[4][5] In the Pāli Canon's Sutta Pitaka's first four nikāyas, viññāṇa is one of three overlapping Pali terms used to refer to the mind, the others being manas and citta.
Throughout Pali literature, viññāṇa[1] can be found as one of a handful of synonyms for the mental force that animates the otherwise inert material body.
2), the four other aggregates are material "form" (rupa), "feeling" or "sensation" (vedana), "perception" (sanna), and "volitional formations" or "fabrications" (sankhara).
In SN 22.79, the Buddha distinguishes consciousness in the following manner: This type of awareness appears to be more refined and introspective than that associated with the aggregate of perception (saññā) which the Buddha describes in the same discourse as follows: Similarly, in a 5th-century CE commentary, the Visuddhimagga, there is an extended analogy about a child, an adult villager and an expert "money-changer" seeing a heap of coins; the child's experience is likened to perception, the villager's experience to consciousness, and the money-changer's experience to true understanding (paňňā).
[20] Thus, in this context, "consciousness" denotes more than the irreducible subjective experience of sense data suggested in the discourses of "the All" (see prior section); it additionally entails a depth of awareness reflecting a degree of memory and recognition.
[21] Consciousness (viññāṇa) is the third of the traditionally enumerated Twelve Causes (nidāna) of Dependent Origination (Pali: paṭiccasamuppāda; Skt.
[23] The following aspects are traditionally highlighted: Numerous discourses state: In three discourses in the Samyutta Nikaya, the Buddha highlights three particular manifestations of saṅkhāra as particularly creating a "basis for the maintenance of consciousness" (ārammaṇaṃ ... viññāṇassa ṭhitiyā) that could lead to future existence,[25] to the perpetuation of bodily and mental processes (conception),[26] and to craving[27] and its resultant suffering.
As stated in the common text below (in English and Pali), these three manifestations are intending, planning and enactments of latent tendencies ("obsessing")[28] Thus, for instance, in the "Intention Discourse" (Cetanā Sutta, SN 12.38), the Buddha more fully elaborates: The language of the post-canonical Samyutta Nikaya commentary and subcommentary further affirm that this text is discussing the means by which "kammic [karmic] consciousness" "yield[s] fruit in one's mental continuum.
Through consciousness's "life force" aspect, these future expressions are not only within a single lifespan but propel karmic impulses (kammavega) across samsaric rebirths.
[citation needed] According to Bhikkhu Bodhi, the post-canonical Pali commentary uses the three terms viññāṇa, mano and citta as synonyms for the mind sense base (mana-ayatana); however, in the Sutta Pitaka, these three terms are generally contextualized differently: The citta is called "luminous" in A.I.8-10.
[43] As described above, in reference to the "All" (sabba), the Sutta Pitaka identifies six vijñānas related to the six sense bases: The Yogacara / Cittamatra school consider two more consciousnesses.
According to Walpola Rahula, the "store consciousness" of Yogacara thought exists in the early texts as well, as the "citta.
[48][49] Viññāna is used in Thai Buddhism to refer specifically to one's consciousness or life-force after it has left the body at the moment of death.
These include the notion that "the vijñānī returns from the state of nirvikalpa samādhi and attains the richer, world-affirming nondual realization that God has become everything.