Functional Consciousness

In Abhidhamma, there are either 89 or 121 distinct types of consciousness, depending on the classification system used. Consciousness can be divided into two broad phases: an active phase, where cognition and volition occur, and a resultant phase, which is a more passive, reflective awareness.

The active phase is where karma is created. Although tiny amounts of karma are produced by most types of consciousness, the vast majority is generated during the javana phase of the cognitive series, where volition — choice or decision — arises.

The resultant phase involves how the mind brings past objects into awareness and attributes meaning to them. What we see, hear, taste, smell, or feel is only brought into present awareness because, at some prior point, we paid special attention to it and made a judgment or choice about it. This process is largely unconscious, but highly influential.

Our bhavaṅga — the life continuum — is composed of resultant consciousness. This is a kind of bubbling, resonant awareness that colours sensory experience with meaning. Every object is stored with a weighting based on how desirable or threatening it once appeared. If we fail to attribute any meaning to an object, we quickly forget it. The way we evaluate objects shapes how we respond to their reappearance in our sensory field in the future. Each ‘object’ we encounter is, in effect, a resultant consciousness embedded with our prior evaluations.

Each time we evaluate something, we solidify how we will react to its future appearance. This chain of reactions is the force of karma. By assigning personal meaning to otherwise meaningless phenomena, we entangle ourselves further in saṃsāra. This attribution process arises solely through reference to a self — even when subtle.

The arahant — the fully enlightened being — has completely eradicated this tendency. They no longer generate cognitive processes that create karma, and without karma, there can be no resultant consciousness. Thus, the arahant’s bhavaṅga for any future existence simply ceases to arise. This is liberation from saṃsāra — the wheel of dependent arising.

The arahant’s consciousness always operates in complete alignment with wholesome consciousness but is technically not classified as such. Why? Wholesome consciousness still generates good karma and favourable rebirths. The arahant’s actions may appear saintly, but they act without reference to self — there is no personal volition. They simply do what is necessary and correct, without bias, and without creating any new karma.

While arahants may still engage in thought processes similar to worldlings, their cittas are different. These are called functional consciousness. Functional consciousness allows the arahant to function in the world but without generating any karmic consequences. These types of citta only occur in wholesome and jhānic levels of consciousness; they never arise within unwholesome states. Why? Because unwholesome states like greed and hatred require the fundamental delusion of self, which the arahant has permanently transcended.

Interestingly, arahants may still exhibit emotions — sometimes quite playfully — particularly as skilful means to teach or guide others. But these emotions arise without attachment or ill-will. A true arahant neither clings nor resents.

To summarise: functional consciousness (kiriyā citta) is exclusively accessible to arahants and Buddhas. These cittas replace the ordinary karmic consciousness of unenlightened beings. While arahants are still subject to the maturation of past karma accumulated prior to enlightenment, from the moment of full awakening, they generate no new karma, and upon death, no further rebirths can occur.

“By the destruction of craving, the mind is liberated; when it is liberated, there comes the knowledge: ‘It is liberated.'”
— Majjhima Nikāya 72