Cetanā, saṅkhāra and the step from avijjā to saṅkhāraExtended version: cetanā as the core of the saṅkhārakkhandha, the distinct sense of saṅkhāra within the twelvefold origination (avijjā → saṅkhāra), the three-lives model versus the momentary one — and what is actually observed in vipassanā.

Yes — but the terms must be carefully distinguished, and more precisely than the usual equation "cetanā = saṅkhāra" suggests. In the Abhidhamma, cetanā is one of the seven universal mental factors (sabbacittasādhāraṇā cetasikā) that are present in every moment of consciousness without exception (Dhs §5; Abhidhammattha-Saṅgaha II.2; Bodhi, Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, pp. 78–80). The Atthasālinī defines: "Cetayatī ti cetanā. Abhisandahatī ti attho." (Asl 111) "It intends, therefore it is called cetanā. The meaning is: it connects (what arises with it to the object)." Explanation: the commentarial definition gives cetanā three aspects: its characteristic is intending (cetayita-lakkhaṇā), its function is urging on and heaping up (āyūhana-rasā) — the same word that also denotes karmic accumulating —, and its manifestation is coordinating. Buddhaghosa compares it to a head pupil who himself recites and at the same time makes the others recite, or to a master carpenter who works himself and organises the work of the rest (Asl 111–112, on Dhs §5). Cetanā is therefore not "will" in the sense of a conscious decision, but the organising, goal-directed energy of every moment of consciousness — mostly preconscious, and precisely for that reason such a fruitful object of vipassanā: it runs constantly anyway; the practice only makes visible what is already happening. From this follows a first refinement: not every cetanā is karmically effective. Resultant consciousness (vipāka-citta) and functional consciousness (kiriya-citta) contain cetanā as well — there it merely coordinates, without producing kamma. Cetanā becomes karmically effective only in wholesome and unwholesome moments of consciousness, in process-analytical terms in the javana phase of the course of consciousness (cittavīthi; cf. Abhidh-s IV; Karunadasa, The Theravāda Abhidhamma, chapter on kamma).

The canonical basis for "cetanā belongs to the saṅkhāras" is more precise than it is often quoted: in SN 22.56–57 (Upādānaparipavatta Sutta, Sattaṭṭhāna Sutta) the Buddha defines the aggregate of formations expressly as six classes of intention:

"Katame ca bhikkhave saṅkhārā? Chayime bhikkhave cetanākāyā — rūpasañcetanā, saddasañcetanā, gandhasañcetanā, rasasañcetanā, phoṭṭhabbasañcetanā, dhammasañcetanā." (SN III 60) "And what, monks, are the formations? These are the six classes of intention: intention regarding forms, regarding sounds, regarding smells, regarding tastes, regarding what can be touched, regarding mind objects." Explanation: sañcetanā is cetanā with the prefix saṁ- — intention that directs itself to a particular object. The enumeration follows the six sense objects: the aggregate of formations is thus not defined abstractly, but as the intentional answering of the mind to every kind of experience. That the khandha is named after its most prominent member (in the Abhidhamma it comprises 50 cetasikas, with cetanā at their head) shows what weight the canon gives to intention: it is what makes an acting out of mere experiencing. Saṅkhāra in the khandha context is thus defined by cetanā — intention with regard to the six classes of object. That is the basis for cetanā being directly observable in satipaṭṭhāna: it is no theoretical construct, but the experienceable impulse-character of the mind — the intention to follow the breath, to change posture, to spin a thought further, to hold on to the pleasant, to be rid of the unpleasant. The canonical evidence for direct observability is MN 111 (Anupada Sutta): Sāriputta contemplates the dhammas "one after another, as they occur" (anupadadhammavipassanā) — and in the enumeration cetanā appears expressly beside phassa, vedanā, saññā, citta, chanda, adhimokkha, viriya, sati, upekkhā and manasikāra (MN III 25). Cetanā is here an independently recognisable, momentary phenomenon — impermanent (anicca), unsatisfactory (dukkha), not-self (anattā).

