Thanks.
At this moment i am not reading much anymore. I do not feel this is conducive to the goal anymore. At least not at this moment.
I believe that one can say that before there is a certain experience ( a sense-vinnana), an experience of a certain sound, smell, a certain tactile sensation, a thought arising, etc, there is no experience.
Abhidhamma has called this bhavanga, i believe. Bhavanga as it were, refers to mind in its basic function of receptivity, its ability to first of all receive info, before it is processed. All sense vinnana’s have that basic function of the mind as prerequisite.
I think it is not that bad to think about bhavanga as abiding-mind, yet inactive, not yet aroused. A sense -vinnana arises when mind is aroused, active, has processed that raw info that was received.
Minds basic function seem to be: to receive raw sense-info, not yet named, recognised as this and that.
Like water can receive a stone and become aroused. Minds basic function seems to be a pure receptivity. At this basic level there is not yet a sense -vinnana. There is also not yet feeling and perception. I also do not think there is yet cetana. There is only a pure receptivity. I believe this is the most basic function of mind.
This all also means that when one is unconscious, minds basic function of receiving info is not gone.
This is why we can become awake from a load noise or smell or touch. I think Buddha would have no problem with this model. One just cannot equate vinnana with mind or even see mind as a stream of vinnana’s. Mind has more layers and also Abhidhamma teaches that. If we talk about mind as a stream of vinnana’s we not really talk about minds basic function of receptivity but we talk about mind in an aroused stage, a processing mind, like the sea with waves.
I do not believe Buddha has ever meant that mind is a stream of vinnana’s but since beginningless times there is an obsession for all that moves, arises and ceases, and this makes us blind for asankhata, the basic receptivity of mind that is not, unlike a sense-vinnana, seen arising and ceasing.