In Buddhism, āyatana (Pāli; Sanskrit: आयतन) is a "center of experience" or "mental home," which create one's experience. The related term (Pāli; Skt. ) refers to six cognitive functions, namely sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, body-cognition, and mind-cognition.
Āyatana may refer to both ordinary experience and the chain of processes leading to bondage, as to awakened experience centered in detachment and meditative accomplishment. The Buddhist path aims to relocate one from the ordinary, sensual centers of experience to the "mental home" of the purified, liberated awareness of the jhanas.
Traditionally, the term āyatana is translated as "sense base", "sense-media" or "sense sphere," due to the influence of later commentators like Buddhaghosa. The are traditionally understood as referring to the five senses and the mind.
Etymology Āyatana (Pāli; Sanskrit: आयतन) is a Buddhist term that does not have a single definition or meaning. The standard PTS Pāli-English Dictionary by Davids & Stede (1921) gives the following meanings of āyatana: . stretch, extent, reach, compass, region; sphere, locus, place, spot; position, occasion . exertion, doing, working, practice, performance . sphere of perception or sense in general, object of thought, sense-organ & object; relation, order
While āyatana is usually translated as "base" or "sphere," or more specifically as "sense field," "sense base", "sense-media" or "sense sphere," according to Ellis, "these are inadequate translations because they are based on later Buddhist traditions and commentarial literature and not on an historical understanding of the term."
In Vedic literature āyatana is "used for a regular place, position, etc. occupied by a person." In some Upanishads it refers to a "dwelling place" or "resort," or a "resting place for the mind," indicating that āyatana means "the place in which experience happens" or a "center of experience." According to Ellis, "center of experience" or "mental home" is a more adequate interpretation than "base" or "sphere."
Ellis notes that āyatana in the suttas most commonly appears in compound form, namely saḷāyatana or cha phassāyatanā, the "six āyatanas of sensual experience." According to Ellis, "This context is so dominant that translators like Bodhi and Walshe translate ‘sense bases’ even if the Pāli texts only mentions āyatana, and not saḷāyatana."
Ellis further notes that saḷāyatana is traditionally interpreted anatomically, and understood as referring to the five senses and the mind. Yet, according to Olivelle, saḷāyatana refers instead to cognitive functions, and is therefore understood by Ellis as referring to sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, body-cognition, and mind-cognition.
In the Pali Canon Throughout the Pali Canon, the saḷāyatana are referenced in hundreds of discourses. In these diverse discourses, the sense bases are integrated in various mnemonic lists.
Internal and external āyatana
The āyatana are further refined as six internal āyatana and six corresponding external āyatana. Together they form: sight ('eye') and visible objects hearing ('ear') and sound smelling ('nose') and odor tasting ('tongue') and taste body-cognition ('body') and touch mind-cognition ('mind') and dharmas (mental objects) The saḷāyatana are related to the indriya, the five senses and the mind; the indriya become saḷāyatana when they are distorted by a defiled mind.Indriya and Āyatana – Big DifferenceIndriya also refers to the five spiritual facultues, which contribute to an awakened state of mind.
Five skandhas Based on these six pairs of āyatana, a number of mental factors arise, as described in the five skandhas. Thus, for instance, when the auditive cognitive function ('the ear') is triggered by sound, the associated consciousness (Pali: ) arises. With the presence of these three elements ( dhātu) – hearing function, sound and hearing function-related consciousness – "contact" (phassa) arises, which in turn is apprehended as a pleasant or unpleasant or neutral "feeling" or "sensation" (vedanā). With feeling, "craving" () (or aversion) arises. (See Figure 1.)
Such an enumeration can be found, for instance, in the "Six Sextets" discourse (Chachakka Sutta, MN 148), where the "six sextets" (six sense organs, six sense objects, six sense-specific types of consciousness, six sense-specific types of contact, six sense-specific types of sensation and six sense-specific types of craving) are examined and found to be empty of self. & Bodhi (2001), pp. 1129–36; and, Thanissaro (1998a).
The saḷāyatana are included in the Twelve Nidanas, a list compiled of several sublists including the five skandhas, which describes the process of becoming.Note that the Twelve Causes and Six Sextets describe the relationship between the saḷāyatana and consciousness in different ways. Relatedly, there are canonical discouses that put forth hybrid models of these various psychophysical factors, such as described in "The World Discourse" (Loka Sutta, SN 12.44) (Thanissaro, 1998b; and, Bodhi, 2005a, pp. 358–59) where the aforementioned six "sextets" (from the eye and form to craving) condition the last four "causes" (clinging, becoming, birth, old age & death) and suffering. In reference to this and similar "variant" discourses, Bodhi (2005a) notes: "These variants make it plain that the sequence of factors should not be regarded as a linear causal process in which each preceding factor gives rise to its successor through the simple exercise of efficient causality. Far from being linear, the relationship among the factors is always complex, involving several interwoven strands of conditionality." (Bodhi, 2005a, p. 316.)
