211: Beautiful Consciousness (Sobhana Citta)

In this Dhamma talk, Sayadaw introduces Sobhana Citta, the Beautiful Consciousness. “Sobhana” means beautiful, graceful, or pure; “Citta” means consciousness. Together they describe the states of mind rooted in non-greed (alobha), non-anger (adosa), and non-delusion (amoha) — the three wholesome roots.

Sayadaw explains how consciousness with two or three of these roots becomes truly beautiful, arising mainly in the sensuous realm (kāmāvacara). The talk explores the three subgroups of beautiful consciousness:

1. Beautiful Wholesome Consciousness (Kusala Citta) – actions free of greed, hatred, and delusion.
2. Beautiful Resultant Consciousness (Vipāka Citta) – the fruit of past wholesome actions.
3. Beautiful Functional Consciousness (Kiriya Citta) – pure actions of enlightened beings, beyond karma.

We also learn the deep meaning of kusala — not just “skillful,” but healthy, faultless, and beneficial. Through understanding Sobhana Citta, we see how purity of mind and wisdom arise through wholesome roots, leading toward liberation.

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Transcript

Sayar Myat: 0:01

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa,Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa, Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa. Theravada Buddhism series, Dhamma Talk number 34. Beautiful Consciousness. Sobhana Citta. Sobhana means beautiful, graceful and pleasing and Citta is consciousness. So Sobhana Citta means beautiful consciousness. It arises with two good roots or three good roots. Do you remember roots? They are altogether six roots ' dhātu'. Threes are unwholesome or evil, and another three are wholesome or good. And in this beautiful consciousness, three good roots are associated with it. And they are non-greed alobha. Non-greed is not only the absence of greed or desire, but is accompanied by generosity. Dana. When you say alobha, it means there is no greed and also there is generosity. That means non-greed. One of the good roots. Adosa non -anger. Same thing. It doesn't mean only the absence of anger, but is associated with loving kindness. That is non-anger or adosa. And the third one is amoha non delusion. Same thing, not simply just the absence of ignorance or delusion. It is associated with knowledge, insight and wisdom. Those are the three good roots. And if a consciousness has two good roots, which are non-greed and non-anger, it is called dui hituca citta. Consciousness with two roots. And if a consciousness is associated with three roots, it is called dihituga citta, meaning consciousness with three roots. These are the terminology you will come across quite often in the Dharma talks and in the scripture. Having two or three beautiful roots, good roots, beautiful roots, one and the same, is the critical component for a consciousness to be called beautiful consciousness. And under the beautiful consciousness, you can find wholesome consciousness, also resultant consciousness, and also functional consciousness. You can call it subgroups under the beautiful consciousness. In other words, this beautiful consciousness includes every consciousness except twelve unwholesome consciousness and eighteen rootless consciousness. Akusala citta, twelve of them and ahiduca citta, eighteen of them, altogether thirty. Apart from the thirty, all other consciousness has two roots or three roots, so they can be called sobana, beautiful. However, this beautiful consciousness mainly arise in the eleven sensuous realms, in the sense sphere. You can find in other places now and then, but mostly, mainly they arise in the sense sphere, sensuous realm. Eleven sense sphere or sense realm, four woeful states, human and six Deva, if you remember correctly. However, some of that consciousness may occur in the minds of Brahma of form sphere and formless sphere. Even though they arise mainly in the sense sphere, occasionally you may find in the mind of Brahma. Just like jhana consciousness, jhana consciousness belong to the Brahma Realms. But they can arise in the mind of a yogi in a human realm if that yogi has attained jhana. So these are little exceptions. Beautiful consciousness belongs to sensuous realm or sense sphear. As it belongs to the sensuous realm, it is called beautiful consciousness of sense sphere. In Pali, kāmāvacara sobhana citta. We'll come to that. I n the next talk will detail. Twenty-four beautiful consciousness in the sense sphear has three groups. They are beautiful wholesome consciousness, one group, beautiful resultant consciousness, second group, beautiful sensuous consciousness with roots, and then beautiful functional consciousness. Let's see a little bit on beautiful wholesome consciousness. Sobana kusala citta. Eight beautiful wholesome consciousness are similar to the eight greed rooted consciousness. Do you remember the eight greed rooted consciousness from the unwholesome consciousness category? If you don't remember quite clearly, the storyline, the storyline will remind you. There's a boy who