javana
Impulsion
[ juh-VUH-na ]
literally: running swiftly
Seeing it in life
Javana cittas are the karmically decisive phase of the vīthi. They run seven times in a sense-door process and determine the wholesome or unwholesome character of the act.
In short
The seven active moments in a cognitive process — kammically potent.
The analysis
Javana is the seven-moment stretch within a cognitive process (vīthi) where a mental event becomes karmically live. Everything before it — adverting, sense-consciousness, receiving, investigating, determining — is preparatory and largely resultant. Javana is where the mind actually runs, and each of the seven moments plants a kammic seed of roughly equal weight. The name means 'running swiftly' — this is the phase that moves fast enough to escape ordinary attention entirely.
Where it sits
Javana is the kammic engine inside every vīthi. In the money-anxiety pattern, it's the seven moments between noticing the number and reaching for the phone — not one decision but seven kammically potent repetitions, which is part of why the pattern is so well-worn.
The gap that a genuinely paused breath creates isn't imaginary. It's a real intervention at the javana stage — giving those seven moments a different character than they'd otherwise default to.
Commonly mistaken for
A single moment of reaction. Javana is seven repeated moments, not one — part of why habitual reactions feel instantaneous and hard to interrupt once running.
Only relevant to meditators. Javana runs in every cognitive process, in every mind, constantly — meditation trains the ability to notice it.
Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha IV; Nyanatiloka, Guide Through the Abhidhamma Piṭaka.
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