"The All" In a discourse entitled, "The All" (SN 35.23), the Buddha states that there is no "all" outside of the six pairs of the saḷāyatana. In the next codified discourse (SN 35.24), the Buddha elaborates that the All includes the first five aforementioned sextets (sense organs, objects, consciousness, contact and sensations).Bodhi (2000b), p. 1140; and, Thanissaro (2001a). References to the All can be found in a number of subsequent discourses.For instance, SN 35.25 through 35.29, including the famed "Fire Sermon" (SN 35.28). In addition, the Abhidhamma and post-canonical Pali literature further conceptualize the saḷāyatana as a means for classifying all factors of existence.Bodhi (2000b), p. 1122.
"Aflame with lust, hate and delusion" In "The Vipers" discourse (Asivisa Sutta, SN 35.197), the Buddha likens the internal saḷāyatana to an "empty village" and the external saḷāyatana to "village-plundering bandits." Using this metaphor, the Buddha characterizes the "empty"In the context of SN 35.197, the term "empty" might simply be meant to convey "passive." It could also be used in the Buddhist sense of self-less, as in anatta (see). In fact, in SN 35.85, the Buddha applies this latter notion of emptiness (suññata) to all internal and external saḷāyatana (Bodhi, 2000b, pp. 1163–64; and Thanissaro, 1997c). sense organs as being "attacked by agreeable & disagreeable" sense objects.Bodhi (2000b), pp. 1237–1239 (where this discourse is identified as SN 35.238); Buddhaghosa (1999), p. 490 (where this discourse is identified as S.iv,175); and, Thanissaro (2004).
Similarly, in the last sutta of the Samyutta Nikaya's Salayatana-samyutta, entitled "The Sheaf of Barley" (which Bodhi, 2000b, identifies as SN 35.248 and Thanissaro, 1998d, as SN 35.207), the Buddha describes the sense organs as "struck" or "thrashed" by "agreeable and disagreeable" sense objects (Bodhi, 2000b, pp. 1257–59; Thanissaro, 1998d).
Elsewhere in the same collection of discourses (SN 35.191), the Buddha's Great Disciple Sariputta clarifies that the actual suffering associated with sense organs and sense objects is not inherent to these saḷāyatana but is due to the "fetters" (here identified as "desire and lust") that arise when there is contact between a sense organ and sense object.Bodhi (2000b), pp. 1230–1231 (where this discourse is identified as SN 35.232); and, Thanissaro (1997b).
In the "Fire Sermon" (Adittapariyaya Sutta, SN 35.28), delivered several months after the Buddha's awakening, the Buddha describes all saḷāyatana and related mental processes in the following manner: "Monks, the All is aflame. What All is aflame? The eye is aflame. Forms are aflame. Consciousness at the eye is aflame. Contact at the eye is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the eye – experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain – that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I tell you, with birth, aging & death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, & despairs."Thanissaro, 1993. For other references to the saḷāyatana as "the All," see Thanissaro (2001b) and Thanissaro (2001a). The saḷāyatana are "the All" insomuch that all we know of the world is known through the saḷāyatana.
Liberation The Buddha taught that, in order to escape the dangers of the saḷāyatana, one must be able to apprehend the saḷāyatana without defilement. In "Abandoning the Fetters" (SN 35.54), the Buddha states that one abandons the fetters "when one knows and sees ... as impermanent" (Pali: anicca) the [saḷāyatana], objects, sense-consciousness, contact and sensations.Bodhi (2000b), p. 1148. Similarly, in "Uprooting the Fetters" (SN 35.55), the Buddha states that one uproots the fetters "when one knows and sees ... as nonself" (anatta) the aforementioned five sextets.Bodhi (2000b), p. 1148. For a correspondence between impermanence and nonself, see Three marks of existence.
To foster this type of penetrative knowing and seeing and the resultant release from suffering, in the Satipatthana Sutta (MN 10) the Buddha instructs monks to meditate on the saḷāyatana and the dependently arising fetters as follows: "How, O bhikkhus, does a bhikkhu live contemplating mental object in the mental objects of the six internal and the six external sense-bases? "Here, O bhikkhus, a bhikkhu understands the eye and material forms and the fetter that arises dependent on both (eye and forms); he understands how the arising of the non-arisen fetter comes to be; he understands how the abandoning of the arisen fetter comes to be; and he understands how the non-arising in the future of the abandoned fetter comes to be. [In a similar manner:] He understands the ear and sounds ... the organ of smell and odors ... the organ of taste and flavors ... the organ of touch and tactual objects ... the consciousness and mental objects.... "Thus he lives contemplating mental object in mental objects ... and clings to naught in the world."Soma (1999), section entitled, "The Six Internal and the Six External Sense-bases."
In the Four Noble Truths, one of many summaries of the Buddhist path to liberation, dukkha ('suffering') is observed to arise with craving (Pali: ; Skt.: , lit. 'thirst'). In the chain of Dependent Origination, craving arises with sensations when the saḷāyatana is activated by contact. To detach from tanha and dukkha, one should develop awareness (sati (mindfullness) and sampajañña (clear comprehension)) of the chain of events triggered by the saḷāyatana, and practice restraint and detachment (sammā-vāyāma (right effort) and dhyana ('meditation')).
Ellis notes that āyatana may also refer to the various stages of meditation (jhana), and "even the state of liberated Buddhist masters is termed āyatana."' As such, they are also a "center of experience" or "mental home," in which our normal states of mind are abandoned and one relocates in the purified, liberated awareness of the jhanas.
In post-canonical Pali texts