved in process (vUhi-citta) and

the mind that is free of process (v"ithi-mutta). The mind that is

in process is the mind that is actively perceiving objects and

reacting to those objects; the mind that is free of process is

resting in the inactive mode known as bhavailga. This inactive

mode characteristically occurs in deep, dreamless sleep. How-

ever, according to the theory of consciousness process, the mind

momentarily returns to the inactive mode of bhavailga between

each consciousness process. The mind in this inactive mode of

bhavailga is compared to a spider resting in the middle of its web.^11

The web extends out in different directions and when one of

the threads of the web is struck by an insect the spider in the

middle stirs, and then runs out along the thread and bites into

the insect to drink its juice. Similarly, when one of the senses is

stimulated, the mind, like the spider, wakes up and adverts to

the 'door' of the particular sense in question. Like a spider run-

ning out along the thread, the mind is then said in due order to

perceive the object, receive it, investigate it, and establish its nature.

Finally, again like our spider, the mind enjoys and savours the

object. As I have already indicated, this whole process occurs

extremely rapidly. In fact what one would ordinarily experience

as the simple awareness that one is, say, looking at a beautiful
lotus flower is understood to be constructed from countless sense-

door consciousness processes of the type just described, as well

as mind-door processes internalizing the information received

through the senses.^12

In the simple consciousness process the functions of perceiv-

ing, receiving, and investigating an object are said to be performed
by classes of rootless resultant consciousness. That is to say,

the nature of the sense data presented to our minds is regarded