Arammana_of_Rebirth

On the Objects of Conception (Arammana of Rebirth / Conception)

Summary opening

In brief: the objects (arammana) of a conception-moment (paṭisandhi-citta) are three: kamma, kamma-nimitta, and gati-nimitta. Those three — the volitional actions (kamma) that were performed as wholesome or unwholesome, the perceptual-signs that accompany them (kamma-nimitta), and the destiny-signs (gati-nimitta) — are the objects of the conceiving mind.

The three kinds: kamma — kamma-nimitta — gati-nimitta

Volitional acts already performed, whether wholesome or unwholesome, are called kamma. When a kamma is associated with some object and thereby renders that object an object of the mind, that object in that instance is called a kamma-nimitta. When a past deed (or its nimitta) — even if it dates back the length of ten million kappa — comes into play at the decisive moment, it manifests as either a kamma or a kamma-nimitta at that moment.

Illustrative stories and comparisons

A number of similes and stories are given to clarify kamma-nimitta:

The story of Koṭhaka Sīvalli: A householder called Koṭhaka Sīvalli had a stūpa built in a hall called Talapiṭṭhaka. When he lay on his death-bed the stūpa appeared to him; he took that stūpa as his sign (nimitta), died having abandoned the body, and was reborn in a heavenly realm (deva-world).
Death while deluded: There is another sort of death called sammulhakālika-kiriya — the death of one deluded. Even if a person is going forward and another strikes off his head with a sharp sword, or someone pushes him under water while he sleeps, in such a moment a kamma or a kamma-nimitta will present itself.
Quick death (lahuka-maraṇa): There is also immediate death. If a man smashes a hidden fly with a hammer, at that instant the kamma or kamma-nimitta also manifests. If the fly is crushed but the sequence of cognitive states has not yet shifted to the bodily door (āyata), the change may first occur in the mental door; immediately the chanda (urge) races and subsides into a cognitive series; then the flow shifts to bodily doors, and the usual sequences of sense-modes follow, leading to death for the fly. This shows how rapid the objects of the formless (arūpa) realm can be.
The gati-nimitta (destination-sign) appears as an image appropriate to the realm about to manifest: if a hell-rebirth is impending it may appear like a brass cauldron; if a human rebirth, as the image of a mother's womb, cloth, or conveyance; if a deva-rebirth, as a wish-tree, palace, bed, and so on.

Thus, in brief: conception (paṭisandhi) has three objects — kamma, kamma-nimitta, and gati-nimitta.

Another classification: past · present · in-between objects

Conception-objects may also be classified as:

Objects of the past (āgāra-arammana),
Objects of the present (paccuppanna-arammana),
Objects that are in-between or indeterminate (navattappa; “that which is not easily declared”).
Conceptions devoid of sign (asanjñī paṭisandhi) have no object.
Certain kinds of paṭisandhi (e.g., vijñāna-paṭisandhi, nevasaññānāsaññāpaṭisandhi) have only past objects.
The ten sense-domain results (kāmavacara-vipāka) may present past or present objects.
Other kinds of conception have objects of the indeterminate type.

In all cases, a present paṭisandhi consciousness does not occur alone; the momentary flow belongs to a sequence where preceding death-moments had past objects or indeterminate objects. The birth-mind that arises will take up whichever object is conditioned by that sequence — wholesome or unwholesome — according to the power of merit or demerit.

Birth after a death with past objects

When a paṭisandhi is conditioned by past-objected juti-(death) sequence:

In the first place, the unwholesome actions previously accumulated, or the kamma-nimitta that arises from them, come into the mental channel of the dying person. The Pali says that those sinful deeds will appear to the person on the deathbed. The death-mind (jāti-citta) generates a series of absorption-type states (avacara/ṭhāna) and, finally, arousing (abhisaṅkhāra) states arise in the modes described (tadarūpa etc.). When the juti-citta fades, a new paṭisandhi arises — a rebirth-mind connected with an infernal realm (if the underlying defilements still lead there), taking as its object that kamma or kamma-nimitta which has come into the channel.

