The Practice Which leads to Nibbana - A Buddhist Library

w 10The meditator then moves on to the discernment of mentalitywhich entails the analysis of all of the different types of consciousnessthat occur in himself, discernment of all of the individual mentalfactors that are present in each consciousness, and the discernmentof the processes of consciousness called "v´thi" that occur atthe six doors of the senses.Discerning MentalityIn Buddhist Abhidhamma the mind is seen as consisting of consciousnesswhich knows an object and concomitant mental factorswhich arise together with consciousness. There are 52 such mentalfactors for example:contact, feeling, perception, intention, one pointedness, life facultyand attention. (phassa, vedanŒ, sa––Œ, cetanŒ, ekaggatŒ, j´vita,manasikŒra )There are a total of 89 types of consciousness which can beclassified according to whether they are wholesome, unwholesomeor indeterminate, and also classified according to their plane ofexistence, rèpa, arèpa, or kŒmŒvacara.There are six types of sequences of consciousness called v´thiin which consciousness occurs. Five of them are sequences thatoccur when each of the five objects of the five senses are knownby the mind. These sequences of consciousness enable the mindto know objects at each of the five sense doors such as visibleobjects seen by the eye or sounds heard by the ear. The sixthsequence is one that occurs when the mind has a mentalphenomenon as its object. So that there are five sense doorprocesses or v´this and one mind door process or v´thi which makea total of six v´this.The analysis of mentality is made up of three parts:1. The analysis of all of the different types of consciousness thatoccur in oneself.