A Brief Discourse on the Essence of Consciousness

Chapter One  The Types of Mind Consciousness

I. Mind consciousness is also called the sixth consciousness (manovijñāna). Its essential nature is the function of discriminating and cognizing the various realms of mental sense-objects (dharma-viṣaya). It possesses mental activities such as to changes in visual sense-objects, yet in fact our eyes in dreams do not move. If devas appear in a dream, the eye consciousness cannot see the devas, ghosts, or spirits; if one sees relatives from past lives in a dream, the eye consciousness also cannot see those past-life relatives. In a dream, if the five consciousnesses existed, then when eating in a dream, the mouth and tongue should move, there should be food in the stomach, and one should feel full—yet upon waking one is still famished. If the five consciousnesses existed in dreams, we could drink water or do all sorts of things, but in fact our body does not move, and after waking we are still thirsty; therefore, the five consciousnesses do not exist in dreams. Thus, in dreams only the solitary mind consciousness drifts and wanders with the dream objects; the preceding five consciousnesses do not exist. If the preceding five consciousnesses truly existed in dreams, then one could control the movement of the physical body.

When the mind consciousness exists alone in a dream, it is not limited by time and place, not limited by the preceding five consciousnesses, not limited by the body; it can instantly go to heaven, instantly go to other worlds, instantly return to past lives, and instantly travel to future lives. With the preceding five consciousnesses present, none of these things are possible, because the body must move along with them, making it impossible to return to the past, travel to the future, or ascend to heaven and descend into the earth. Without the participation of the preceding five consciousnesses, there is no participation of the body; with only the mind consciousness acting alone, it is not burdened by the physical body. The mind consciousness can then have supernatural powers; whether past or future, the mind consciousness can go there. With the body's participation, we can go nowhere and can only lie in bed sleeping.

(4) Deranged solitary consciousness is a pathological state and hallucination, a symptom arising from mental derangement. The mind consciousness cannot distinguish reality from the deranged realms produced by delusion, produces hallucinations, takes the illusory images as real, and the mind consciousness becomes inverted and mad.

IV. Whether dreaming or awake, what the mind consciousness sees are images manifested by the tathāgatagarbha. For the supreme faculty (indriya), the mountains, rivers, and great earth of the waking state and the subjectively imagined realm are equivalent; when a person wakes from a dream, one has passed from one dream into another dream, shifting from solitary consciousness to consciousness accompanied by the five senses—both are equally mind consciousness. When awake, if scattered solitary consciousness operates simultaneously with consciousness accompanied by the five senses and the five consciousnesses, then the internal five sense-objects, internal mental sense-objects, and subjectively imagined realms will appear simultaneously and exist simultaneously. When the mind is scattered, a person is in two dreams: one is a somewhat more real dream of direct perception, and the other is a purely imaginary dream of non-valid cognition. Then the mind consciousness is not focused, thinking is disordered, and wisdom is difficult to arise. If the mind consciousness has a point of emphasis—either discriminating only a single mental sense-object upon the five sense-objects, or discriminating only within the non-valid subjectively imagined realm—then there can also be meditative concentration and wisdom can also arise; this is the state of single-minded focus in recollection of the Buddha (buddhānusmṛti), contemplation, contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), and Chan investigation.

V. Material form is constituted by the four great seeds of earth, water, fire, and wind. The five sense-objects of form, sound, smell, taste, and touch are also material form, and of course are also constituted by the four great seeds. The mental sense-objects manifested upon the five sense-objects are called form included in the dharma realm (dharma-dhātu-saṃgṛhīta-rūpa), and are also constituted by the four great seeds. When the conditions cease, the four great seeds disintegrate, the five sense-objects vanish and perish accordingly, and the form included in the dharma realm upon the five sense-objects also vanishes and perish accordingly. Therefore, the six sense-objects are subject to arising and ceasing, impermanent, not real; all are born and manifested by the tathāgatagarbha.

Mental sense-objects belong to form included in the dharma realm; they are subtle material form, constituted by the four great seeds of earth, water, fire, and wind. The five sense-objects are material form, made of the coarse four great seeds of earth, water, fire, and wind, and correspond to the five material sense faculties; upon the five sense-objects, mental sense-objects are simultaneously manifested, corresponding to the manas. When the five sense-objects correspond to the five faculties, the mental sense-objects simultaneously manifested upon the five sense-objects correspond to the manas. Thus the six faculties contact the six sense-objects, the eighth consciousness gives birth to the six consciousnesses, and the six consciousnesses in turn contact the six sense-objects; then there arise the mental factors of feeling, perception, and volition of the six consciousnesses.

Upon the form sense-object, mental sense-objects are manifested. When the eye faculty contacts the form sense-object and the manas contacts the mental sense-object, the eighth consciousness gives birth to the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness, which simultaneously contact the form sense-object and the mental sense-objects upon it; the two consciousnesses can simultaneously discriminate form, but they discriminate from different angles and to different degrees of subtlety: the eye consciousness discriminates the form sense-object more coarsely, while the mind consciousness discriminates it more subtly. Apart from the five sense-object realms, a mental sense-object can exist independently; the mind consciousness acts alone to discriminate this subjectively imagined realm of mental sense-objects—at this time, the mind consciousness is called solitary consciousness.

For example, after hearing a sound, the mind consciousness falls into deep thought, repeatedly pondering the meaning within that sound; this is a realm of mental sense-objects that the mind consciousness engages with—without the five sense-objects, an independent mental image of a mental sense-object, relatively subtle. Whenever, after cognizing the realms of the six sense-objects, one falls into deep contemplation, this belongs to the solitary consciousness's discrimination of the subjectively imagined realm. Also, in the realms within meditative concentration there are no preceding five sense-objects; the mind consciousness independently contemplates, recollects, analyzes, investigates, and observes, and the concentration-produced form (samādhi-produced rūpa) that appears is a mental sense-object realm without the five sense-objects, discriminated by the mind consciousness alone. In dreams there are no preceding five sense-objects, and the mind consciousness acts alone within the dream—all of these are solitary consciousness.

VI. Whether dreaming or dreamless during sleep, the five consciousnesses do not appear and do not manifest, because the dream belongs to the subjectively imagined realm—a realm of mental sense-objects cognized solely by the solitary consciousness. During sleep, the six faculties still function, and the external six sense-objects continuously enter the place of contact between faculties and sense-objects; the internal six sense-objects also continuously transform. Because the physical body is in the state of deep sleep and the six consciousnesses are not born, of course the six sense-objects cannot be cognized.

Some say that the body consciousness participates when dreaming during sleep. If the body consciousness truly participated, then when dreaming of ascending to heaven, the body could follow up to heaven—yet the body is still on the bed, never having moved. When dreaming of fleeing from someone pursuing to kill, if there were a body consciousness, the body would have run who knows where and could not possibly still be on the bed. When dreaming of eating a meal, if there were a body consciousness, the food would long since have been eaten into the stomach, and the belly after waking should be full, with no need to eat again in the morning. When dreaming of getting rich, if there were a body consciousness, the gold, silver, and jewels would already have been put into one's pocket or stored away, and after waking one should be able to find the gold, silver, and jewels. When dreaming of cooking a meal, if there were a body consciousness, upon waking in the morning there should directly be food to eat, without needing to cook again. From the above reasoning, it can be known that during dreams the five consciousnesses do not exist; only the solitary consciousness is discriminating the subjectively imagined realm of the dream. When the functions and roles of the five consciousnesses are all clearly understood, one will know whether or not the five consciousnesses actually appear in dreams.