Human Development
Indeterminate consciousness in the sense sphere - resultant
Description:
There are 23 indeterminate resultant consciousnesses in the sense sphere. These are with profitable or moral result (16) or with unprofitable or immoral result (7).Of the 16 with profitable result, 8 are without root cause (unconditioned), devoid of non-greed and so on as the cause or condition of the result. These are eye, ear, nose, tongue and body (touch) consciousness, mental or mind-element consciousness, and the mind-consciousness element accompanied with joy (being present when entirely desirable objects occur) and that accompanied with equanimity (being present when desirable neutral objects occur). The resultant consciousness has invariable object (the five senses) or variable (mind-element with any of the five, mind-consciousness element with any of the five and the mind-element). They are classed by high order equanimity (not very sharp), bodily pleasure (sharp) and mental joy.
Of the 8 with root-cause or conditioned, devoid of non-greed and so on as the cause or condition of the result, 4 are accompanied by joy, that is: with understanding and unprompted; with understanding and prompted; without understanding and unprompted; without understanding and prompted. And 4 are accompanied with equanimity, that is: with understanding and unprompted; with understanding and prompted; without understanding and unprompted; without understanding and prompted. Being prompted or not depends on the source from which it has come.
The 7 consciousnesses associated with unprofitable or immoral result are without root-cause (unconditioned). These are eye, ear, nose, tongue and body (touch) consciousness, mental or mind-element consciousness, and the mind-consciousness element. They have undesirable or undesirable-neutral object and are classed by bodily pain (touch) which is sharp, or equanimity (indifference) which is of a low order and not sharp.
In this group, all but the eye, ear, nose, tongue and body consciousnesses, whether with profitable or unprofitable result, give rise to materiality but not to postures or intimation. The 10 sense consciousnesses give rise to none of these.
Context:
In Hinayana Buddhism, 89 consciousnesses are enumerated in aggregate (khanda). Of these, 21 are profitable or moral, 12 are unprofitable or immoral and 56 are indeterminate (resultant or functional). The unprofitable all arise in the sphere of sense and desire, whereas profitable and indeterminate arise in sense, fine-material, immaterial and supramundane spheres.< Broader:
Dispositions of consciousness