Mental consciousness (Buddhism)

Although in the west the number of senses is normally thought of as five, in Buddhist teaching mental consciousness is included with the five physical senses and in this way may be referred to as a "sixth sense" - although it is not the same as the intuitive insight usually referred to in the west as a sixth sense; but rather discursive thought or intellect. Based on [manas]

(mind), it is the basis of the other five sense consciousnesses since it is in the mind that one is aware of smelling, tasting, seeing, touching and hearing; and here that one interprets the impressions of the other senses through conceiving, assessing, judging, criticizing, etc. Thus this is the consciousness or sense that apprehends undemonstrable and non-obstructive forms, classed as phenomena sources. These may arise from: aggregation of the eight substances from which physical forms are constructed; clear space; a vow or absence of a vow; imagination, as in a dream; manifestation through meditative power. It is listed in Hinayana Buddhism as indeterminate (neither profitable nor unprofitable) at the sense-sphere level. It is without root cause, resultant (with profitable or unprofitable result) or functional (inoperative).

One of the six consciousnesses defined in Buddhism as dependent on the individual senses, and with objects of sense as their focus.