The World of Black Boxes
Chapter 6: The Secrets of the Functioning of the Three: Faculties, Sense Objects, and Consciousnesses
I. The Classification of the Six Faculties
The six faculties are divided into internal faculties and external faculties, and into faculties with form and faculties without form. The first five faculties are faculties with form—material sense faculties with visible appearance, constituted by the four great seed-elements of earth, water, fire, and wind. The manas is a faculty without form; it is not constituted by the four great seed-elements and does not belong to material form. He is mind and consciousness, possessing the mental functions of discrimination and recognition.
The five faculties include the gross perceptible faculties and the supreme faculties (indriya). The gross perceptible faculties are the external faculties, floating on the surface of the body, visible to others. The supreme faculties are the internal faculties, located in the brain, invisible to others but visible to the divine eye. If the five faculties refer to the surface aspect, they are the gross perceptible faculties, not including the supreme faculties; if one speaks of all the functional natures of the five faculties, then they include the supreme faculties; there are also cases that specifically emphasize the supreme faculties—it depends on the specific context. The brain is where the supreme faculties are, responsible for contacting the inner sense objects, and then the eighth consciousness produces the six consciousnesses based on them.
II. The Relationships Among the Five Faculties
The body faculty includes the organs and parts belonging to the body; as long as something grows on the body, it is part of the body faculty. The eyes, ears, nose, and tongue are located on the head of the body and are part of the body faculty. However, when the eye performs the function of seeing, it is the eye faculty, not the body faculty; when the ear performs the function of hearing, it is the ear faculty, not belonging to the body faculty; when the nose performs the function of smelling scents, it is the nose faculty, not belonging to the body faculty; when the tongue performs the function of tasting flavors, it is the tongue faculty, not belonging to the body faculty.
Do the eyes belong to the eye faculty or the body faculty? Do the ears belong to the ear faculty or the body faculty? Does the nose belong to the nose faculty or the body faculty? Does the tongue belong to the tongue faculty or the body faculty? Is blinking an action of the body faculty or the eye faculty? Is it an activity of the body consciousness or the eye consciousness? Blinking is movement of the body faculty, an action of the body consciousness, not of the eye consciousness. The function of the eye consciousness is seeing forms; blinking is not seeing forms—it is the activity of a certain part of the body. Although it is the activity of the eyes, it does not involve seeing forms, so it is not the function of the eye consciousness. When the eye, ear, nose, and tongue faculties are not performing the functions of seeing forms, hearing sounds, smelling scents, or tasting flavors, these four faculties, being situated on the body, belong to the body faculty. Only when they perform their own respective functions are they their own respective faculties; when not performing their own functions, they belong to the body faculty.
Likewise, when the ear aches, it is the function of the body faculty, the feeling of the body consciousness, not the function of the ear faculty, not the feeling of the ear consciousness. Because the ear faculty performs the function of hearing sounds, only when the ear consciousness hears sounds is there feeling, whereas pain is a feeling on the body faculty. The same applies to an itchy nose, and the same applies to a painful tongue—all are feelings of the body consciousness. If the nose is cut off, the tongue is cut off, the ears are cut off, or the eyes are damaged, these are all acts of damaging the body faculty. If the functions of the respective faculties are also simultaneously damaged, it is equivalent to damaging the eye faculty, ear faculty, nose faculty, and tongue faculty.
III. The Mystery of the Eye Seeing Forms
The issue of the tathāgatagarbha manifesting the inner object-aspect involves extremely profound dharma principles, touching upon the deep principles of Yogācāra. For example, with regard to the external form sense-object, our eye faculty does not go to where the form sense-object is, and does not contact the substantial form sense-object, yet we see the form sense-object. The form does not reach the eye, and the eye does not reach the form, yet seeing occurs—this is indeed strange. When looking at a distant mountain, that mountain is very far from our eye faculty; our eye faculty certainly cannot reach it, and the mountain has not come to our eye faculty, yet we see that mountain. This is indeed very strange. These are all Yogācāra mysteries, involving the issue of omniscient wisdom (sarvākārajñatā); this mystery is profound upon profound.
