What Is Life?

Life, as the term implies, means having both birth and a life faculty. What is birth? The appearance of signs of the five aggregates' activities involving the six consciousnesses is birth; the appearance of the activities of the aggregate of consciousness and the aggregate of volitional formations is birth; the appearance of the activities of the aggregate of consciousness, the aggregate of volitional formations, and the aggregate of perception is birth; the appearance of the activities of the aggregate of consciousness, the aggregate of volitional formations, the aggregate of perception, and the aggregate of feeling is birth; the appearance of the activities of the aggregate of consciousness, the aggregate of volitional formations, the aggregate of perception, the aggregate of feeling, and the aggregate of form is birth.

What is life? As long as the manas exists, and there is the phenomenon of the mental factors (caittas) of the manas being active, that is life; the manas is the life faculty (jīvitendriya). Apart from the state of Nirvāṇa without remainder, the life faculty exists in all other states—the life faculty of sentient beings exists in all of them. Even the Buddha is a sentient being, only He does not belong to the category of ordinary beings (sattva).

From the perspective of the twelve links of dependent origination, the birth of sentient beings' lives is the product of the manas's deluded imaginings born of ignorance. When deluded thinking is eliminated and ignorance is completely severed, life returns to tranquility, abides in nirvāṇa, the path of saṃsāra is cut off, and the suffering of life is extinguished entirely.