B. Vinana. Sanna

 B

Excellent — you’re touching on two of the core mental functions in Buddhist philosophy: cognition and perception, often discussed in relation to citta (mind), cetasikas (mental factors), and the process of knowing (viññāṇa).

Let’s unpack these carefully in the Buddhist psychological framework, especially from the Abhidhamma and early Buddhist (Pāli Canon) perspectives.

🧠 1. Cognition (

Viññāṇa / Citta

)

Meaning

Cognition in Buddhism refers to the knowing function of the mind — the moment-to-moment awareness that arises when an object is experienced through one of the six sense doors:

1. Eye (seeing)
2. Ear (hearing)
3. Nose (smelling)
4. Tongue (tasting)
5. Body (touching)
6. Mind (thinking)

Each moment of citta or viññāṇa arises dependent on conditions (object, sense base, attention, etc.) and ceases immediately, replaced by a new moment.

Key idea:

There is no permanent “knower” — only a stream of cognitive events.

👁️ 2. Perception (

Saññā

)

Meaning

Saññā is perception, recognition, or conceptualization — the mental factor that identifies and labels an object once cognition has arisen.

When you see a shape and color, cognition (viññāṇa) registers it;

perception (saññā) recognizes it as “tree,” “person,” or “blue.”

Function

• It marks or remembers the characteristics of objects.
• It enables recognition in future moments (memory, association).
• It can also distort experience — when perception is influenced by delusion (moha), we see things not as they truly are.

⚙️ Relationship Between Them

Function	Pāli Term	Role in Experience
Cognition	Viññāṇa / Citta	Basic awareness of an object (“knowing that something is”)
Perception	Saññā	Recognition and conceptual labeling of that object (“knowing what it is”)
Feeling	Vedanā	The affective tone (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral)
Mental Formation	Saṅkhāra	Volitional reactions, intentions, and habits

These four together — viññāṇa, saññā, vedanā, and saṅkhāra — make up much of what the Buddha called nāma (the mental component of existence) in nāma-rūpa (“mind and matter”).

🪶 In Meditation

• Mindfulness (sati) observes how cognition, perception, and feeling arise and pass away.
• Insight (vipassanā) develops when one sees that these are impermanent (anicca), unsatisfactory (dukkha), and not-self (anattā).

Would you like me to show a diagram or step-by-step map of how cognition and perception arise together in the dependent origination (paṭiccasamuppāda) cycle? It visually clarifies how they interact.