For example, that distant mountain outside—who manifested it? It was jointly manifested by the tathāgatagarbhas of sentient beings with shared karma, and after manifestation, the tathāgatagarbhas of all sentient beings with shared karma jointly sustain that mountain. Does our tathāgatagarbha participate in the external mountain? Of course! We are also among the sentient beings with shared karma. When we see that mountain, that mountain is connected with us; our tathāgatagarbha also participated in manifesting and sustaining that mountain—that is the external object-aspect.
As for the inner object-aspect, that mountain is constituted by the four great seed-elements of earth, water, fire, and wind. When we want to look, our own tathāgatagarbha contacts that external mountain and extracts the four great particles of earth, water, fire, and wind from it. After the particles are extracted, they are transmitted all the way to our eye faculty, to the eyeball, into the vitreous body, to the visual nerves, to the supreme faculty at the back of our brain, where the tathāgatagarbha immediately transforms these particles into the visible colors of the inner object-aspect. Even when we do not want to look, the tathāgatagarbha still manifests the image of that mountain at the supreme faculty in the back of our brain; whether to look or not depends on the decision of the manas.
The external mountain of the external object-aspect is jointly sustained by the tathāgatagarbhas of sentient beings with shared karma. As for the mountain in our inner object-aspect, it is a shadow manifested by our own tathāgatagarbha based on the external object-aspect. The transformation of the external object-aspect into the inner object-aspect contains extremely many mysteries, involving the profound Yogācāra issue of omniscient wisdom.
The mountain we see has so many mysteries, and the entire process of seeing the mountain has even more mysteries. How does the tathāgatagarbha sustain that external mountain? It is the tathāgatagarbhas of all sentient beings jointly outputting the four great seed-elements moment by moment, jointly creating, sustaining, and changing that mountain. That mountain is also changing moment by moment, so after thousands or tens of thousands of years, that mountain will also change and disappear. The saying "the vast sea turns into mulberry fields, and mulberry fields turn into the vast sea" refers to exactly this principle.
The entire earth, the universe, and the inanimate world are all changing. Why do they change? Because they are summoned by the karmic conditions of sentient beings. Therefore, the tathāgatagarbhas of all sentient beings with shared karma output the four great seed-elements moment by moment, jointly creating and maintaining these external object-aspects composed of earth, water, fire, and wind—mountains, waters, the universe, the inanimate world, and so on. The relationships here are extremely complex and very difficult to explain clearly.
When an individual sentient being's tathāgatagarbha conditions that mountain, the tathāgatagarbha will extract the four great particles corresponding to the sentient being's own karmic force. If the sentient being has more wholesome karma, the manifested inner object-aspect will be somewhat more complete; if there is more unwholesome karma, the manifested inner object-aspect will be inferior and defective. Each person's karmic obstructions are different. After extracting the four great particles of that mountain, because the extracted particles differ, the manifested inner object-aspect differs. The inner object-aspect is also manifested according to the karmic seeds and karmic force of sentient beings. The mountains, rivers, and great earth seen in each person's eyes are all different. The same mountain appears beautiful to some and not beautiful to others—this is related to merit, karmic force, state of mind, and so on.
When an arhat enters Nirvāṇa without remainder, the portion of the external object-aspect of mountains, rivers, and the great earth that his tathāgatagarbha participated in manifesting disappears accordingly. Yet sentient beings do not perceive the change in the external object-aspect, only because too many sentient beings participate in manifesting it. When the arhat's tathāgatagarbha withdraws all of its four great elements, the change in the external object-aspect is not obvious, so we cannot perceive it; only the Buddha and the great bodhisattvas can perceive it.
IV. The Mystery of the Tathāgatagarbha Transmitting the Particles of the External Object-Aspect
Because the tathāgatagarbha possesses the seeds of material form and personally participates in manifesting material form, it can contact the external mountain of the external object-aspect, directly condition that mountain, and extract the four great particles. After extraction, it can transmit them through certain obstructing objects to the gross perceptible eye faculty and the supreme faculty. Thus, when we look at the mountain outside through a window, we can see the inner object-aspect of the mountain. The more obstructing objects in between, the more the four great particles are blocked, the more they are altered in transmission to the supreme faculty, and the more distorted and unclear the shadow of the inner object-aspect becomes.
