The citta is the mind’s essential knowing nature, the fundamental quality of knowing that underlies all sentient existence.

When associated with a physical body, it is referred to as “mind” or “heart”. Being corrupted by the defiling influence of fundamental ignorance (avijjã), its currents “flow out” to manifest as:

Feelings (vedanã),

Memory (saññã),

Thoughts (sankhãra), and

Consciousness (viññãna),

thus embroiling the citta in a web of self-deception. It is deceived about its own true nature.



The true nature of the citta is that it simply “knows”. There is no subject, no object, no duality; it simply knows. The citta does not arise or pass away; it is never born and never dies.



Normally, the “knowing nature” of the citta is timeless, boundless, and radiant, but this true nature is obscured by the defilements (kilesa) within it:

Through the power of fundamental ignorance, a focal point of the “knower” is created from which that knowing nature views the world outside.

The establishment of that false center creates a “self” from whose perspective consciousness flows out to perceive the duality of the “knower” and the “known”.

Thus the citta becomes entangled with things that are born, become ill, grow old, and die, and therefore, deeply involved it in a whole mass of suffering.

p 107 The Path to Arahantship by Ajahn Maha Boowa