Cetana

Meaning

Cetana is the volitional impulse from which action arises. Because of this connection, intention is a crucial notion in relation to kamma.

It is intention, monks, that I call kamma: having intended, one acts by body, speech and mind.

So the Buddha says in AN 6.63. The outward form of a deed does not yet determine its kammic quality: the resulting kammic seeds are the product of both the action and the intention behind it.

The coordinator of action

In the Abhidhamma, cetana is one of the seven universal mental factors: it is present in every moment of consciousness. It is traditionally likened to a foreman who organises the remaining mental factors around an object and directs them towards action.

Such work requires directed attention, but that aspect belongs to another factor, manasikāra. Cetana rather gathers the already arisen mental ensemble into “doing,” giving it volitional direction.

Intention is closely bound up with the sankharas. In SN 22.56 the aggregate saṅkhārā is described directly through six kinds of cetanā - intentions regarding forms, sounds, odours, tastes, tangibles and mind-objects. Cetana is in effect one of the central manifestations of the aggregate of formations, and repeated intentions strengthen the mind’s habitual tendencies.

The surgeon and the robber

A common illustration of opposite intentions behind the same action: both the surgeon and the robber cut people with a knife. Outwardly the movement may be almost identical, yet the kammic quality is determined by different intentions - one acts from the wish to help, the other from greed or hatred.

Hence a mosquito killed by accident does not produce the “kamma of killing,” which cannot be said of a mosquito killed deliberately. The fruits of kamma ripen in a complicated, non-linear way: even though intention is their central element, the specific result depends on a multitude of conditions.

Intention is not immediately visible

What we say we intend and the motives actually at work often diverge. In the mind, “I want to help” easily coexists with “I want to be needed,” and “I am telling the truth” with “I want to sting, on moral grounds.”

It helps to attend to the roots: is the mind right now led by greed, aversion and delusion - or by non-greed, non-aversion and clarity?

In practice

In MN 61 the Buddha gives Rahula an almost ready-made algorithm: examine an action before, during and after - does it lead to harm for oneself, for another, or for both?

It is also worth asking yourself a short question from time to time: “what am I doing this out of?” Irritation? The wish to prove something? Fear? Or goodwill and clarity?

Past kamma cannot be rewritten, and surrounding conditions are not always in our power. But every new intention is squarely within our influence.