section_path: Teachings and views/Core teachings/The six sense bases and the five aggregates
section_name: The six sense bases and the five aggregates
paragraph_text: The six sense bases and the five aggregates
  
  The āyatana (six sense bases) and the five skandhas (aggregates) describe how sensory contact leads to attachment and dukkha. The six sense bases are eye and sight, ear and sound, nose and odour, tongue and taste, body and touch, and mind and thoughts. Together they create the input from which we create our world or reality, "the all". This process takes place through the five skandhas, "aggregates", "groups", "heaps", five groups of physical and mental processes, namely form (or material image, impression) (rupa), sensations (or feelings, received from form) (vedana), perceptions (samjna), mental activity or formations (sankhara), consciousness (vijnana). They form part of other Buddhist teachings and lists, such as dependent origination, and explain how sensory input ultimately leads to bondage to samsara by the mental defilements.