cetanā
Volition
[ che-TA-naa ]
Seeing it in life
Cetanā coordinates other mental factors on the object and is identified by the Buddha as kamma itself: ‘It is volition that I call kamma.’
In short
Intention — the seed of kamma.
The analysis
Cetanā is the cetasika that organizes the others toward an object — not one factor among many so much as the coordinator that recruits and directs its companions. Its significance is doctrinal and severe: the Buddha's own definition of kamma is cetanā. 'It is volition, monks, that I call kamma; having willed, one acts.' Kamma is not the outward act but the intention that organizes it — two people can perform the same physical action with entirely different kammic weight, because the cetanā behind each was different.
Where it sits
Cetanā is one of the seven universal cetasikas, present in every citta, but its kammic potency is concentrated at the javana stage of the cognitive process — the seven moments where a mental process becomes karmically decisive. Everywhere else, cetanā organizes; at javana, it commits.
Sending the same email twice — once from genuine care for the recipient, once from obligation and resentment — produces near-identical text. The cetanā behind each is not the same event, and by the Abhidhamma's own account, not the same kamma.
Commonly mistaken for
Willpower or effort (viriya). Cetanā is intention specifically, not the energy applied to carry it out — a different cetasika.
Conscious deliberation. Cetanā operates in every citta, including instantaneous and unreflective ones; it doesn't require weighing options.
Nibbedhika Sutta (AN 6.63); Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha II.
Related terms