Human Development

Awareness of corporeality-group of conscious existence

Description:
One of the five interacting aggregates that produce the illusory ego, this group includes the human body as well as other forms. Anything that is perceived as being material, whether past, present or future, internal or external, subjective or objective, gross or refined, superior or inferior, far or near, is included in this classification which corresponds to the Western idea of reality.
The corporeality-group is the outcome of the activities and combinations of the 4 root-elements, earth, water, fire and air or wind, conceived metaphysically. From the 4 root-elements are derived 24 secondary phenomena of sentience, which include the five senses and their organs, and the corresponding physical sense-objects. The latter four constitute the consciousness of form, sound, odour and taste along with other bodily consciousness as, for example, of pressure, pain, touch, etc. Among the 15 other derived corporeal elements is the seat of consciousness or physical base of mind (hadaya-vatthu). Figuratively, that base is said, by some commentators on the Pali tradition, to centre on the heart and is referred to as heart-basis.
Broader:
Five aggregates