In sn22.79, why did Buddha use visual phenomena to describe sanna and taste phenomena to describe vinnana? And can this explanation make someone really understand what sanna and vinnana are and how they differ?
I think the utility of sankhata dhamma is to avoid false equivalences between vijja and avijja - confirming the efficacy of kamma, and defining dhamma in terms of its truth value - linking it to sanna. Probably, this is why the opening of Dhammacakkhu is considered a significant event. On the other hand, viññāṇa is incapable of making distinctions between vijja and avijja, and relying on it could lead to the conclusion that “ignorance is a bless”.
Vinyana is the collective term for the various Vinyana that are defined by the Ayatana from which they arise. Each form of Vinyana arises exclusively so, what happens to Vinyana (or consciousness) between the passing away of one form, say eye consciousness, and the arising of another form of consciousness, say ear consciousness? Is there no consciousness during these moments? If so, how does a new consciousness appear from nowhere? What is the medium through which this switch in consciousness occurs?
"But that which is called ‘mind’ and also ‘sentience’ and also ‘consciousness’ arises as one thing and ceases as another all day and all night.
It’s like a monkey moving through the forest. It grabs hold of one branch, lets it go, and grabs another; then it lets that go and grabs yet another.
In the same way, that which is called ‘mind’ and also ‘sentience’ and also ‘consciousness’ arises as one thing and ceases as another all day and all night." - SN12.61
I think the above will help you understand how consciousness arises and ceases.
With Metta
Thanks @Nimal,
Unfortunately, this simile does not answer the question. What I am asking people to consider is (in terms of this simile) what constitutes the gap between the branches. The gap between one moment of consciousness and another. Moments between each branch being grabbed.
Consciousness does not define our lifes, right? It is not that when there is no consciousness we can be considered death and be cremated 
So it is also sure that vinnana is not mind. We cannot be said to be mindless when there are no conscious experiences. That would be irrational and also cruel.
But it is sure that our sense of identity, of who or what we are, very much relies on consciousness, on experience. I believe you can say that normally beings are fully identified with vinnana. While conscious, only then we feel alive, present, existing. In some sense this is an illusion ofcourse.
The term bhavanga is invented for what supports the continuum. That bhavanga is considered to be in the gap between sense-vinnana moments. And others have invented alaya vinnana. We invent things but do not know. It is like modelling in science.
Some buddhist believe a gandhabba, a manomayakaya, a kind of mental body leaves the coarse body at death. That is what survives and is also wandering around in samsara since time without beginning.
They believe, a furtilized egg cannot develop without a gandhabba joining it. It is like the mental body must vitalize that what is still solely death matter, fertilize egg. It looks like a dualistic view in which matter is an sich death and only because of vinnana it can become alive and develop to a child or animal. So, in this model a third element is needed for birth to take place. A seed and egg are not enough in this view on life. Buddha seemed to support this idea that might be of the Brahmans.
I feel this is quit primitive thinking, magical thinking. But this is my gut-feeling.
My feeling is always that the sutta’s use a very simple model, like the simple model of Newton or of the earliest models of atoms. All those models have some use and explanational power but is still a model that can change, be finetuned, and also, taken literally, be wrong and still working, still have use.
To explain rebirth i more like the idea of a groundless unestablished intelligent field which is the ground for everything that exist. It is selfless. And lifeforms are like currents in this field. Those currents can continue because of causality not because of identity. Like a wave that is re-energized and continues. The currents can also cease when they are not re-energized. When all cools down, only that current/wave ceases, not the intelligent field. A mere cessation is not possible in this model
There is never some vacuum, there is never some absence of the intelligent ground and that is why rebirth is possible. In this model there is not some mental body that flies through the vaccuum without any support. There is always the support of an groundless all pervasive all penetrating intelligent field.
The bhavanga is the Abhidhamma answer to the question, but not everyone agrees with the Abhidhamma. For those who do not believe in the Abhidhamma explanation, what is the alternative? How do those who have a cessationist view deal with the notion that the bhavanga (or some state that exists in-between moments of consciousness) exists outside of the Khandha?
I wait for the answers.
In a book about consciousness i now read, the Dutch prof defines consciousness as: the phenomena due which we have a rich multi-sensory overview of our situation in the world- how the world feels like and looks like and how our body is positioned in it (translated from Dutch)
For example when we a car makes an unexpacted turn we almost immediately have an overview of our own position towards that car, see what can happen and how we can prevent an accident, and take action. Seen from the brain this is a very complex situation in which many parts of the brain play a role. There is very much information from all kind of senses involved.