saw an apple tree with lots of apples in the neighbour's yard. Instantly, spontaneously, he wants to eat. So quickly he ran to the next yard and stole the apple. Because of the whole setting, the boy was excited. That's a storyline. That storyline is the greed-rooted unwholesome consciousness. Eight of them. With the variations. So this beautiful wholesome consciousness is similar to that eight unwholesome greed-rooted consciousness. Of course. In here, non-greed aloba, and insight, paññā of the wholesome consciousness. Replace greed and wrong view of the unwholesome consciousness. So if you replace those two and the remaining the same, voila, you got the eight beautiful wholesome consciousness. So in here is beautiful, wholesome consciousness. Before it was simply beautiful consciousness. Now it's beautiful wholesome consciousness. And here we need to know what wholesome means with precision. Pali word is kusala. English we use the word wholesome. So this word kusala has four different meanings or four different definitions. The first one said free of disease and healthy. What does it mean by that? Disease means evil, mental defilements. And healthy means full of generosity, loving kindness, and insight. So if a consciousness is free from evil or mental defilements and infused with generosity or loving kindness or insight, it is kusala wholesome. Second definition is faultless and blameless. It does not apply to finding faults by the non-enlightened person, but non-enlightened person, we are full of likes and dislikes, and our decisions are biased and we always try to find fault. One way or the other, playing in one style or the other. So they are not included in this statement. What it is, is the seeing the fault, seeing an action is blameworthy by noble persons who have abandoned mental defilements. If a noble person sees that is faulty and blameworthy, then it is akusala. And it is faultless and blameless, it is kusala. Second definition. Kusala produce desirable result, happy result, profitable result, beneficial result for all, for everyone, including yourself. That's the third definition. The fourth one is one word skillful. But the word skillful, one can be skillful in good, and also one can be skillful in bad, evil. Oh, he is very skillful in cracking safety deposit box. He's skillful, expert, but to steal. So skillful can mean both good and bad. So it's a very tricky word. To use skillful for kusala, it's tricky. Most of the people just scan through o r heard something without knowing in detail, they can misperceive the meaning of that word. So my teacher said it is best to avoid using the word skillful as a translated word for kusala. So I follow his instruction. So we use the word wholesome, and when we say wholesome, it covers the meaning of the first three definitions: free of disease and healthy, faultless and blameless, and produce beneficial results. Based on the context of the top or action, it will apply to wholesome. So wholesome kusala kusala wholesome. So let's move on to the next group. Beautiful resultant consciousness with roots. In Pali, Sahetuka. Vipāka sabana citta. Sahetuka means with roots. Vipāka resultant. Sabhana beautiful. Citta consciousness. Simple, straightforward. Beautiful, resultant consciousness with roots. These resultant consciousness. Vipakka citta, simply resultant consciousness, vipāka citta, belongs to both rootless consciousness category as well as beautiful consciousness category. It is the result of the past life's karma. All resultant consciousness cannot produce new karma. Even though beautiful resultant consciousness are two or three good nature roots. In other words, they are incorporated with the beautiful qualities. They are born with the beautiful qualities. Beautiful resultant consciousness has two or three good natured quality roots. Therefore, it is named beautiful resultant consciousness with roots. To differentiate or distinguish from the other resultant consciousness from the Ahetuka citta category. So you simply just put the prefix sahetuga with roots in front of the beautiful resultant consciousness. And the third one is beautiful functional consciousness. Eight beautiful functional consciousness are the same as the eight beautiful wholesome consciousness. Beautiful wholesome consciousness is action-oriented kamma producing. Beautiful functional consciousness does not produce kamma. But they still are associated with actions. And they have no karma-producing power. And it arises only in Buddha, silent Buddhas and Arahant. That is because these great individuals have no more ignorance and craving. They are free tanha and avijha, craving and ignorance. That's beautiful functional consciousness. So this is an introduction to what Sobhana Citta is. Beautiful consciousness. May you be able to understand these consciousness, mental states or mental factors, and be able to bridge with your own practice along the journey towards Nibbana and sharpen your wisdom as soon as possible. Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu. Thank you very much.