Is the mind an obstacle or a facilitator of happiness?

The mind, like a scaffold on a building under construction, is a temporary structure that comes up around the growing body during the transition from infancy and childhood to adulthood. As the body grows so does the mind, which is essential in the formative years of life to bring in new knowledge and experience. Just as building materials are easily hauled up to different levels of the building using the scaffold which also supports workers and their tools, the mind helps with the coordinated intake of different streams of information, characterizing and cataloging all experiences.

The mind helps with the coordinated intake of different streams of information, characterizing and cataloging all experiences.

The mind is composed of five levels of sensory experiences. The first level deals with touch. Unless there is direct contact with the skin, the mind cannot process the touch sensation. This is the foundation of all sensory experiences. The first contact with another human right after birth is through touch. Other senses are relatively dormant. The second level involves taste, which is an indirect form of touch. Unless food touches the tongue, the taste sensation is not triggered. However, an interface is needed. Without water in the form of saliva on the tongue, the taste mechanism cannot be triggered in response to food.