Different Aspects of Citta - Kamma and accumulated tendencies

We see that people who are born into the same circumstances still behave differently. For example, among people who are born into rich families, some are stingy, others are not. The fact that one is born into a rich family is the result of kamma. Stinginess is conditioned by one's accumulated defilements. There are many different types of conditions which play their parts in the life of each person. Kamma causes one to be born into certain circumstances and one's accumulated tendencies condition one's character.

 

One may have doubts about past lives and future lives, since one only 

experiences the present life. However, in the present life we notice that

different people experience different results. These results must have their

causes in the past. The past conditions the present and the deeds we perform

now will bring about their results in the future. In understanding the present

we will be able to know more about the past and the future.

 

Past, present and future lives are an uninterrupted series of cittas. Each

citta which arises falls away immediately to be succeeded by the next citta.

Cittas do not last, but there isn't any moment without citta. If there were

moments without citta the body would be a dead body. Even when we are

sound asleep there is citta. Each citta which arises falls away but it conditions

the next citta and even so the last citta of this life conditions the first citta of

the next life, the  rebirth- consciousness. Thus we see that life goes on and

on. We are moving in a cycle, the cycle of birth and death.

 

The next citta cannot arise until the previous citta has passed away.

There can be only one citta at a time, but cittas arise and fall away so rapidly

that one has the impression that there can be more than one citta at a time.

We may think that we can see and hear at the same time, but in reality each

of these cittas arises at a different moment. We can verify through our own

experience that seeing is a type of citta which is different from hearing; these

cittas arise because of different conditions and experience different objects.