There are many animals, even primtive ones, that show reactions on sense input but does this mean they have consciousness? Or think about plants. They are able to detect light and grow towards light but does this mean they have feelings, vinnana’s?
Is the ability to detect the same as having consciousness or mind? Is this implied?
A smoke alarm detects smoke particles but it is not aware of smoke as in smell, right? That seems to make no sense.
Do animals, for example also primitive ones like amoebe or a paramecium, have consciousness because they really show that they detect things and react upon what they detect.
From the example of a smoke alarm one can see that one cannot say categorically…detecting and reacting must means there is a mind.
I think you mean the time gap between grabing and letting go. Is there really a gap in between? As I understand it, it is only a moment of change. Even if there is a gap as you insist, it is only a tiny fraction of a second. This is why consciousness is thought of as being in a continuum. And it continues for the puthugjana due to craving which is due to not-understanding the Four Noble Truths.
This is how I understand it.
With Metta.
This is a really great point.
This is a really great point too.
Getting back to the original question, “Is consciousness a good translation of Vinyana?” I would say that if consciousness is only perceived as actual moments of awareness of objects experienced through the senses, then the definition is inadequate. Any definition has to be flexible enough to incorporate Vinyana as being a process, the process of consciousness. The definition has to be able to incorporate Vinyana as being the capacity to “know” rather than individual types of consciousness.
If consciousness is seen as a process and the “capacity to know”, then the gap between the experience of sense objects is easily explained, the bhavanga moments. If consciousness was only flashes of awareness, occurring one at a time, then what is the explanation of the gap between each flash?
Later Buddhism also started talking about the nature of mind as essentially empty, meaning that it has no characteristics like colour, form, a certain coarseness, structure, and it cannot be located as here or there. But it is not only empty, it also has a capacity to know, the clear light nature of the mind or its aspect of clarity. Besides this it is unobscured. The nature of mind is not to block, surpress, transform, abandon, like, dislike, accept, reject, judge any phenomena but merely to display. It is desireless like a mirror towards its reflections.
Maybe vinnana is like a dust particle entering the Earth atmosphere. It glows for a moment and reveals its presence. Maybe vinnana is the same. The glow moment in the minds empty clear nature and something reveals its presence. It lights up for a moment to cool dow again.
I think there is room for the interpretation that EBT do not teach that vinnana and mind are the same.
But most of all, experience leads to the conclusion that mind cannot be the same as vinnana.
Luang Poo Tate described the mental Khandha in several ways. He liken them to the waves on the ocean. They come from the ocean, last a while, and return to the ocean but the waves are not the same as the ocean. Another description of his was that they are expressions of the true mind but are not the true mind. Just like a smile or a frown is an expression of the face but is not the face itself. You cannot have a smile if there is no face in the first place.
Ignorance, desire and attachment drive the expressions. When these causes are extinguished, the expressions cease.
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In the Glossary of Maha Boowa’s book arahattamagga-arahattaphala it is also seen like that.
It says: The citta is the mind’s essential knowing nature, the fundamental quality of knowing that underlies all sentient existence. When associated with a physical body, it is referred to as “mind” or “heart”. Being corrupted by the defiling influence of fundamental ignorance (avijjã), its currents “flow out” to manifest as feelings (vedanã), memory (saññã), thoughts (sankhãra), and consciousness (viññãna), thus embroiling the citta in a web of self-deception. It is deceived about its own true nature. The true nature of the citta is that it simply “knows”. There is no subject, no object, no duality; it simply knows. The citta does not arise or pass away; it is never born and never dies.
I believe this is also taught in mahayana and vajrayana as the true nature of mind.
Anyway, the nature of citta cannot be known from our usual personal perspective.
Maha Boowas explains that to know the nature of the citta, the personal perspective must fall away too.
For me this resonates as: the senses, the nerves, brain, are able to form such a strong focus in the non-local nature of mind that it it still experienced as local and personal. Like whirlpools in water. So extremely self-centered, in the center the self, and giving the impression there is only this whirlpool and no water. No bigger picture.
In this view the idea of endless minds is also the perspective of delusion and also continues because of delusion. In this perspective there have never ever been even two minds. There are only perspectives arising and ceasing.
My impression is: The brain is such a strong and subtle organ that it is able to let us believe we are whirlpools. I have always had a lot of feeling that we share a common ground.
I think i become a buddhist 