The Indeterminate Mental Factors That Can Be Either Wholesome or Unwholesome

The four indeterminate mental factors—remorse, torpor, initial application (vitarka), and sustained examination (vicāra)—sometimes belong to wholesome mental factors and sometimes to unwholesome mental factors; it depends on the specific circumstances, on the result achieved, and on the state at the time and the result being aimed at. If it is excessive craving for sleep, then torpor is an unwholesome mental factor, capable of giving rise to mental dullness and delusion; if sleep can regulate one's mental state and is beneficial to practice, then it belongs to wholesome mental factors. As for remorse, if a person always unwisely regrets their past, regretting that they should not have done things as they did before, to the point that their mind becomes agitated and disturbed, lacking meditative concentration and giving rise to no wisdom, then remorse is an unwholesome mental factor; if one has done an evil deed but can promptly repent of it, resolving never to commit it again, and after repenting the mind attains tranquility and meditative concentration and wisdom arise, then remorse is a wholesome mental factor.

As for initial application (vitarka), if the mind consciousness wanders aimlessly everywhere in pursuit of objects, to the point of having no meditative concentration and a scattered, distracted mind, then initial application belongs to unwholesome mental factors; if the mind consciousness is deliberating and searching for a truth—for example, investigating and searching for the eighth consciousness—then it belongs to wholesome mental factors. As for sustained examination (vicāra), if the mind is examining worldly dharmas, with the mind unsettled and obstructing the arising of correct wisdom, then it belongs to unwholesome mental factors; if, in order to understand the true meaning of a Buddhist teaching, one has a goal and engages in focused, deep and subtle deliberation, then it belongs to wholesome mental factors.