What Is Life

Life, as the term implies, means having both birth and vitality. 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 (vijñāna) and the aggregate of formations (saṃskāra) is birth; the appearance of the activities of the aggregate of consciousness, the aggregate of formations, and the aggregate of perception (saṃjñā) is birth; the appearance of the activities of the aggregate of consciousness, the aggregate of formations, the aggregate of perception, and the aggregate of feeling (vedanā) is birth; and the appearance of the activities of the aggregate of consciousness, the aggregate of formations, the aggregate of perception, the aggregate of feeling, and the aggregate of form (rūpa) is birth.

What is vitality? As long as the manas exists, and there is the phenomenon of the manas's mental factors being active, that is vitality—the manas is the life faculty. Except in the state of nirvāṇa without remainder (anupadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa), 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 not one of the ordinary masses of beings.

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