vipāka citta
Resultant consciousness
[ vee-PAH-ka CHIT-ta ]
Seeing it in life
Vipāka cittas are kamma-results: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, receiving, investigating, registering, and rebirth-linking consciousnesses.
In short
Cittas that are the ripening of past kamma.
The analysis
Vipāka-cittas are the ripened results of past kamma — they include the five-door resultants (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching consciousness), the receiving and investigating cittas that follow, and the rebirth-linking, life-continuum, and death cittas that frame an entire existence. Unlike kusala and akusala cittas, vipāka-cittas don't themselves generate new kamma — they are effect, not further cause.
Where it sits
Vipāka sits between kamma and kiriya in the fourfold ethical classification of citta. Bhavaṅga, paṭisandhi, and cuti are all vipāka-cittas — the resultant thread that runs beneath active experience.
The bare seeing of a message before any reaction to its content — that instant of visual consciousness is vipāka, simply the ripening of past kamma making this particular moment of seeing possible, prior to any liking or disliking.
Commonly mistaken for
Something a person is actively doing. Vipāka-cittas are passive results, not intentional acts.
Punishment or reward from an outside source. The 'result' is the ripening of one's own prior volitional action, not something administered externally.
Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha I, V.
Related terms