The four great particles extracted by the tathāgatagarbha can penetrate all realms without obstruction. When sentient beings do not possess the divine eye (divyacakṣus), the six consciousnesses cannot see the patibhāga realm beyond the supreme faculty, and what they see is limited. A person with supernatural powers can use the divine eye to see through walls and other obstructions the form sense-objects in the distant inanimate universe, seeing all the objects in the entire inanimate universe, including the hells and heavenly palaces. A person with the divine eye sees forms without obstruction; his mind consciousness can see all the dharmas that the manas sees. The manas can see the dharmas that the tathāgatagarbha conditions and re-manifests, unobstructed by all spacetime and material form, because all objects, no matter how vast, are illusory and unreal. With profound meditative concentration (samādhi), the six consciousnesses can be unobstructed by illusory objects.
Our external eye faculty—the gross perceptible eye faculty and the vitreous body of the eyeball—can also contact the particles of the external mountain and all objects composed of the four great elements. Those are the particles extracted by the tathāgatagarbha and transmitted to the eye faculty; only then can the eye faculty contact them; otherwise, the eye faculty cannot contact them. The particles can also be called photons. Photons are in motion—why do they move? Because the tathāgatagarbha outputs the four great seed-elements moment by moment, forming particles, or so-called photons. The particles also arise and cease moment by moment—this one arises, that one ceases; this one ceases, that one arises. The phenomenon of photons arising and ceasing one after another forms the function of transmission.
The particles are transmitted in this way. The force of transmission gradually weakens, the transmitted energy decreases, and finally the transmission stops. The particles—photons—formed by the moment-by-moment arising and ceasing of the four great seed-elements also arise and cease moment by moment. One photon after another is passed along like a relay baton, through the vitreous body of the eyeball, transmitted to the supreme faculty of the eye, forming the appearance of form. The tathāgatagarbha then gives rise to the eye consciousness and mind consciousness, and we can see the external scenery.
V. The Mystery of the Contact Between Faculty and Sense Object
The particles, through the retina, form an image in the supreme faculty at the back of the brain, landing on the supreme faculty. The supreme faculty is like a plate, and the transmitted photon particles are like beans; the beans land exactly in the plate, and the two meet—faculty and sense object make contact. When the four great particles land in the supreme faculty, they form the image of the inner object-aspect, and this image is the visible color. When the form sense-object and the faculty make contact, there is no question of who actively touches and who does not—this is the principle of contact that is such by nature (dharmatā).
Once faculty and sense object make contact, the tathāgatagarbha will produce the corresponding consciousness to cognize the sense-object realm. If the manas is not interested in the form sense-object that has landed, it will not direct attention (manaskāra) toward the present form sense-object, nor will it give rise to the mental factor of volition (cetanā) wanting to cognize it, and the tathāgatagarbha will not cooperate with the manas to produce the eye consciousness and mind consciousness to cognize the form sense-object. However, in the first, second, and third instants, the form sense-object still falls into the supreme faculty, and the eye consciousness and mind consciousness can still cognize it. When the manas is not interested, the eye consciousness and mind consciousness will try to avoid such form sense-objects and will no longer discriminate them; the two consciousnesses may also cease on such form sense-objects and turn toward other form sense-objects.
The same applies to the ear hearing sounds. In the first, second, and third instants, the sound enters the ear faculty, and the ear consciousness involuntarily hears the sound. If the manas feels one should not listen, it will divert and disperse attention, or extinguish the consciousnesses, not listening to the sound. Of course, there are also cases where the mind consciousness is not interested, or the ear consciousness wants to avoid it; the mental activity is transmitted to the manas, and the manas decides not to listen, with the result that it seems there is no sound, or one does not pay attention to the sound. It all depends on whether the manas is interested and whether it directs attention. When the manas directs attention and gives rise to the mental factor of volition, the tathāgatagarbha, knowing this, will produce the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body consciousnesses and the mind consciousness to cognize the six sense-objects of the inner object-aspect.
