Saṅkhāras: How The Mind Constructs ExperienceBy Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
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Yet Buddhist psychology points to something more fundamental at work: a fabricating function called saṅkhāra that actively constructs the very framework through which we know anything at all.
Saṅkhāra is typically translated as "formations" or "volitional formations," but these terms barely hint at what's actually being described. This isn't about thoughts you consciously generate or beliefs you deliberately hold. Saṅkhāra refers to the deep patterning function that takes the formless flow of raw sense data and imposes structure, meaning, categories, and boundaries on it. It's what transforms bare sensory arising into recognizable experience. Without saṅkhāra, there would be no objects, no causation, no narratives, no meaning, no sense of self, and no perception of time as a sequence of events. Get The FREE Awakening eBook✓ Discover what awakening is like
✓ Learn about the four stages between awakening & enlightenment ✓ Get exercises to progress Sign up below to get our FREE eBook. What Are Saṅkhāras?Saṅkhāra operates at a level prior to consciousness or awareness. It's the organizing principle that makes experience intelligible in the first place. When light hits your retina, that's just raw sensory input. The transformation of those signals into "a red cup on a wooden table" involves multiple layers of construction. The separation of figure from ground, the assignment of boundaries that distinguish cup from table, the recognition of "red" as a discrete quality, the identification of objects as stable entities persisting through time—all of this is fabricated by saṅkhāra.
The same process applies to more abstract dimensions of experience. When you perceive one event as causing another, that's not something inherent in the events themselves. Causation is a structure imposed by saṅkhāra to create an apparently ordered, predictable reality. When you experience yourself as a continuous self moving through time, that sense of continuity and selfhood is being actively constructed moment by moment. Even the feeling that time moves forward in a linear sequence is part of the fabrication. This doesn't mean saṅkhāra creates illusions in the sense of making you see things that aren't there. Rather, it creates the interpretive frameworks that allow formless arising to appear to have meaning at all. Without these frameworks, there would just be isness. Saṅkhāra is literally form-creating, taking what is essentially Oneness and giving it shape, division, and meaning. The Fabricating Function in ActionUnderstanding saṅkhāra requires recognizing that it operates continuously and transparently. You don't notice it happening because the constructed nature of experience is precisely what saṅkhāra's activity conceals. The cup appears as simply there. The causal relationship between your hand movement and the cup's movement appears as simple fact. The narrative of your day appears as what actually happened. In each case, there's no visible seam between raw arising and constructed interpretation.
What makes saṅkhāra particularly significant in Buddhist analysis is its relationship to suffering. The fabricating function doesn't just organize experience neutrally. It creates the very structures that allow for attachment, aversion, and the sense of a separate self that needs to be protected or enhanced. When saṅkhāra constructs "me" as a stable entity and "that" as a desirable object separate from me, the conditions for craving are in place. When it constructs causation, it enables strategic thinking about how to manipulate conditions to get what "I" want. When it constructs consciousness, it allows reality to seem like consciousness is separate from what it observes. The term volitional is important here. Saṅkhāra isn't just passive pattern recognition. There's an element of intention or drive built into it, even though this operates below the level of conscious choice. The fabricating function is shaped by previous fabrications, by habitual patterns, by what hasn't yet been seen through. This is why saṅkhāra is a crucial link in the chain of dependent origination that explains how suffering perpetuates itself. Saṅkhāra and the Construction of RealityTo see how pervasive saṅkhāra's influence is, consider the specific illusions it creates and maintains. Each represents a distinct aspect of how the fabricating function shapes experience into what seems like obvious reality.
