21.2 Of Experience as Inseparable from Personality (KV21.2)

Controverted Point: That an ordinary person is not exempt from experiencing the phenomena of all the three spheres of life.

Theravādin: You imply that an ordinary person is inseparable from the contacts, the feelings, perceptions, volitions, cognitions, faiths, efforts, mindfulnesses, concentrations, understandings, belonging to all three spheres? You deny; but what else can you mean?

Again, you imply that when he makes a gift, say, of raiment, etc., at that moment he is enjoying not only the giver's consciousness, but also the Rūpa-consciousness of the Four Jhānas, the Arūpa-consciousness of the four Arūpa-Jhānas.

Opponent: But is an ordinary person capable of distinguishing whether his actions leading to a Rūpa-world or Arūpa-world? If not, then surely he cannot be separated from actions leading to all three spheres.

The Points of Controversy, an English translation of the Pali Abhidhamma Kathāvatthu. Translated by Shwe Zan Aung and C.A.F. Rhys Davids. First published by Pali Text Society, 1915.

This SuttaCentral edition was prepared by Manfred Wierich and Ven. Vimala and proofread by Josephine Tobin. Some changes were introduced:

Abbreviations, i.e., those of cited works and the participants in the controversies, were expanded.

Cross-references were linked.

Some typographic changes were introduced, among others, i.e.: the phonetic symbol “ŋ” was changed to the Pāli diacritical letter “ṃ”, “ô” to “o”, single quotes to double quotes, and “:—” to “:”.

Letter-spacing with fixed spaces was replaced with bold font.

The corrigenda were merged into the text. Some could not be resolved, though.

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