vīthi
Cognitive process
[ VEE-thee ]
literally: street, course
Seeing it in life
When a sense object impinges, a fixed series of cittas — adverting, sense-consciousness, receiving, investigating, determining, seven javanas, registration — arises in order, framed by bhavaṅga before and after.
In short
An ordered sequence of cittas cognizing an object.
The analysis
A fixed sequence: when an object strikes a sense door strongly enough, a train of cittas fires in strict order — adverting, sense-consciousness, receiving, investigating, determining, seven moments of javana, and two moments of registration — bracketed by bhavaṅga on either side. This is treated as the literal architecture of a single act of cognition, timed to the level of individual mind-moments.
Where it sits
Vīthi is the structural counterpart to dependent origination: paṭiccasamuppāda describes suffering across a life, vīthi describes the anatomy of one act of knowing. Vedanā, phassa, and javana are all named moments within a vīthi — the process is the room these events happen inside.
Between a comment landing and a reply leaving your mouth, an entire vīthi has run — object hits, mind turns toward it, receives it, checks it, decides what it is, then seven javana-moments do the actual reacting, kammically live the whole time. A considered pause isn't a gap in this process. It's javana running slower, watched.
Commonly mistaken for
A loose metaphor for 'thought process.' Vīthi is a specific, ordered sequence with a fixed number of stages.
Something only meditators experience. Every act of ordinary sense-cognition runs through a vīthi, all day, whether or not anyone is watching.
Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha IV; Nyanatiloka, Guide Through the Abhidhamma Piṭaka.
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