The illusion of objects is fundamental. What appears as a solid, discrete thing (a cup, a tree, your hand) is actually saṅkhāra imposing boundaries on continuous sensory information. Where does the cup end and the air begin? The answer seems obvious until you examine it closely. The boundary is designated, not inherent. The cup is a pattern of seeing, touching, and conceptualizing that the fabricating function has carved out from an undivided field. We learn to parse the sensory world into discrete entities, and this parsing becomes so automatic that the entities seem to exist independently of the process that creates them. When this illusion is seen through, what remains isn't nothing but rather a recognition that "thingness" itself is fabricated. The sensory field doesn't disappear, but its apparently self-evident division into separate objects is revealed as constructed. The illusion of causation may be even more foundational. You see one billiard ball strike another and the second ball moves. What's actually perceived is temporal sequence and spatial correlation. The interpretation that the first ball caused the second to move, that there's a force or power transmitted between them, that one event made the other happen, this is entirely added by saṅkhāra. Causation as experienced (not as a useful pragmatic framework, but as an inherent feature of reality) is a meaning-overlay. The mind takes "this, then that" and constructs "this made that." When this fabrication is seen through, what dissolves isn't the ability to recognize patterns or predict outcomes. What dissolves is the unquestioned belief that causation is how reality actually operates rather than how mind organizes experience into an apparently ordered, controllable system. The illusion of narrative operates at a slightly more complex level. Events don't actually form stories. They simply arise and pass. The storyline connecting what happened five minutes ago to what's happening now to what you anticipate happening next, that's saṅkhāra weaving raw occurrences into coherent sequences with beginnings, middles, and implications. Your life story, what this morning meant, why that conversation yesterday still matters, all of this is narrative construction. The same applies to smaller-scale meaning-making: interpreting a facial expression as disapproving, reading tone into a text message, understanding a gesture as friendly or hostile. These aren't qualities inherent in the bare sensory data. They're added by the fabricating function. When this is seen clearly, events still generally occur in sequence, but the sense that they're connected by meaningful storylines, that past events explain present ones, that there's an arc or trajectory to experience, this begins to loosen. What's revealed is that significance itself is fabricated moment by moment. The illusion of time as a container through which you move is particularly subtle. The sense of existing in a present moment with a past behind and future ahead, the feeling of time flowing or passing, the experience of duration and sequence, these are all constructed. What's actually occurring is arising and passing, but saṅkhāra organizes this into the framework of linear time. Past and future don't exist except as present mental constructions. Even the present moment as conceived (a knife-edge between past and future) is fabricated. When the construction of time is seen through, there's still sequence (this breath, then the next) but not the sense of moving through time or time passing. There's just this, always this, though this is constantly changing. The illusion of self represents perhaps the most consequential of saṅkhāra's fabrications. The feeling of being a unified, continuous "I" who experiences things, makes decisions, owns experiences, is aware, and persists through change is created moment by moment by the fabricating function. This isn't to say you don't exist or that there's no one reading these words. It's that the specific character of selfhood as normally experienced (as solid, as the author of actions, as the thinker of thoughts, or as something that is aware rather than being the process of experiencing, itself) is constructed. The self is assembled from disparate processes: thoughts arising, sensations occurring, memories appearing, intentions forming. Saṅkhāra weaves these into the sense of a unified experiencer or witnesser who stands behind or apart from experience. When this construction is seen through, what disappears is the sense that there's a central reference point, a subject or awareness who is observing objects. The illusion of meaning as inherent rather than imposed threads through all the others. We encounter the world as already meaningful. This matters, that doesn't. This means something about me, that's irrelevant. This is important, that's trivial. But meaning is precisely what saṅkhāra adds to raw arising. Events occur. Sensations arise. Thoughts appear. None of this comes pre-packaged with significance. The fabricating function supplies the interpretation, the emotional coloring, the personal relevance, the "spiritual" significance, and the categorization into important or unimportant, good or bad, relevant or irrelevant, real or unreal. When this is recognized clearly, experience doesn't become meaningless in the sense of empty or nihilistic. Rather, the additive nature of meaning becomes apparent. You see how significance is created rather than discovered, and this seeing allows for a different relationship to the meanings mind generates. Saṅkhāras Woven Together Each of these illusions is mutually reinforcing. The construction of objects enables the construction of causation (objects acting on other objects). The construction of causation enables narrative (because this happened, that resulted). Narrative requires time (events unfolding in sequence). All of these require a self (someone to whom the story happens, who moves through time, who is affected by causes). And meaning permeates the entire structure, making it seem coherent and real. When any one of these constructions begins to be seen through, it tends to slowly destabilize the others. They're not separate fabrications but different aspects of a single organizing function.
