The 52 mental factors (cetasika)

What is a mental factor? — four characteristics

The verse above gives four characteristics that set mental factors apart from matter and from consciousness itself:

• Arising together with consciousness (ekuppāda) — no mental factor arises before or after the consciousness it accompanies.
• Ceasing together with it (ekanirodha) — when consciousness ceases, its mental factors cease too.
• Having the same object (ekālambana) — if consciousness sees a colour, feeling responds to that same colour.
• Having the same base (ekavatthuka) — if consciousness depends on the eye-sensitivity, so do its mental factors.

Can consciousness and its factors be separated?

In the Milindapañha, King Milinda asks Venerable Nāgasena whether contact, feeling, perception and volition, once they arise together, can be pulled apart and shown one by one. Nāgasena compares them to a royal cook making a sauce with curd, salt, ginger, cumin and pepper. One cannot scoop out the sourness or the saltiness separately, yet every flavour is really there in the sauce.

Consciousness and mental factors are the same: they arise inseparably, but wisdom can know that each has its own characteristic. Consciousness is like a king and the mental factors like his retinue — wherever he goes they go too, but consciousness is chief in knowing.

A map of the 52 mental factors

The unwholesome and beautiful groups never arise together, while the 13 neutral factors are like water that takes the shape of any vessel. Their name, aññasamāna, means “common to others”: they take on the good or bad quality of the consciousness they join.

The seven universals — present in every moment

These seven factors arise with every consciousness without exception, even the smallest moment of seeing. The commentaries give similes to help remember them:

• Contact (phassa) — the meeting with the object, where all experience begins (see the diagram below).
• Feeling (vedanā) — experiencing the taste of the object as pleasant, painful or neutral. It is like a king enjoying a meal, while the other factors are like the cook who only samples a little.
• Perception (saññā) — recognising and marking. It is like a carpenter's marks on timber: seen again, one recognises “this is…”.
• Volition (cetanā) — intention. It does its own work and urges the other factors to do theirs, like a foreman who both works and directs others.
• One-pointedness (ekaggatā) — staying fixed on one object, like a candle flame where there is no wind. Developed and strengthened, it becomes concentration.
• Life faculty (jīvitindriya) — sustaining the life of the mental states arising with it, like water keeping a lotus fresh.
• Attention (manasikāra) — turning the mind towards the object, like a charioteer steering the horses where he wants to go.

Contact: the meeting where it all begins

The suttas say, “tiṇṇaṃ saṅgati phasso” — the meeting of three things is contact: an internal base (such as the eye), an object (such as visible form) and consciousness (such as seeing). When there is contact, feeling, perception, volition and the other factors arise at the same moment.

Contact does not mean only bodily touch. Hearing, smelling and thinking all involve contact too.

The six occasionals — present in some consciousness

“Pakiṇṇaka” means scattered: they occur in many kinds of consciousness, good and bad, but not in all.

• Applied thought (vitakka) — lifting the mind onto the object, like the first strike of a bell, or a bee flying straight to a flower.
• Sustained thought (vicāra) — keeping the mind on the object, like the bell's lingering hum, or a bee circling the flower.
• Decision (adhimokkha) — certainty about the object, like a firmly planted pillar that does not waver.
• Energy (vīriya) — effort, like a prop that keeps an old house from falling down.
• Rapture (pīti) — delight and elation, arising only with joyful consciousness. It is like a desert traveller who hears there is a pond ahead (actually drinking the water is happiness, sukha).
• Desire-to-act (chanda) — wanting to do, like stretching out the hand to take something. It is not greed: there is desire to help others, and desire to learn.

Volition is kamma

In the Aṅguttara Nikāya the Buddha says, “cetanāhaṃ bhikkhave kammaṃ vadāmi” — monks, it is volition that I call kamma, for having willed, one acts by body, speech and mind.

Volition is present in every consciousness, but only volition in wholesome and unwholesome consciousness is “kamma” that will bear future results. Volition in resultant and functional consciousness produces no kammic result. Accidentally breaking something is not unwholesome kamma, but deliberately saying something cruel, even a single word, already is.

Different consciousness, different numbers of factors

Mental factors combine with consciousness by fixed rules. Greed and hatred never arise together; rapture arises only with joyful consciousness; and the five sense consciousnesses (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching) have only the seven universals, making them the “thinnest” consciousness of all.

• Eye-consciousness (seeing) — 7: the universals only.
• Greed-rooted consciousness no. 1 (joyful, with wrong view, unprompted) — 19: the 13 neutral factors + delusion, shamelessness, fearlessness of wrongdoing, restlessness + greed + wrong view.
• Great wholesome consciousness no. 1 (joyful, with wisdom, unprompted) — 33: the 13 neutral factors + the 19 beautiful universals + wisdom, and abstinences or illimitables may join depending on the situation (38 if all are counted).

Common misunderstandings

• “Desire-to-act (chanda) is craving.” — No. Chanda is neutral; craving is greed (lobha). Chanda for doing good is one of the four bases of success (iddhipāda).
• “Concentration and effort are always good.” — No. One-pointedness and energy are neutral; a thief cracking a safe with focus and determination has both.
• “Feeling happy means the mind is wholesome.” — No. Mental joy (somanassa) can arise with greed-rooted consciousness, such as the pleasure of gossiping about someone.
• “There is a ‘me’ behind the scenes choosing the mental factors.” — No. Mental factors arise by conditions: the object, accumulated habits, and whether attention is wise or unwise.