A physiological definition of mind is not widely accepted, mostly because of certain connotations and logical conclusions (that I am not going to go into here!). The definition of mind that I accept is: mind is a function of the brain that allows for conscious awareness of thoughts.
Siddhartha Gotama, the Buddha, taught mind as the sixth sense. However, we have eight senses, that is, eight sensory functions that each have a capacity for allowing conscious awareness of perceptions and interpretations in any moment. The eight are: the eyes and forms, the ears and sounds, the nose and odors, the tongue and tastes, the body and tactile sensations, interoception, proprioception, the mind and thinking. The areas of the brain that perceive and interpret what we see, hear, smell, touch, and taste also have functions that allow us to be aware of these perceptions and interpretations. Consciousness is an action-potential activated by the awareness functions of each of the eight senses.
Proprioception is a function of the brain that allows for awareness of where we are in space relative to other objects. Interoception is a function of the brain that allows for awareness of certain internal conditions, including pain or discomfort, relief, moods and emotions. Mind is awareness of thoughts; language and images produced by the brain.
Without data from vision, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, proprioception and interoception, the eighth sense, thinking, would have no ‘sense’ data to perceive and interpret into language or images. There would be no thinking or thoughts, and therefore no reason for the function of mind. All of the senses contribute to the creation of thoughts. This, and that mind is a function of the brain, is why and how mind is embodied.
Thoughts – language and images – are the currency of mind, and this why objectively noticing and examining thought is fundamental to mindfulness. What we pay attention to becomes the data that forms our thoughts, that then informs our behavior, which becomes data for our thoughts. In order to change our behavior we need to cultivate the capacity to choose the sensory data we give our attention to, that is, data from all eight senses (ears, eyes, nose, tongue, skin, interoception, proprioception, mind).