Mind

The Mind is the part of life which connects the observer and the observed. It holds the personal memories of its owner and constantly tries to bring the observer and observed back together if they are brought back apart. The mind is necessary for life to occur. Beings of greater quality have more of their minds engraved into yoki (and immortalized) and are thus, less prone to insanity during blood-mist and retain more memories should they ever be resurrected. 
The mind itself is what most people would consider what makes up a person, the memories, experiences, and personality.  The mind is copied completely into yoki in claymores and awakened (not mindless ones), and allows for the execution of abilities and rational thought.  An ability is shaped by the soul but its usage and way that it works is shaped by the mind and can vary from situation to situation.  An improper mindset/lack of understanding makes an ability unusable. The mind interprets the will of the soul and acts accordingly. Different minds often can interpret the same will drastically differently, producing greatly different reactions. 
The mind can be thought of as the active consciousness of a being, with the observer being the unconscious part of a being. The mind and mental state upon awakening and becoming a claymore affect the form and ability of a yoki-user, although not to the degree that the observer does.
In the Mental World, the mind appears as the skin of the individual.
The mind tethers the observer to the observed. The mind itself is for situational analysis and personality acquired through memories and life experiences (aspects relating to the body) but is shaped by the will of the soul, acting as an administrator carrying out the soul's will. It is for this reason, Faith and Tanya were unable to kill Blanc, because their souls only had love and no hate and while they had memories of hating Blanc, they found themselves unable to kill Blanc, confusing them, because their minds were unable to begin attacking because it went against the will of their souls. For Tanya, it was because Iris' soul loved Blanc, hence why she felt emotions of love towards him as she attacked. For Faith, there was no love between them, yet she didn't kill him because her soul had no hate towards him and thus, her mind, thinking rationally, was unable to find a reason to attack. The mind exists on two levels. With the soul, the mind uses the soul and the soul's will and desires to shape its own decisions. The mind is also tethered to the user's brain physically in the body, causing brain-death to lead to a severing of the mind from the body and apparent death (see below).
Death for anything with yoki is when the mind is severed from the body. Usually this is caused by severe bodily trauma and is much more common than having the soul severed from the mind. A dead being can be resurrected, but a mind can never be replaced once broken. Corrupt beings use/merge with the minds of other creatures, usually dead beings, as a way to exist and tether themselves to reality, eventually wearing out their bodies to death. A resurrected being bears a new mind than it did when it was alive, usually derived from a completely clean mind (like that of an unborn infant) but the mind contains everything that the individual's old mind had, making it essentially the exact same as the old mind.
The mind has full control over the body and without it, the body will do nothing. Bodies and yoki both are completely open to any mind that tries to control them, but will follow the single strongest mind if there are multiple minds vying for control. It is possible to force control over another mind, which often leads to the destruction of the weaker mind. 
The mind itself can be split or combined and multiple minds can exist in one body although only one can be dominant at a time. Gloria created a new mind for herself, Official, who would handle her missions, although Official is technically not a separate mind and really just her yoki which has a different mindset from herself, similar to a Zero. Minds can be combined, as seen with Tanya and Iris (whose mind was preserved in yoki) and Roxanne and Cassandra, who have undergone a partial merge in mind.
The mind for claymores and awakened appears as how they view themselves in the physical world, with their minds giving both their physical and mental images form.
Grace's ability allows her to absorb the observer with the option of taking their memories. Should she not want a victim's memory, she only needs to shatter the mind and absorb the observer before the mind reforms and brings the observer and observed back together.  Absorbing the observer also naturally takes the attached mind as well. 
Category:Terminology