I was just reading "Buddhist Psychology of Feelings" by Naw Kham La Dhammasami earlier and I wanted to identify whether what the author was saying was correct from a classical perspective, as it seems there is some inconsistency in what is being said.
Here the author talks about citta as "agent"...
pages 7-8 wrote:We can define mind (citta) as an activity, the process of being aware of an object. The problem with this definition is the question, "If there is no self, what is it that is aware?". The answer is that it is the citta itself that is aware of an object; citta is an "agent". Citta is also an instrument; the means by which the accompanying mental factors (cetasikas) are aware of an object.
... but then, just a few pages later, we find the author quoting the following commentary to the Satipatthana Sutta,...page 9 wrote:... brain research has revealed that, although the brain functions as a super-computer, it requires an external agent to the run it just as ordinary computers need to be programmed by men. Isn't that external agent the mind?
What the author is saying (pages 7-9) doesn't sound quite right to me, particularly on account of what the commentary (page 13) says.page 13 wrote:"Who feels? No being. Whose is the feeling [vedana]? Not of a being. Owing to what is there the feeling? Feeling can arise with (certain) things - forms, smells, and so forth - as objects. That bhikkhu knows, therefore, that there is a mere experiencing of feeling after the objectifying of a particular pleasure or painful physical basis or of one of indifference".
Are these two perspectives reconcilable or has the author diverged from classical Theravada orthodoxy by regarding citta as an agent?
Metta,
Retro.