The tathāgatagarbha transmits the form sense-object to the supreme faculty at the back of the brain, producing visible color, shape, expressive gesture, and non-expressive form. The form sense-object and form dharma-object appear, and faculty and sense object make contact. If the manas directs attention to this dharma-object and gives rise to the mental factor of volition, the tathāgatagarbha will manifest the mind consciousness to cognize this dharma-object. The mind consciousness appears one instant later than the eye consciousness, arising after the eye consciousness. Although the mind consciousness arises one instant later than the eye consciousness, in our experience the two consciousnesses seem to arise almost simultaneously. The two consciousnesses, arising and ceasing moment by moment, cognize the form sense-object simultaneously. If the manas does not direct attention and does not want to cognize this dharma-object, the eye consciousness will not arise, nor will the mind consciousness. When the form sense-object arrives, we cannot see forms and do not know there are forms.
VI. How the Inner Sound Sense-Object Is Formed
The four great particles of sound can pass through walls and various obstructions; walls and other obstacles cannot block the propagation and penetration of these particles. These particles are extracted by the tathāgatagarbha from the distant sound, then transmitted all the way to the ear faculty and the eardrum, all the way to the supreme faculty of the ear in the brain, forming the inner sound sense-object. It confronts the inner ear faculty, and the ear consciousness is born; the manas confronts the dharma-object, and the mind consciousness is born. The ear consciousness discriminates the coarse vibrational phenomena, and the mind consciousness discriminates the subtle dharmas on the sound sense-object.
The content, nature, attributes, distance, desirability, and other subtle dharmas of various sounds are called the dharma-object. After the dharma-object arises, whether the manas directs attention depends on whether He is interested in the dharma-object. If He is interested, He decides to cognize it, and the tathāgatagarbha will manifest the mind consciousness to cognize it together with the ear consciousness. If the manas is not interested, He decides to avoid it and not cognize it, and the tathāgatagarbha does not produce the ear consciousness and mind consciousness, so the sound is not cognized. Therefore, even though there is sound, we do not hear it. In a state of meditative absorption, or a state of concentration on other matters, or a state of no-mind, and so on, certain sounds cannot be heard.
VII. The Division of Regions of the Supreme Faculties
The supreme faculty region of the brain is divided into several regions; the five sense-objects are respectively manifested in five of these regions. Beyond the five sense-object regions, there is also the region of the dharma-objects on the five sense-objects, where the five kinds of form included in the dharma āyatana are respectively manifested. When one region is damaged, the other regions can still function, and their functions may increase. For example, if the form sense-object region of the eye faculty is destroyed and cannot see forms, its functional energy may transfer to the other faculties—perhaps the ear consciousness becomes more acute, perhaps the sense of smell becomes sharper, or perhaps the sense of touch becomes more sensitive.
The inner object-aspect visible colors manifested by the tathāgatagarbha within the form sense-object region confront the eye faculty and are the objects discriminated by the eye consciousness. This form sense-object region is called the supreme faculty of the eye. There are also the supreme faculties of the ear, nose, tongue, and body, which are respectively the locations where the coarse inner object-aspects of sound, scent, taste, and touch are formed. The five supreme faculties are these five regions, including the region where the dharma-object arises and the region where the subjectively imagined realm arises.
At the supreme faculty of the eye faculty, visible colors are manifested. On the basis of the visible colors, in another region—the dharma āyatana—the subtle dharma-objects manifested on the visible colors—shape, expressive gesture, and non-expressive form—are manifested. This region, the dharma āyatana, is the location where the consciousness accompanied by the eye sense (pañca-sahagata-mano-vijñāna) is born. In the ear faculty region, the coarse sound sense-object is manifested, and then in the dharma-object region, the subtle dharma-objects of sound are created, giving birth to the consciousness accompanied by the ear sense. Thus, the five kinds of consciousness accompanied by the five senses have five locations. In modern medicine, some people also say that the five kinds of consciousness accompanied by the five senses, which arise together with the first five consciousnesses, each have their own regions of sensation.
The brain occupies a special position: it is where the five supreme faculties receive the inner five sense-objects, and also where the dharma-object and the six consciousnesses are born. If a certain part of the brain is damaged, a certain function of seeing, hearing, knowing, and feeling disappears and cannot function—either one cannot see forms, or cannot hear sounds, or cannot smell scents, or cannot taste flavors, or cannot feel touch, or cannot walk. The inner form sense-object arises at the supreme faculty of the eye; the inner sound sense-object arises at the supreme faculty of the ear; each of the five sense-objects arises in its corresponding supreme faculty.
