The Difference Between Applied Thought (Vitarka) and Sustained Thought (Vicāra)

The Difference Between Vitarka (Initial Application) and Vicāra (Sustained Examination)

Vitarka is the coarse mental activity of the mind: seeking and searching, inferring and deducing, thinking and analyzing...

Vicāra is the subtle and meticulous mental activity of the mind: waiting, investigating, examining, pondering carefully, studying in detail...

Vitarka is generally the mental activity of the mind consciousness; the manas also has the behavior and activity of vitarka, but it is too difficult to observe. When the mind consciousness has forgotten certain people or matters, the manas is in a state of vitarka, while the mind consciousness may be in a state of vitarka, or may be in a state of vicāra. When the manas is in a state of vicāra, the mind consciousness has long since ceased its vitarka, and may even have ceased its vicāra as well, with the manas operating entirely on its own.

The vicāra of the manas is more observable than its vitarka, yet its mode of activity is too subtle. Therefore, countless people deny most of the mental factors (caittas) of the manas, claiming they do not exist, when in fact they simply cannot be observed. Not knowing or understanding them, they simply deny them outright—this attitude is truly not good; it cannot increase wisdom, and it is also dishonest. Honesty is also a mental factor, belonging to the wholesome mental factors, though it is not included among the fifty-one mental factors. Whatever is an activity of the mind, a form of the mind, a mode of activity of the mind, or a nature of the mind, all belongs to the mental factors, which can be wholesome or unwholesome.