The famous quotation comes not from the Abhidhamma but from the Suttapiṭaka — AN 6.63 (Nibbedhika Sutta, AN III 415): "Cetanāhaṁ, bhikkhave, kammaṁ vadāmi. Cetayitvā kammaṁ karoti — kāyena vācāya manasā." "It is intention, monks, that I call kamma. Having intended, one performs kamma — by body, speech and mind."

Explanation: the second sentence is just as important as the first and is often left out. Cetayitvā (absolutive: "having intended") makes it clear that the outward action follows upon the intention — kamma is not the physical deed, but the act of will that then expresses itself through one of the three doors (body, speech, mind). With this the Buddha marks himself off from the Jain position, according to which unintended actions too carry full karmic consequences (cf. MN 56, Upāli Sutta, where the Jains set the bodily deed as the weightiest "rod", the Buddha by contrast the mental deed). The sutta context is instructive too: AN 6.63 is called Nibbedhika ("penetrating exposition") and analyses kamma systematically according to origin (phassa — contact is the source of kamma), diversity, result, cessation and the way to cessation. Already here, then, the canon links the theory of kamma with the analysis of contact — the same connection that becomes decisive for the observability of cetanā in section 6. The quotation therefore comes not from the Abhidhamma but from the Suttapiṭaka. The Abhidhamma and the commentaries systematise this statement later (Asl 88, for instance: kamma is in the strict sense cetanā itself), but the source is in the suttas. For a philologically clean presentation this attribution is essential.

concept In the formula avijjāpaccayā saṅkhārā, saṅkhāra is taken more narrowly than the khandha concept. SN 12.2 (Vibhaṅga Sutta) defines it here in a threefold way: "Katame ca bhikkhave saṅkhārā? Tayome bhikkhave saṅkhārā — kāyasaṅkhāro, vacīsaṅkhāro, cittasaṅkhāro." "And what, monks, are the formations? There are these three formations: bodily formation, verbal formation, mental formation." Explanation — a philological trap: the same three terms carry two different meanings in the canon. In MN 44 and SN 41.6 they denote physiological-psychological functions: kāyasaṅkhāra = in- and out-breathing, vacīsaṅkhāra = vitakka and vicāra, cittasaṅkhāra = saññā and vedanā (thus in the context of nirodha-samāpatti). In the paṭiccasamuppāda context, by contrast, the tradition understands them karmically: as intention that expresses itself through body, speech or mind (kāyasañcetanā, vacīsañcetanā, manosañcetanā — thus Vibh 135 and Vism XVII.51). Whoever mixes the two uses arrives at absurd results (for instance: "avijjā conditions the breath"). The karmic reading is supported by SN 12.25 (Bhūmija Sutta), where the Buddha himself speaks of kāyasañcetanā which — with avijjā as its condition — leads to inner well-being and woe.

