7.3 Of Mental Properties

Controverted Point: That they do not exist.

Theravādin: You surely do not also deny that some mental phenomena are concomitant, co-existent, conjoined with consciousness, have their genesis and cessation, physical basis and object in common with it? Why then exclude the “mental”? Contact, for instance, is co-existent with consciousness; hence it is a “mental”, i.e., a property or concomitant of mind. So are feeling, perception, volition, faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, understanding, lust, hate, dullness,… indiscretion—all the “mentals”.

Rājagirika, Siddhatthika: You allow then that what is co-existent with consciousness is a “mental”. Do you equally admit that what is co-existent with contact is a “contactal”, or that what is co-existent with each of those mental phenomena is to be analogously regarded; for instance, that what is co-existent with indiscretion is an “indiscretional”?

Theravādin: Certainly. And if you assert that there are no mental phenomena corresponding to our term “mentals”,

was it not said by the Exalted One:

“Yea! verily this mind and mental states
Are void of soul for one who understands.
Whoso discerns the low and high in both,
The seer, he knows that neither can endure”?

Or again, was it not said by the Exalted One:

“Suppose in this case, Kevaṭṭa, that a bhikkhu can make manifest the mind, and the mental property, and the direction and application of thought in other beings, other individuals, saying: Such is your mind. This is your mind. Thus and thus are you conscious”?

Hence there is such a thing as a “mental” that is, a property, or concomitant, of consciousness or mind