Mental Activity (སེམས་, sems / citta)
The Tibetan sems (Sanskrit citta) is usually translated as “mind,” though this is misleading. In the pramāṇa tradition, sems refers not to a thing (a faculty or organ) but to an activity — the dynamic event of experiencing. It applies to the entire range of subjective experience: sense perception, emotion, conceptual cognition (Berzin: “conceptual thought”, རྟོག་པ་), and all mental factors.
Definitions
Dharmakīrti (Gelug Presentation, via Berzin)
མཚན་གཞི་ (Definiendum): སེམས་ (sems, citta) — mental activity / mind
མཚན་ཉིད་ (Definiens): གསལ་རིག་ཙམ་ (gsal-rig tsam) — mere clarity and awareness
- གསལ་ (gsal, clarity): giving rise to a cognitive appearance (snang-ba) of something — the arising of a mental-hologram of an object simultaneously with cognitively engaging it. “Clarity” does not require the object to be in focus; a blur or a confused idea also counts.
- རིག་ (rig, awareness): cognitively engaging (‘jug-pa) with something — the taking of an object. Every moment of mental activity takes an object (including the absence of something). Does not require conscious awareness or knowledge of what the object is.
- ཙམ་ (tsam, mere): “merely” — excluding (1) the notion that a thing-like mind does this, and (2) a separate “me” using the mind as an instrument.
མཚོན་བྱེད་ (Illustration): Any moment of sensory cognition (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling), mental cognition (thinking, remembering, imagining), or self-awareness
“Mental activity is the mere making of something cognitively clear and the mere making of an awareness of something (gsal-rig tsam).”
Source: Classical definition transmitted via Gelug monastic textbooks; berzin-science-of-mind (Mind as Mental Activity, Basic Distinctions among Cognitive Objects)
Giving rise to a cognitive appearance and cognitively engaging with something are not two separate acts — they are the same event described from two perspectives. The arising of a mental-hologram of a sight is the seeing of that sight; there is no prior arising followed by a subsequent engagement.
Scope
The definition is intentionally broader than common English uses of “mind”:
- Sense perception — visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile cognition
- Conceptual thought — thinking, remembering, imagining, verbalising
- Emotion — what Western traditions divide as “heart” is included within sems
- Subliminal cognition — mental activity need not be conscious; it may be subliminal (bag-la nyal) and lack cognitive certainty
Buddhist analysis thus does not divide experience into “mind” (rational) and “heart” (emotional) — all are forms of the same activity. The Chinese and Mongolian translations chose the word for “heart” rather than “mind” to render sems, for the same reason berzin-science-of-mind.
What it Is Not
- Not a thing or a faculty (“my mind,” “a good mind”) — there is no machine-like mind separate from the activity
- Not a receptacle (“keep this in your mind”) — there is no box
- Not spirit (Geist, esprit) — no connotation of an animating substance
- Not dependent on a separate agent using it — the tsam (“mere”) explicitly excludes any self doing the mental activity
Two Aspects
From another perspective (berzin-science-of-mind, Basic Distinctions among Cognitive Objects):
- Clarity also refers to the defining characteristic that, like a mirror, mental activity is devoid of anything tangible or obstructive that would prevent the cognitive arising of a cognitive aspect of something. In this regard, mind is as vast and expansive as space.
- Awareness refers to the defining characteristic that, unlike a mirror, mental activity individually and subjectively experiences its cognitive object. A mirror does not experience anything; mental activity does.
Relationship to Momentariness
Mental activity is a nonstatic (impermanent) phenomenon — it changes from moment to moment. Each moment of mental activity gives rise to its cognitive appearance and engages its object. This is consistent with Dharmakīrti’s momentariness doctrine: mental events are themselves moments of causal efficacy (dreyfus-recognizing-reality).
The Four Noble Truths and Mind
All four noble truths (ཕགས་པའི་བདེན་པ་བཞི་) directly concern mental activity:
- Suffering is experienced with the mind
- The cause of suffering is the mind’s confusion and disturbing attitudes
- True cessation (གཀོག་བདེན་) is a stopping on the mind — it is the location of what is to be stopped
- The path (ལམ་བདེན་) is a pathway mind — a type of mental activity that acts as the path
The Buddhist path is therefore essentially the work of transforming mental activity (berzin-science-of-mind, Mind as Mental Activity).
Gelug vs. Non-Gelug
Both traditions share the same formal definition. The key difference lies in the scope of what counts as cognitively engaged:
- Gelug: sensory non-conceptual cognition directly and decisively engages a commonsense object through a fully transparent mental-hologram
- Non-Gelug: sensory non-conceptual cognition engages only a momentary mental hologram directly; the commonsense object is reached only through subsequent conceptual cognition
Sources
- berzin-science-of-mind — chapters Mind as Mental Activity and Basic Distinctions among Cognitive Objects
- dreyfus-recognizing-reality — treatment of sems in the context of Dharmakīrti’s ontology