The commentarial tradition and SN 12.51 refine this further: puññābhisaṅkhāra, apuññābhisaṅkhāra, āneñjābhisaṅkhāra (Vism XVII.60–61) — puññābhisaṅkhāra: "meritorious formation", wholesome intention of the sense sphere and the fine-material sphere (generosity, ethics, meditation up to the rūpa-jhānas); apuññābhisaṅkhāra: "demeritorious formation", unwholesome intention (willing based on greed, hatred, delusion); āneñjābhisaṅkhāra: "imperturbable formation", the intention of the four immaterial attainments — karmically effective for rebirth in the arūpa worlds. The prefix abhi- signals the accumulating: intention insofar as it heaps up and carries existence onward. It is noteworthy that the wholesome too belongs to the chain here — as long as it happens under avijjā, it builds becoming, not liberation. The correct formulation therefore runs: saṅkhāra in the paṭiccasamuppāda is abhisaṅkhāra-cetanā — intention insofar as it accumulates karmically under the condition of avijjā. Not every observed cetanā is already this link; the cetanā of an arahant, for instance, is mere kiriya — functional, but no longer chain-forming (cf. Bodhi, CMA I.15). Noteworthy too is SN 12.38 (Cetanā Sutta): "Yañca bhikkhave ceteti yañca pakappeti yañca anuseti, ārammaṇam etaṁ hoti viññāṇassa ṭhitiyā." "What one intends, what one plans and towards what one latently inclines, that becomes the basis for the persistence of consciousness." Explanation: the three verbs form a descending scale of awareness: ceteti — the active, present intention; pakappeti — the planning, designing, mental constructing; anuseti — the latent inclining, from anusaya, the underlying tendencies (greed, aversion, views and so on) which go on working even without any actual willing. The sutta continues: even if one does not intend and does not plan, but the latent inclination still exists (no ce ceteti no ce pakappeti, atha ce anuseti), this remains a basis for the continuation of consciousness — and only when all three are abolished does consciousness find no support any more, and with that the chain ends, down to birth, ageing and death. This is of practical significance: the mere suppression of active intentions does not suffice; the anusayas, the root layer of the saṅkhāras, must be dissolved through insight. Here the sutta canon itself shows the transition saṅkhāra → viññāṇa as a presently operating process: intention — in its latent form too — feeds the continuance of consciousness. This is the earliest canonical support for a process-like reading, and not one that spans lives only.

Here the statement "avijjā and saṅkhāra happen anew in every moment" needs a differentiation of sources, for it is disputed within the tradition itself: a) Visuddhimagga (XVII, Paññābhūmi-Niddesa): Buddhaghosa reads avijjā and saṅkhāra primarily as the past links of the three-life model — they belong to the previous life and condition the rebirth consciousness (paṭisandhi-viññāṇa) of this life (Vism XVII.284 ff.). b) Vibhaṅga, Abhidhamma-bhājanīya (Paccayākāra-Vibhaṅga): the same Abhidhamma that supports the three-life model also analyses the whole chain within a single moment of consciousness (ekacittakkhaṇika-paṭiccasamuppāda): in every unwholesome citta, avijjā is present and conditions the saṅkhāra of the same moment (Vibh 144 ff.; on this Karunadasa, The Theravāda Abhidhamma, chapter "Conditional Relations"). The momentary reading is thus no modern invention, but canonically and abhidhammically attested. c) Modern positions: Buddhadāsa (Paṭiccasamuppāda: Practical Dependent Origination) rejects the three-life model entirely and reads the chain exclusively as everyday psychology; Ñāṇavīra (Notes on Dhamma) argues structurally and in present terms against the temporal stretching. Bhikkhu Bodhi, by contrast, defends the commentarial three-life reading, without excluding the present application (Bodhi, introduction to the SN translation; Transcendental Dependent Arising). Anālayo takes a mediating position: the chain describes a principle of conditionality that operates both across lives and in present experience (Anālayo, Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path, chapter on dhammānupassanā; the same, Rebirth in Early Buddhism). The statement "partly yes" is thus correct, but gains in sharpness: both readings can be shown to be orthodox, and the relevance for practice lies with the momentary model, while the three-life model secures the soteriological range (rebirth).

The practical finding can now be formulated precisely. The classical switching point is vedanā → taṇhā. Anālayo stresses that vedanā is the decisive link at which the conditioned course can become conscious and be interrupted — because here the transition takes place from the result (vedanā is vipāka) to the new karmic reaction (taṇhā, cetanā) (Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path, ch. 7). Ledi Sayadaw too locates the cutting point of the chain between vedanā and taṇhā (Paṭiccasamuppāda-Dīpanī). That is the point at which "result"

