“Besides as ‘the knowing’, the mind also thinks, feels and perceives.”
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Question: What do you mean when you said about ‘the one who knows’? Is ‘the knower’ different from ‘the object that one knows’? When I observe my breathing, the breath is the object of my observation and the mind is the one that is aware of the breathing. Is this correct?
Than Ajahn: Yes, the mind is the one who observes the breathing process. Breathing is part of the body function, while the mind is the one who knows what’s going on with the body. Besides as ‘the knowing’, the mind also thinks, feels and perceives. These are the functions of the mind. The 4 nāma-khandhas – vedanā, saññā, saṅkhārā and viññāṇa – are part of the mind, the one who knows.
Viññāṇa receives information from the sensual organs such as the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body. Viññāṇa sends the information to the mind to be processed by saññā (perception). Saññā is the khandha that recognises what kind of images it sees or what kind of sound it hears. After the information is processed, saññā can recognize whether it is a man or a woman, whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. Then, feeling will arise. If it’s a good thing, good feeling will arise. If it’s a bad thing, bad feeling will arise.
When feeling arises, there will be saṅkhārā (thinking). It will think about what should you do with this feeling? Should you save it or should you delete it? It’s like the information you receive in your computer such as an email. When you read your e-mail, if you think, ‘This email is good,’ you’ll save it. But if you think, ‘This email is bad,’ you’ll delete it. This is saṅkhārā (thinking). Saṅkhārā is the one who thinks, the one that decides what to do with the information you received. So, this is how the mind works through the body. The mind uses the body to gather all the information. The body is like a drone which has a camera to capture the images, and has a microphone to pick up the sound.
After the body receives the information, it sends the information to the mind to be processed and to decide what to do with this information. This is how the mind operates. The mind uses the body to experience sight, sound, smell, taste and tactile objects. Then, it manages its feeling by using saṅkhārā. If the mind finds something good, it’ll tell the body to gather more of it or to preserve it for as long as possible. Like when you find money, you’ll say, ‘Oh! Money is good. So, I have to preserve it or to find more of it.’ This is the work of saṅkhārā (thinking).
Dhamma in English, Jul 4, 2018.
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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