This is the case of a paṭisandhi having a past object following a juti with a past object.

Paṭisandhi with present object after a juti with past object

At other times, in the dying process of another person, a nimitta of a bad realm (e.g., hell-fire imagery) may come into the mental channel under the force of kamma. Once the ash-like moments (two full cycles of viyaṅga) have occurred, the threefold series of mind-states arises (āvacchana (ăvāvacchana?), five chanda moments, two tatarammana, etc.). In that sequence a juti-citta makes the mental complex into an object; in the flow of those eleven or fifteen consecutive moments the paṭisandhi appears in a condition whose age (duration) corresponds to the remaining mind-moments. Thus a new paṭisandhi with a present object arises after a juti that had a past object.

(Technical counts are indicated: e.g., 11-moment or 15-moment sequences culminating in a paṭisandhi of a certain remaining age.)

Mixed cases: past + present objects in sequence

There are cases where rebirth-conception has past and present objects in relation to a prior juti whose object was past. For example, in a heavenly (sukha) realm, the kamma-nimitta of wholesome deeds may come into the mental channel of someone on a deathbed; the ensuing paṭisandhi will arise in accordance with the pleasant images (mother’s belly, garden, wish-tree, palaces) that appear. These are present objects that follow a prior juti-citta which had past objects.

So: wholesome kamma or kamma-nimitta manifests in the mental stream of a dying person who had the requisite wholesome accumulations, producing a present-object paṭisandhi oriented to a happy realm.

Cases where the prior juti-citta is indeterminate (navattappa)

When the prior juti-citta is “indeterminate” (navattappa), the newly arising paṭisandhi may have any one of the three kinds of objects (past, present, or indeterminate), depending on the particularities of the karmic and circumstantial causes. For beings with higher meditative dispositions (mahākkhatta jītas), subtle good objects may enter eye or ear channels leading to refined rebirths; in such cases particular distinctions (absence of tatarammana, etc.) arise and the resulting paṭisandhi manifests accordingly.

How many possible distinctions?

The treatise enumerates many classificatory axes: whether the mind is mixed with form or not, whether it belongs to sense-realm, form-realm, formless-realm; the five destinations (gati) and four primary kinds of birth; conditions of cittas (the seven bases of consciousness stability), and the nine types of habitation (sattā-vāsa). From these various combinations arise the multiple types of rebirth-moments and the particular sense-modalities (kakka, etc.) that accompany them.

(Technical note: depending on rebirth realm, there arise 39 or 70 groups of rupa qualities; for the minimum case some 30 groups arise. The text gives rules for which aggregates (khandha) and sensorial factors accompany which rebirth types.)

Exposition on continuity and cause

A repeated doctrinal point: the mind-moment that arises at rebirth is not a single identical entity coming from the previous life, nor is it utterly different. Rather it has continuous causal relevance to past kamma, kamma-nimitta and present conditions — like an echo, like a reflected lamp, like an imprint. The analogy of echo, lamp-light, footprint and shadow is used: the present cognitive event is neither absolutely the same nor absolutely other than the prior event; it is conditioned by continuity.

Therefore one should not assert absolute identity or absolute difference in an absolutist sense; the relationship is a causal continuity.

On whether results have an experiencer

If one asks: “If this continuity is only causal, when the result arises who experiences it?” — the text replies with several analogies and clarifications: the result is not another agent beyond the psycho-physical aggregates; the event of pleasure or pain arises as part of the conditioned composite and is 'experienced' by the composite in virtue of its becoming. The example of a tree bearing fruit is used: the fruit grows from the tree; we call the tree fruiting; similarly, the rebirth-mind arises as part of the psycho-physical complex and is called a being who experiences. Thus there is no need to posit a separate owner beyond the conditioned factors.

Sāṅkhāra as causal factor (sankhāra as condition)

The text explains at length how various groups of conditioned factors (sankhāra) — wholesome (puñña-sankhāra), unwholesome (apuñña-sankhāra), neutral (aññatara-sankhāra), sensory-corporeal (kāya-sankhāra), verbal (vaci-sankhāra), mental (citta-sankhāra), etc. — function as causal factors for the different sense-door resultant consciousnesses in different realms and in different sequences (paṭisandhi or in the continuing flow). The mapping is complex and systematic: which sankhāra produce which vipāka-vijñāna under which conditions (in the moment of becoming or in the subsequent becoming) is specified according to realm, mode of birth, and the type of kamma.