ends and "new kamma" begins — and precisely for that reason the natural place of observation. With refined insight it becomes visible that tiny impulses of will already appear between feeling and manifest reaction. The Mahāsi tradition makes this methodically explicit: before every movement the intention is noted ("intending, intending"), and Mahāsi Sayadaw describes how, at the stage of udayabbaya-ñāṇa and especially of bhaṅga-ñāṇa, cetanā appears as an independent event that flashes up before the action and immediately passes away (Manual of Insight, ch. 5). Before contact, on the other hand, cetanā is not observable in isolation — and that for systematic reasons. The canonical definition of contact runs: "Cakkhuñca paṭicca rūpe ca uppajjati cakkhuviññāṇaṁ. Tiṇṇaṁ saṅgati phasso." (MN 18; SN 12.45) "Dependent on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises. The meeting of the three is contact." Explanation: phassa is thus no physical touching, but the functional coming-together of sense base, object and the consciousness arising from them — the moment in which experience is "there" at all. Cetanā arises as a cetasika only together with a citta that already has an object. A cetanā "before contact" would be, abhidhammically, a contradiction: no citta without an object, no cetasika without a citta. In the Madhupiṇḍika Sutta (MN 18) Mahākaccāna unfolds from this the whole chain of escalation: out of contact arises feeling, out of feeling perception, out of perception thinking, out of thinking conceptual proliferation (papañca), which finally overwhelms the thinker himself. What is experienced as "earlier" is in reality an earlier position within the running chain of the process, not a position outside it.

avijjā → saṅkhāra? The precise answer has two levels: phenomenologically: one does not observe an isolated "link between avijjā and saṅkhāra". Avijjā is no event beside others, but the quality of not-seeing-through in which the saṅkhāras arise. It shows itself indirectly — as the self-evidence with which an impulse appears as "my willing", as the not-seeing of its conditionedness. In the moment in which sati and sampajañña clearly grasp the cetanā, avijjā is suspended in exactly that moment; one does not, therefore, see the transition, but one sees that it does not take place when knowing is present. That is the experiential meaning of the formula of cessation:

"Avijjāya tveva asesavirāganirodhā saṅkhāranirodho." (SN 12.1) "But through the remainderless fading away and ceasing of just this ignorance comes the ceasing of the formations." Explanation: asesa-virāga-nirodha is a threefold compound: "remainderless" (asesa) — nothing is left behind; "fading of passion" (virāga, literally the fading of the colouring, from rāga) — the process of letting go; "ceasing" (nirodha) — the result. The formula therefore describes no punctual severing, but a fading that issues in ceasing — which canonically supports the soteriological description of "starving out" that follows. Soteriologically: the chain is not "cut through" at the first link like a rope; rather avijjā is starved out by the repeated clear seeing of the conditionedness, the impermanence and the not-self nature of cetanā. The definitive abolition of avijjā happens only with the arahatta-magga (Vism XXII); on the way there, every insight into a present cetanā weakens the deluded basis of the formations — tadaṅga-pahāna, abandoning moment by moment, which condenses towards the knowledge of the path. In this sense vipassanā does indeed reach to the root of the transition from avijjā to saṅkhāra — but the immediate experience has the form: a present cetanā is recognised as conditioned, impermanent and not-self, and in just this recognising avijjā loses its ground. Not as the perception of a state "before contact", but as the going out of delusion within contact. Note on the translations All German renderings of the Pāli passages in this document are the author's own working translations from the Pāli text, not quotations from published German editions. This is necessary because the German translation situation is patchy: not all Pāli sources have been translated into German, and hardly any has been comprehensively commented on in German. The German translation situation of the sources quoted (marked KNOWLEDGE/GUESS): Suttapiṭaka — available in German in full (KNOWLEDGE): - Majjhima Nikāya (MN 10, 18, 44, 56, 111): K. E. Neumann, Mittlere Sammlung (older, linguistically idiosyncratic); Kay Zumwinkel, Mittlere Lehrreden des Buddha (2001, philologically more reliable). - Saṁyutta Nikāya (SN 12.1–2, 12.25, 12.38, 12.45, 12.51, 22.56–57,