พระอาจารย์อธิบายว่าใจประกอบด้วยเวทนา สัญญา สังขาร วิญญาณ เปรียบได้กับการทำงานของคอมพิวเตอร์ และอธิบายว่าใจเป็นเสมือนสนามรบที่ธรรมชาติสามฝ่ายแย่งชิงความเป็นเจ้าเรือน พร้อมแนะวิธีอาราธนาพระรัตนตรัยไว้ที่จอมประสาททั้งหกPra Ajarn explains that the mind is made up of feeling, memory, mental formation, and consciousness — likening it to how a computer works — and describes the mind as a battlefield where three natural forces compete to take control, offering guidance on inviting the Triple Gem to guard the six sense doors.
Someone asked: what is the mind, what is it made of, and why is it said that all s arise there?
The Mind — So Subtle Even Ajahn Mun Never Saw It
Ajahn Mun once taught on the five aggregates — body and mind. A student asked him whether he had ever actually seen the five aggregates, or the mind itself: feeling, memory, mental formation, consciousness. He answered that he never had, because the mind is something extremely subtle, beyond what ordinary eyes can perceive. But our own grandmaster could see it, because he relied on — the light of -vision, the sight of the inner body — which alone can perceive something this subtle.
Four Parts of the Mind, Like a Computer
The mind is made up of four things — feeling (vedanā), memory (saññā), mental formation (saṅkhāra), and consciousness (viññāṇa) — one and the same mind, yet each performing a different function. It's much like a computer or smartphone: the moment you power it on, the first thing that appears is the operating system running — Android, or iOS. Feeling works the same way: it signals which of the natural forces currently holds sway over the mind. The Tipitaka describes only three outer layers of feeling — , suffering, and neither. When side rules, it expresses itself as ease of body and mind. When side rules, it expresses itself as suffering — a state hard to bear. When the neutral force rules, it shows up as a strange, flat non-feeling — neither quite happy nor quite suffering.
Next comes memory, like a computer's storage, holding all our recollections. Then mental formation — the process of construction — like the CPU, the seat of consciousness and its s (). The mental factors are the 'mood' of the mind, giving our thoughts the inclination to act or not act. The output of this processing becomes thought. Finally, consciousness carries that thought outward, toward sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches, through the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body — drawing us into actions of body and speech that become merit or demerit.
The Mind as a Battlefield Where Three Forces Fight for Control
There are, in expanded form, 89 or 121 states of consciousness, while the human mind itself accounts for only one. Whenever one of the three natural forces takes hold, it overlays its own consciousness and mental factors onto the human ones. When the wholesome side possesses the mind, what it overlays is of a higher quality than the human mind's own — acting like a mentor, guiding and instructing, elevating the mind to something nobler and finer. We feel moved by the thoughts that arise, sensing that this mood is delicate and beautiful — and merit flows in along with it. But when the unwholesome side possesses the mind, it draws on the mental states of beings lower than human — wandering spirits or asuras — whose mental factors are greed, aversion, and delusion, overlaying these to stain the mind unwholesome, so as to draw in demerit and drag one's elements downward. Our mind is thus like a battlefield, where the three natural forces are forever contending to become its ruler.
Inviting the Triple Gem to Guard the Six Sense Doors
Because of this, the grandmaster taught us to invite the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha to abide at the eye-door, ear-door, nose-door, tongue-door, body-door, and mind-door — the six doors through which we perceive the outside world. Since we cannot directly control the mind itself, we instead make the aspiration to invite the Triple Gem to stand guard at these very doors, so that the unwholesome side — even when it possesses the mind — cannot act freely through them.