Puñña-sankhāra (wholesome sankhāra) operate both in the moment of birth and in later continuations in the sense-world happy realms; they are causes both for present and subsequent consciousnesses (in certain spheres).
Apuñña-sankhāra (unwholesome sankhāra) function particularly as causes for rebirth in unhappy realms and have a specific pattern of operation (sometimes only in the process-sequence, sometimes also at birth).
Aneñja-sankhāra (indifferent/neutral) likewise have their domain, especially in formless realms.
Kāya, vaci, citta sankhāra (bodily, verbal, mental conditioning factors) are discussed as causes for specified vijñāna outcomes in particular realms and sequences.

All such technical allocations are given so that the wise know which conditioned factors are operative as causes for which rebirth-consciousnesses and in which stages (paṭisandhi / continuity).

Practical upshot

The teaching culminates in the injunction to know these conditioning relations accurately: to understand how volitional actions and their nimittas manifest at the death-moment and condition rebirth; to appreciate the causal continuity without reifying a permanent self; and to undertake ethical and contemplative practice accordingly (i.e., to avoid unwholesome acts, cultivate wholesome ones, and purify the mind), because these factors are the proximate causes of future becoming.

Short Pāli Glossary (concise · intensive)

paṭisandhi-citta — the rebirth-conception mind-moment; the moment of continuity from death to new birth.
kamma (karman) — volitional action; moral deed (wholesome or unwholesome) that conditions future result.
kamma-nimitta — the sign or mental appearance deriving from a kamma which arises as an object at the time of death/rebirth.
gati-nimitta (kati/gati-nimitta / คตินิมิต) — the destiny-sign; an image of the destination (hell-pot, womb, wish-tree, etc.) that indicates the kind of realm about to be taken.
jāti / juti (juti-citta) — the death-moment (juti) and the death-related consciousness; the sequence of moments at dying.
lahuka-maraṇa / lahu-maraṇa — quick or sudden death.
sammulha-kālika — death by delusion/dazed action (death while bewildered/deluded).
tatarammana / tatarammaṇa (ตทารัมมณะ) — (technical) early death-related moments counted in classical moment lists (two such moments occur in certain sequences).
chanda / chūṇa (ชวนะ / ชวนะ?) — thrust/urge/motivation moments in the microsequence of cognition (here, “chanda” often denotes the five little appetitive moments that arise near death).
phassa — contact; the meeting of sense-base, sense-object and sense-consciousness.
nāma-rūpa — name-and-form; mentality and materiality; the basis for contact.
paṭisandhi / avasandhi — the act/moment of re-linking (rebirth) / the linking continuity.
puñña-sankhāra — wholesome conditioned factors; volitional formations whose result is favorable rebirth.
apuñña-sankhāra — unwholesome conditioned factors; volitional formations leaning to unfavorable rebirth.
aññatara/navattappa / นวัตตัพพะ — indeterminate or non-declared object-type; third category between past and present objects.
sattā-vāsa — habitation/abode classification used in enumerating rebirth kinds.
viññāṇa-paṭisandhi / viññāna — the consciousness-moment that carries the vipāka (resultant conscious experience) into the next life.
upādāna / saṅkhāra — (contextual) factors taken as fuels/conditioning causes; here saṅkhāra is used broadly for compounded formative factors functioning as causes.
mahākkhata / mahākkaṭa (มหัคคต) — high meditative predisposition (disposition toward jhānic fruition).
opapātika / opapatika — spontaneously produced born-beings (e.g., some devas, animals born from earth).
kamma-vipāka (vipāka-vijñāna) — the resultant consciousness that manifests as the fruit of kamma.
pañcadvāra / pañcadvārika — five doors/sense-gates (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body) considered as channels through which nimittas enter.