kiriya citta
Functional consciousness
[ KEE-ree-ya CHIT-ta ]
Seeing it in life
Kiriya cittas perform their function without leaving karmic trace. They include the five-door and mind-door adverting cittas and all wholesome-type cittas of an arahant.
In short
Cittas that do not produce kamma — typical of arahants.
The analysis
Kiriya-cittas perform their function without producing kamma and without being the result of kamma. Ordinary minds have a few (the adverting cittas), but an arahant's entire range of what would otherwise be kusala cittas becomes kiriya instead — wholesome-quality action with no further kammic seed planted, since craving that would ripen the seed has been uprooted.
Where it sits
Kiriya is the third term in the kamma / vipāka / kiriya classification. For an ordinary person it's a narrow category; for an arahant it describes almost the entirety of their functioning consciousness.
An arahant is traditionally described as still acting — teaching, walking, eating — but each act is kiriya: functional, without the volitional undertow that would otherwise plant a further seed.
Commonly mistaken for
Passivity or inaction. Kiriya cittas actively perform their function; the absence is of kammic consequence, not of activity.
Something available to unawakened minds broadly. Outside the adverting cittas everyone has, kiriya in the wholesome sense is specific to the arahant's mind-stream.
Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha I.
Related terms