The Differences Between the Self and the Mind

Gautama argues that the mind is very much like a sense faculty, different simply in that its activity is inward rather than outward. The self is the underlying agent and subject of this activity for which it uses mind as an instrument. Some philosophers think that the self has immediate or transparent access to the contents of its interior awareness. But even though Gautama and other Niaya thinkers agree that each person's interior mental life is private, they disagree that mental activity is transparent to the self.