Dear Dhamma friends,
There is an interesting point that I realized during my studies of Abhidhamma.
Let me please share with you my thoughts and invite you to help me understand the issue better.
According to the nature of the mental process, as described in Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha (a summary of Abhidhamma written in ancient times for monks to understand better & remember basic Abhidhamma concepts), an object’s existence sometimes starts at a particular moment of a human being’s mental process, and sometimes it doesn’t. A mental process here is a section of the mental stream. The mental stream is the succession of moments of arising-passing consciousness. This succession arises based on various rules and a specific system. Thanks to these rules and their system, we can understand the mental stream as consisting of mental moments that arise in cyclic sections, each section consisting of an orderly sequence of particular mental features. To understand my point written below, you may need first to study the basic conceptual structure of these sections of the mental process, also known as cittavīthi.
According to the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha, the arising-passing moments of materiality are 17 times slower than the mind (and each process of the mind takes 17 moments; one moment of materiality is thus equal to one process-section of the mind-process). The moments of matter, however, start at various moments of the mental process, but the mind is able to catch and perceive only those particular material moments, which start at the particular moment of the mental process. I.e., suppose the material moment starts at the mental section’s moment no. 5. In that case, the mind cannot perceive it. If the material moment starts at the mental section’s moment no. 10, the mind also cannot perceive it. The mind can only perceive material moments that start at the mental section’s first few moments, such as no. 1, 2, or 3. This interpretation of reality helps me understand that matter occurs independently from the mind. If materiality were dependent or created by the mind, as some people believe, it would not be possible for materiality moments to start occurring at a different moment than the start of each mentality section.
It would be interesting to know whether the mental process of one person always starts at the same moment as the mental process of another person. Thus, If mental processes are synchronized among all living beings, it would facilitate telepathic abilities. The person who exercises telepathy on another person would be able to know another person’s thoughts because the object perceived by another person can, therefore, be perceived by the telepathic person, too.
Suppose the material object of another person starts at their mental section’s moment number 1, but the telepathic person’s mental process is already at the mental section’s moment number 10. In that case, the telepathic person would not be able to know the material object perceived by another person because the mental process of the telepathic person is not synchronized with the observed individual. In order for telepathy to work, it would be necessary for the mental processes to be synchronized.
The synchronization of telepathic processes could be difficult if the mental sections always contain 17 moments. The start of the mental sections may get synchronized and unsynchronized from other living beings upon waking up, exiting jhāna and Nibbāna attainments because, in those events, the sections of the mental process do not occur (in deep sleep, jhāna, and Fruition attainments, the mind consists of repeatedly arising bhavaṅga moments, jhāna-citta moments, or phala-citta moments). If the person’s mentality sections always contain 17 moments and these 17 moments start at a different moment from another person, then there is a 1 in 17 (5.88235%) chance that one’s mental process is synchronized with another person. Or it would be 3 in 17 (17.647%) if the material process can be perceived when it starts at one of the three starting moments of the mentality section. Only in these ca. 6% or 18% of cases it would be possible to exercise telepathy over another person.
Let’s consider the possibility that mental process sections do not always contain 17 moments. Do all sections of the wakeful mental process contain 17 moments? Or can sections of the mental process sometimes contain less or more than 17 moments? It seems some authors (reference is unavailable to me now) believe that the two finalizing tadārammaṇa moments of each mental section are sometimes present in the mental process and sometimes are not, i.e., the mental process sometimes has 17 moments and sometimes just 15.
If this is so for different people, the mental processes cannot always be synchronized, but within the huge number of mental sections within each blink of an eye (due to the unimaginable speed of the mental process, billions of mental sections occur within a time-length of a blink of an eye or snap of a finger) it would be certain that some of the mental sections get into synchrony with another person’s mental sections, while other sections are unsynchronized.
Telepathic Person’s sections (TP) vs. Object Person’s sections (OP)
- sections that are synchronized are in bold typeface
- numbers “15” or “17” indicate the number of moments within mental sections that deal with a material object; “1” indicates a moment of bhavaṅga, e.g., of deep sleep:
TP: 1 1 1 1 15 17 17 17 15 17 17 15 15 17 15 17 17 17 15 17 17
OP: 1 1 17 17 15 15 17 17 15 17 17 17 15 15 17 17 17 17 17
This little dataset example shows that if the mental sections do not always contain 17 moments, the occasional synchrony of mental sections may allow an inaccurate, albeit possible, telepathic connection. Suppose that every mental section has 17 moments and never less/more:
TP: 1 1 1 1 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17
OP: 1 1 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17
In this dataset example, we can see that due to the fixed length of each mental section, in case of the Telepathic Person’s mental section starting at a different moment than the Object Person’s mental section, e.g., upon waking up (or exiting jhāna or Fruition) at a different moment, it would not be possible to exercise telepathy at all. To achieve synchrony, the Telepathic or the Object person would have to synchronize the mental sections with the other person, either by sleep, attainment of jhāna, or attainment of Fruition.
So, let me suggest two questions related to this problem:
(1) Is it possible for tadārammaṇa to sometimes occur in the mental process section and sometimes not to occur? If it sometimes occurs and sometimes not, let me please know the reference to a Pāḷi text that says so.
(2) Is telepathy possible only when the mental process sections are synchronized among the telepathic person and their object person? And if it is not possible in the case of asynchrony, what can the telepathic person do to achieve the synchrony of the mental sections?
Or did I totally misunderstand it all? 
May you all be happy and healthy.
