Cetana

Tonight Dhamma Talk by Sayadaw U Sumana concerns Cetana - one of the 52 cetasikas.

Cetana is the volition of doing. Cetana is the doer. Cetana is kamma and Cetana determines our future
Any action intentional or unintentional has cetana or volition. Therefore, only actions without cetana has no effect. Sayadaw gave illustrate the point with the story of Venerable Cakkhupala the blind Arahat.

Cetana orders one to do things such as doing dana. Hence, Sayadaw said that cetana can be understand to be like a Monitor of the class - directing, leading and moving any activities of the class. Therefore, our mind always has cetana or volition and this cetana plays an important role in everyone's life.

Picture from http://lfhw-pages.wrap.org.uk

The forerunner of the mind is cetana.It is very important for our cetana to be pure and wholesome. Just like a story of a person who offered a spoonful of rice to Arahat Anuruddha. For one spoonful of rice offered with strong wholesome intention, that man was reborn as a deva with more power.

Another story illustrate the importance of cetana in our action. If cetana is not unwholesome, even though one's action may seen to be unwholesome, the action has no bad effect as cetana in not unwholesome. Just like a story told that even though she prepared weapons for her husband to hunt, a streamwinner wife do it with no intention to kill. This because she had kept her precepts well and just to fulfill her responsibility as a wife

A yogi in the process of meditation, should always try to observe his mind's characteristics namely the 52 cetasikas. To know the consciousness as they arises. For to be mindful of the arising of the conciousness, the yogis' mind will then be freed from the defilement.

Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!