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In Buddhism, āyatana (Pāli; Sanskrit: आयतन) is a "center of experience" or "mental home," which create one's experience. The related term ''''' (Pāli; Skt. ''''') refers to six cognitive functions, namely sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, body-cognition, and mind-cognition.

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16 sections
Contents
  • Etymology
  • In the Pali Canon
  • Internal and external ''āyatana''
  • Five skandhas
  • "The All"
  • "Aflame with lust, hate and delusion"
  • Liberation
  • In post-canonical Pali texts
  • Understanding sense organs
  • The roots of wisdom
  • Related Buddhist concepts
  • See also
  • Notes
  • References
  • Sources
  • External links

In Buddhism, āyatana (Pāli; Sanskrit: आयतन) is a "center of experience" or "mental home," which create one's experience. The related term ''''' (Pāli; Skt. ''') refers to six cognitive functions, namely sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, body-cognition, and mind-cognition.

Āyatana may refer to both ordinary experience and the chain of processes leading to bondage, as to awakened experience centered in detachment and meditative accomplishment. The Buddhist path aims to relocate one from the ordinary, sensual centers of experience to the "mental home" of the purified, liberated awareness of the jhanas.

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