Touching with the Senses

     The central thesis of Juhani Pallasmaa in his book, The Eyes of the Skin, is that all our sensory experiences are modes of touching - how our interiority touches the exteriority that envelops us. In the Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination, this touching or Phassa, is the contact that brings together the object, the sense medium and the sense consciousness, which is a prelude to becoming-in-the-world as a result of the karmic force of volition (Bhava).