The Relationship Between Avijjā and SaṅkhāraIn Buddhist analysis, saṅkhāra doesn't operate in isolation. It's intimately connected with avijjā, typically translated as ignorance but more precisely understood as fundamental not-seeing. Avijjā isn't lack of information or wrong beliefs you could correct by learning the right ideas. It's a primordial not-seeing of the constructed, empty nature of experience itself.
This not-seeing enables the fabricating function to operate unrecognized. Because avijjā doesn't see that saṅkhāra is creating the structures of experience, these structures are taken as inherently real rather than fabricated. The cup appears as simply there rather than as a construction. Causation appears as how reality works rather than as how mind organizes experience. The self appears as what you are rather than as a pattern being created moment by moment. The relationship is mutually reinforcing. Avijjā allows saṅkhāra to operate invisibly, and saṅkhāra's constructions (particularly the construction of self) reinforce the not-seeing. How It Works More precisely, the chain works like this: avijjā is the not-seeing of emptiness in everything and the constructed nature of all phenomena. This not-seeing allows the fabricating function to continue unrecognized. Saṅkhāra then creates all the structures (self, objects, causation, time, meaning) that make up conventional experience. These constructs condition consciousness in the next moment. The unquestioned assumption that these constructs are how reality actually is rather than how mind organizes reality—that's the ignorance completing the cycle. Sticking Points Many spiritual teachers see through self, objects, causation, and time but not fully through meaning. Perhaps this is because fully seeing through meaning requires developmental growth (rather than spiritual growth; see image below). As such, the claim is made that certain experiences are still real (or more real than others). For example, some claim that:
While these claims appear to be true at certain stages on the awakening journey, that's only because Saṅkhāras make them seem true. This is still dualistic thinking. 
Seeing Through SaṅkhāraWhat happens when saṅkhāra itself is seen through? This isn't about having a philosophical understanding that experience is constructed. It's about directly perceiving the gap between raw arising and the constructed interpretation. You see how causality, meaning, and narrative are added by the fabricating function rather than being inherent in what's occurring.
This involves perceiving reality before the mind imposes its organizing principles. This happens in each moment of living. This is deeper than recognizing no-self. This is seeing the mechanism that constructs all experience, including the self. Developmental Versus Spiritual When practitioners report this kind of seeing, they often describe it as irreversible. It's not a special state accessed in meditation that then fades. It's a developmental shift in perspective that reveals that everything is constructed (i.e., The Construct-Aware stage of development). Once you're seeing reality through this perspective, not in deep meditation, but in every moment of every day, you simply can't go back to seeing meaning in things. This doesn't mean you lose the ability to navigate the "solid" world. Your hand still moves to pick up the cup. You still understand that eating leads to fullness and that putting your hand in fire leads to burning. But there's a shift in how these experiences are held. They're recognized as useful patterns, as pragmatic frameworks, rather than as fundamental truth about how reality is. Self-Questioning Is Required Ask yourself:
Each of these preferences, however refined or spiritual-seeming, represents the fabricating function still operating, still creating hierarchies of meaning, still organizing experience into more and less real, more and less important. The Saṅkhāra that Hides in LovePerhaps nowhere is saṅkhāra more difficult to recognize than in the spiritual experience of love. Many practitioners who have seen through the constructed nature of self and objects still hold love as something different, something real, something that represents an ultimate truth about reality. This conviction can feel unshakeable because the experience of spiritual love is often profound, expansive, and accompanied by a sense of coming home to what's most true.
