Citta: Clarifying the heart-mind

Cittabhavana: Beyond heart and mind

In much of modern culture, the “mind” is thought to live in the brain as reason and intellect, while the “heart” is seen as the seat of love, compassion, and feeling. This split runs deep in some languages and religions.

In the Tipitaka, the Buddha deals with this dualistic thinking. He applied the word citta to unite the dimensions: it is at once knowing and feeling, wisdom and compassion, awareness and warmth. 

To cultivate cittabhavana is therefore not to train two separate faculties, but to nurture the single living stream of citta — the heart-mind — luminous when free from defilements that limit one’s talents and skills, expansive and transformative when suffused with loving-kindness, and steady when garnered in samadhi and vipassana, together.

To understand the Buddha’s vision of the human condition, it is essential to recover this unified sense of citta — not “heart” and “mind” as two separate faculties, but as one heart-mind stream of experience.

Citta in the Suttas

Let’s look at the etymology of the word. Citta derives from the root √cit, “to think, to perceive, to be conscious.” It is usually translated as “mind,” but this risks confusion with the modern biological sense of “brain.” In the Buddha Dhamma, citta refers to the living stream of awareness, always changing, always conditioned.

The Buddha frequently uses citta very dynamically:

cittabhavana — the cultivation of the mind (Digha Nikaya Long Discourses33). cittassa ekaggata — one-pointedness of mind (Majjima Nikaya Middle Length Discourses 44). The Dhammapada opens with a powerful declaration: Manopubbangama dhamma, manosettha manomaya.

“Mind precedes all phenomena; mind is their chief; they are made by mind.” (Dhammapada 1–2)

The extraordinary vision of the Buddha: A mind suffused with compassion

From the Numbered Discourses Anguttara Nikaya 4.125 — Pathamamettasutta Love:

Puna caparam, bhikkhave, idhekacco puggalo karunasahagatena cetasa …pe… muditasahagatena cetasa …pe… upekkhasahagatena cetasa ekaa disam pharitva viharati, tatha dutiyam, tatha tatiyam, tatha catuttham. Iti uddhamadho tiriyam sabbadhi sabbattataya sabbavantam lokam upekkhasahagatena cetasa vipulena mahaggatena appamaena averena abyapajjena pharitvaviharati.

“Furthermore, mendicants, here a certain person, with a MIND ACCOMPANIED BY COMPASSION, abides pervading one quarter … then with A MIND ACCOMPANIED BY REJOICING … then with a MIND ACCOMPANIED BY EQUANIMITY, pervades one direction, and likewise the second, the third, and the fourth. Thus ABOVE, BELOW, and ACROSS, everywhere, to ALL as to ONESELF, they dwell PERVADING THE ENTIRE WORLD with a mind accompanied by equanimity — VAST, exalted, MEASURELESS, without enmity and without ill will.” Here, citta is not cold intellect, but the very seat of warmth, compassion, and care.

Why “Heart vs. Mind” misleads

The Buddha never taught a split between “head” and “heart.” In the Discourses, citta already integrates both the clarity of wisdom and the warmth of compassion. Translate citta only as “mind,” and it sounds like abstract intellect. Translate it only as “heart,” and it risks sentimentality.

The better sense is heart-mind: one living stream of awareness, luminous and compassionate.

Conclusion

The Buddha’s teaching is clear: the true field of practice is the citta.

It is cultivated (cittabhavana).

It is naturally radiant when unclouded (pabhassara-citta).

It is suffused with compassion (mettacitta). To divide “mind” from “heart” is to miss the unity the Buddha affirmed.

In the Buddha’s vision, wisdom and compassion, thought and feeling, awareness and love are not two. They are one stream — the living citta — the heart-mind to be cultivated on the path of awakening.

(Don de Silva)