The Cognitive and the Affective
It is essential to understand that there are two main processes that constitute experience. They are, the Cognitive and the Affective. It is the Cognitive Process that perceives and conceives and so makes sense of the sensory experience. We become conscious of a “world” through the Cognitive Process. It is the Affective Process that becomes conscious of a “self” and gets involved in an emotional relationship between the “self” and the “world,” resulting in the arising of the great problem of existence.
This Concurrence of Antecedents (paṭicca samuppāda) is a continuous mental process that goes on unconsciously, throughout our lives, producing a new “world” and a new “self” every moment. This continuous dynamic process of change gives rise to a false sense of permanent static existence. In other words, it is a continuous process of transformation (nānattatā) or becoming, and not a static existence or being (bhava). From birth to death, it is a process of change or becoming, and not a static presence or being.
The fact is that we erroneously think of ourselves as static beings, while we are also aware of our birth, ageing, and impending death. We spend our entire life making an effort to prevent, or at least delay, this eventuality, but without success. The obvious solution is to realize that we are not blessed with a static existence. Our existence is only an appearance, and not a reality. If we do not really exist, then why worry about this inevitable death of a body which is not “me?”