But the experience of love, however expansive or non-dual it seems, is still structured by saṅkhāra. There's a subtle but clear attachment to love over hate, to connection over separation, to feeling good over feeling bad. This preference is so deeply embedded that it doesn't register as preference at all. It feels like recognizing what's real rather than creating a hierarchy of experience. Yet that feeling of recognition is precisely how unexamined saṅkhāra operates: by making its constructions seem self-evident. Hidden Attachment The attachment shows up in how spiritual communities and teachers position love. Certain states are valued and pursued while others are pathologized or dismissed. Anger is something to be worked with or transformed. Indifference is seen as spiritual bypassing. Hate is rejected as egoic or unenlightened. But love, particularly unconditional love or universal love, is positioned as closer to truth. This positioning is already dualistic thinking. It's already the fabricating function creating categories of more and less real, more and less valuable, more and less spiritual. The Meaning-Making Function Try to observe that your understanding of what love is differs from others' understanding. You might experience love as boundless acceptance, while another person experiences it as fierce protection. You might feel love as soft and gentle, while someone else knows it as passionate intensity. You might recognize love in stillness and silence, while another finds it in active service. Each person is certain their experience points to something real, something beyond interpretation. But these differences themselves reveal that what's being experienced (even in the spiritual experience of everything being love) is filtered through individual saṅkhāra, through personal history, conditioning, values, and conceptual frameworks. The very designation of an experience as love rather than something else is interpretive. When the heart opens and boundaries soften, why call this love rather than recognition, or dissolution, or acceptance, or simple being? The labeling is already conceptual, already adding meaning to bare experiencing. And once labeled, the experience becomes linked to all the associations, judgments, and values that cluster around the concept of love. It becomes something to seek, to cultivate, to return to, to share. The experience gets embedded in a structure of spiritual attainment and purpose (which are themselves, conceptual). The Structure "Love" is still a structure full of rules, often unstated but powerfully operative. There are right and wrong ways to love. Conditional love is lesser than unconditional love. Self-love must balance with love for others. Love should manifest as certain behaviors: patience, kindness, generosity, compassion. These rules might be held lightly or rigidly, but their presence indicates saṅkhāra still actively organizing experience around values and judgments. If love were truly beyond the fabricating function, it wouldn't require effort or intention. But spiritual love often comes with a should: you should be compassionate, you should extend loving-kindness, you should see all beings as worthy of love. This prescriptive quality shows that what's operating isn't direct perception of how things are but rather adherence to a framework about how things should be. The framework might be beautiful and produce beneficial actions, but it's still a framework, still saṅkhāra imposing structure and meaning. Even the sense that love is expansive rather than contracting, connecting rather than separating, warm rather than cold, these qualities are comparative and therefore dualistic. They position love against non-love. They maintain the fabricating function's basic operation of dividing experience into preferred and rejected, valuable and worthless, real and illusory. The fact that the division is subtle and spiritually sophisticated doesn't make it less of a division. When The Concept of Love Dissolves When saṅkhāra around love begins to be seen through, what dissolves isn't the capacity for warmth, connection, or care. What dissolves is the sense that these experiences are more real or more true than their opposites. There's no longer subtle positioning toward certain feeling-tones and away from others. Action arises without the overlay of "this is the loving thing to do." Care happens without the interpretation that makes it spiritually significant. The difference is between functioning that's free from the fabricating function and functioning that's still organized by it, even when organized around the most refined and beautiful concepts. The Saṅkhāra that Hides in WisdomAfter love is seen through, Wisdom is generally the next hurdle (e.g., Law of One; Ra Material). Moving beyond this saṅkhāra involves recognizing how even wisdom carries traces of the fabricating function's unrecognized operation. You might have let go of grasping and aversion to solid forms, but there can still be a subtle sense that "I know something" or "I'm helping" or "This practice works better than that practice". That's still saṅkhāra at work, still a kind of separating and value-assigning function that positions one thing as separate or higher than another.
