What Is Life?

Life, as the name implies, consists of sentience and vitality. What is sentience? It is the manifestation of activities within the five aggregates involving the six consciousnesses. The appearance of activities within the aggregate of consciousness and the aggregate of volition constitutes sentience; the appearance of activities within the aggregates of consciousness, volition, and perception constitutes sentience; the appearance of activities within the aggregates of consciousness, volition, perception, and sensation constitutes sentience; the appearance of activities within the aggregates of consciousness, volition, perception, sensation, and form constitutes sentience.

What is vitality? As long as the mental faculty exists, and there is activity of the mental factors associated with it, there is vitality. The mental faculty is the life faculty. Except in the state of Nirvana without residue, the life faculty exists in all other states. All sentient beings possess this life faculty, including the Buddha, who is a sentient being, though not classified among ordinary sentient beings.

From the perspective of the twelve links of dependent origination, the birth of a sentient being's life is the product of ignorance and delusion within the mental faculty. When delusion is eliminated and ignorance is severed, life returns to quiescence, abiding in Nirvana, the cycle of rebirth ceases, and the suffering of life is extinguished.