List: The Five Skandhas
- Rūpa: sense content (passing pixels)
- Vedanā: feeling (sympathetic nervous response)
- Samjñā: conceptual recognition (language application)
- Samskāra: fabricating volitions (automatic reaction)
- Vijñāna: consciousness (presence-for)
Rūpa
Translation: sense content.
Any outward appearance or phenomenon or color; form, shape, figure; matter of sensation.
Vedanā
Translation: feeling; sensation; feeling-tone.
Refers to the pleasant, unpleasant and neutral sensations that occur when our internal sense organs come into contact with external sense objects and the associated consciousness.
Samjñā (Pali: Saññā)
Translation: recognition.
Perception, conception, apperception, cognition, or discrimination. Registers whether an object is recognized or not.
Saṃskāra (Pali: Saṅkhāra)
Translation: fabricating volitions; that which puts (has been put) together (lit); volitional formations; volitional activities.
Called “volitional formations” both because they are formed as a result of volition and because they are causes for the arising of future volitional actions.
Vijñāna (Pali: Viññāṇa)
Translation: consciousness; rebirth consciousness; life-force; mind; discernment.