From:  "connie"  nichicon@…
              Date:  Thu Jan 2, 2003  5:47 pm
              Subject:  "life object"

 I understand that a certain kamma is paccaya for both the cuti-citta of my last life and the patisandhi-citta of this one. Then, that same kamma / life object is carried forward in the bhavanga-citta throughout the remainder of this life. I guess I see it as the underlying 'flavor' (sounds better than 'glue') of 'my' existence, or part of what people might mean when they talk about 'my karma'.

Allow me to try to explain it this way;

Say X represents our last life, the cittas,
X1 would have been last lifetime's patisandhi citta,
X2 all the bhavanga cittas,
Y the last vara vithi citta, conditioned by the appropriate kamma, which would also condition the last arammana, say A, to arise simultaneously,
X3 would be the last and final citta of that lifetime, the cuti citta.

The same kamma that caused Y with the arammana of A to arise would condition the whole set of Y cittas to arise as the next lifetime, say this present one, as:
Y1 our first citta in this lifetime, namely our patisandhi citta.
Y2 all the bhavanga cittas of this lifetime, between the vithi varas,
Z the last vithi citta in this lifetime, conditioned by the most appropriate kamma at the time just before our death, which would cause not only the future last vithi cittas to arise with the appropriate arammana say AA, for the next lifetime of patisandhi, bhavanga and cuti cittas.
Y3 our future cuti citta of this lifetime.

All the X's would 'share' the same arammana, as do all the Y's, as will the Z's. Their arammanas are always passed on from the last lifetime's last vithi citta, or the last consciousness/intelligence arising through one of the six dvaras [as opposed to the bhavanga cittas whose arammanas 'carried over' from the last lifetime and don't appear through any of the dvaras in this present lifetime].

It seems there is something later on in the "Summary of Paramatthadhamma"  about how this kamma might change.

The kamma, once arisen, can't change, but the results may not always arise.  Say we have done some horrendous kamma this lifetime, which should entail us an extended stay in hell for a couple of thousand kappas sometime in the future, but we also did some really nice deeds somewhere in the past that just happened to yield results as a great kusala vipaka citta, as our next patisandhi citta, so we arise in heaven as a pleasant result. While there, say we were lucky enough to resist all the lobha accumulations and have the chanda to go to a 'sala sudhamma', listen to the Dhamma, and develop panna enough to become enlightened even at the lowest level. At that moment, 'the hell gates are closed' to us for the rest of samsara. No matter how powerful our akusala, once some of the kilesas have been permanently eradicated, such sufferings are no longer possible, no matter how much more time we have to spend in samsara.

That applies to this lifetime itself of course, if one were to attain nibbana of any level within this lifetime, a great percentage of past kammas accumulated through samsara could no longer have the conditions to bear fruit, since our citta can no longer arise with certain cetasikas or certain levels of kilesas.

I think it points to how important the quality of the cittas leading up to and especially at the very moment of our death is.

Absolutely, but we can't choose or control anything. We can only accumulate the right conditions for sati and panna, as well as other kusala [which are always accompanied by sati if not always panna] to arise as often as possible, so that our last vithi citta would be more likely to arise as kusala [with panna if at all possible]. And since no one ever knows when death may come, one should accumulate sati and panna in our daily lives as much as conditions allow, since all kusala lead to each other, flow together and grow together.