In the Buddhist tradition, it is taught that an individual is made up of Five Aggregates: form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. In fact, everything that we experience comes under the heading of one or more of these components.

They are not, however, five separate substances, but are different factors or stages in the process of consciously experiencing anything, including the experience of our own self. The process of conscious awareness often begins with form: a visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, or gustatory object. Of course, a thought or feeling can also begin a process of conscious awareness, but even these can almost always be traced back to the memory of a concrete experience. Contact with form gives rise to feeling, which can be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. These feelings draw our attention to the form so that we then perceive the form as a specific object of awareness. Perception gives rise to mental formations, such as opinions for or against the object of awareness, as well as subsequent decisions, actions, and reactions. This activity in turn gives rise to awareness of a self-conscious subject acted upon by or acting upon an object.