All spiritual practice is contaminated by this structure, with its implicit assumption that a specific action leads to a specific outcome, enlightenment. When the fabricated nature of this entire setup is seen, nothing in particular needs to be done. Working as a janitor is the same as being the worlds most famous spiritual teacher. Where This Saṅkhāra Hides The identification with wisdom can be particularly insidious because it often masquerades as spacious awareness or no-self. You're likely not attached to personal gain or recognition. You're simply sharing what's "true", "helping" others see clearly, pointing to "what works". But the very notion that you know something special, that you can help them get somewhere, that certain practices or understandings are more effective than others, these assumptions reveal saṅkhāra still constructing hierarchies and separations. Preferences Versus Beliefs There is nothing wrong with having preferences for one technique over another. What's generally not seen is that there is a subtle belief that one's preferences are true or correct. For example, maybe vipassana is positioned as more direct, and therefore effective path than walks in nature. Self-inquiry maybe valued above AA meetings. Non-dual practices may be seen as more real than spending time with friends. Each preference isn't a problem in itself; it's the meaning attached to it that is the issue. The claim that this approach goes deeper or works faster or promotes more clarity is the fabricating function organizing spiritual territory into meaning of more and less effective, more and less true, closer and further from realization. But these are just permission slips and none of this is actually true at a fundamental level. Attachment to Practice The attachment to practice itself often persists long after cruder attachments have dissolved. You might no longer be seeking anything for yourself, but the conviction that practice is necessary (or useful), that meditation should be done, that awareness should be cultivated, this conviction is still saṅkhāra creating the appearance of path, goal, and duality. The belief that certain conditions are more conducive to awakening than others, that silence is better than noise, that retreat is more valuable than ordinary life, that being a vegetarian is better than being a carnivore—these beliefs maintain the fabricating function's basic operation of dividing experience into supportive and obstructive, valuable and wasteful, spiritual and mundane. Nothing specific is actually required for enlightenment. Your path is just as valid as anyone else's. When Wisdom Dissolves When wisdom itself is recognized as constructed, what dissolves is the sense that anything is above, or different from, anything else. If everything is empty, then how could it be? Teaching or guiding, at this point, no longer makes any sense. There are no true or correct answers. There are no wrong or right paths. One may still interact with others of have conversations but there is no sense of helping because each of us has no more access to truth than anyone else. All we have are perspectives that may be labeled as love, or wisdom, or clarity but these is no actual hierarchy that makes this information or perspective more true than other information or perspectives.
Challenges
What's particularly challenging about seeing through the saṅkhāra of wisdom is that it removes one of the last subtle positions from which the self can operate. As long as there's someone who knows something worth knowing, who can help others, who understands how to practice effectively, there's still a self being constructed through spiritual identity. When this construction is revealed, there's nowhere left to stand, no position from which to claim understanding or offer guidance. This groundlessness can be profoundly disorienting because it removes the last subtle sense of having gotten somewhere or being someone who has something to contribute. We must let go of everything, including love and wisdom, including any attachment to anything being any way at all. We must let of of all meaning. Final Thoughts on SaṅkhārasSaṅkhāra points to something more fundamental than most psychological models address: the fabricating function that creates the interpretive frameworks making experience possible at all. It's what transforms raw sensory arising into objects, causation, narratives, meaning, self, and time. These aren't errors to be corrected but constructions to be recognized as constructions.
This recognition happens at multiple levels, from intellectual understanding to direct perception to somatic release of deep patterns. Each level has its own characteristics and challenges. The process isn't linear or guaranteed, but the direction is clear: toward seeing more clearly how experience is constructed and toward the release that comes from recognizing these constructions as constructions rather than as reality itself. |
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Disclaimer: The content on this site is for exploration and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
©2026 AwakeningCollective.org