SENSATION (PHASSA)
You will have noticed that consciously there is no information available about the preceding operations except for the TOTAL AWARENESS, SENSORY AWARENESS, and CLEAR COMPREHENSION.
With both SENSATION and DISCRIMINATION the situation is similar, with little consciousness of the events except through very simple experiences.
The task of the pure SENSATION is that of RECOGNITION, which simply discerns whether the information received after sustained attention is NEW or HAS BEEN RECEIVED BEFORE.
This means that the FORM extracted must be compared with information stored in MEMORY. This comparison takes place as a matching of the form with prior forms stored as memory traces in which the fit need not be exact.
If there is not a close fit the organism is impulsed to obtain more information about the form. If, on the other hand, the form is recognized as having been received previously (by the close fit) then that information is passed on to the DISCRIMINATION PROCESS.
The only conscious experience is one that generates the experience of "RECOGNIZED." There is no other conscious information than this at this stage.
In Dharma language, this SENSATION experience is known as CONTACT.
It must be noted that the first Identity interference with the system, apart from the operation of Selective Attention, which will not be discussed here, is with SENSATION.
DISCRIMINATION (VEDANA)
DISCRIMINATION is the next important step. Here the biological task is of extreme importance for the system, speaking from a survival point of view, does not give a damn what the irritation is. It simply must respond correctly by APPROACH, AVOIDANCE or NEUTRALITY.
Accompanying these three physiological responses are experiences which we call AFFECT, DISAFFECT and NEUTRALITY.
These three experiences are indeed registered within consciousness. At this point, nothing more.
As in SENSATION, there is Identity interference with the DISCRIMINATION process. This Identity interference is discussed in a later section.
The term DISCRIMINATION may be considered as FEELING, but never in and of itself as EMOTION.
THINKING (VITAKKA)
Now be careful to not confuse the idea of THINKING with the THOUGHTS which are passed to consciousness. Here THINKING is just another sense door, making the sixth along with vision, audition, olfaction, taste and touch.
It is activated when the experiences of RECOGNITION, along with AFFECT, DISAFFECT and NEUTRALITY are passed to cognition.
The word VITAKKA is used with many senses, but here its sense is LIFTING of concomitants to the now- transformed irritation.
That sense door activity is also sent to the Right Hemisphere along with the other sense door information to the process of ESSENCE that effectively then confirms that THINKING is also operating correctly.