After the inner five sense-objects arise, they make contact with the supreme faculties. In contact, there is no distinction between active and passive touching. For example, take a pot of flowers: there is soil in the pot, and flowers grow from the soil. Who touches whom—the flower or the pot? Certainly, as soon as the flower is born, it is in contact with the pot. There is no question of who touches whom; they touch each other simultaneously, meeting at the same time.
However, when the six consciousnesses are born, they actively touch the six sense-objects, because consciousness has subjective initiative and selectivity. The six faculties and six sense-objects are always in contact. Before the six consciousnesses are born, the consciousness seeds will direct attention toward the corresponding sense-object realm, and then appear at the place where faculty and sense object make contact, forming the six consciousnesses. The six consciousnesses then participate in the contact of faculty and sense object; the three combine in contact, and the six consciousnesses can accept and receive the six sense-objects. After that, the other mental factors appear and operate.
When the above content is clear, one will know the affairs within the black box. The six sense-objects we discriminate are all at the black box of the supreme faculties. Faculty and sense object make contact, and the sense object does not leave the faculty, because the position of the supreme faculties never changes. The inner six sense-objects—form, sound, scent, taste, touch, and dharma objects—manifested by the tathāgatagarbha in its second manifestation all appear at that position. Therefore, the myriad worldly dharmas we discriminate, the inanimate universe, and other inner six sense-objects are all at the black box.
VIII. The Black Box of the Supreme Faculties Is the Entire World Cognized by the Six Consciousnesses
Where do the six consciousnesses appear? Of course, also at the supreme faculties, the place where faculty and sense object make contact. Although the consciousnesses are formless and without appearance, having no specific location, not inside, outside, or in the middle of the physical body, the tathāgatagarbha transmits the consciousness seeds to the supreme faculties where faculty and sense object make contact. Thus, the six consciousnesses discriminate the vast sky and the immense inanimate universe within this black box, and discriminate all the dharmas within the physical body.
The six sense-object realms of the inner object-aspect at the black box are the entire world in which our minds roam. Although beyond this there are many other dharma-objects, those are the contents contacted and cognized solely by the seventh consciousness. Because the six consciousnesses are obscured by ignorance, when limited, they can only cognize these contents within the black box, or perhaps only a very small portion of these contents, and perhaps even that unclearly—this is the karmic retribution of the pitiable sentient beings' ignorance.
Therefore, all the activities of discrimination and cognition of our six consciousnesses take place at the black box. Even the touch sense-object of the toes on the body is transmitted to the supreme faculties, becoming a re-manifested image; the body consciousness and mind consciousness also cognize the image of the toes at the supreme faculties, and cannot directly cognize the toes beyond the supreme faculties. The black box of the supreme faculties is the entire world cognized by the six consciousnesses.
If we can contemplate this point through contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), we will know how illusory the faculties are, how illusory the sense objects are, how illusory the consciousnesses are—which of them is not arising and ceasing moment by moment? All arise and cease moment by moment. The faculties are composed of the four great elements, arising and ceasing moment by moment; the sense objects are composed of the four great elements, even more so arising and ceasing moment by moment; as for the consciousnesses, one consciousness seed after another arises and ceases, ceases and arises again—also moment-by-moment arising and ceasing. What is not arising and ceasing? All the myriad dharmas of this world are arising and ceasing.
The external mountains, rivers, and great earth—the external object-aspects such as form, sound, taste, scent, and touch sense-objects—are jointly born, manifested, and maintained by the tathāgatagarbhas of all sentient beings. When our tathāgatagarbha conditions that external object-aspect, it extracts the four great elements from the external object-aspect; after extraction, they form particles, becoming photons, and are continuously transmitted through the gross perceptible faculties of the five faculties and the transmitting nerves to the supreme faculties. Then faculty and sense object make contact, the tathāgatagarbha gives birth to the six consciousnesses, and the shadows of the external mountains, rivers, and great earth are cognized. We then take these shadows to be real external dharmas, clinging to them in every way, endlessly calculating and disputing.
Whether or not the manas directs attention, whether or not it makes choices, the tathāgatagarbha will forever transform the external form sense-object into the inner form sense-object, and the external five sense-objects into the inner five sense-objects, through the first five faculties. It is only that if the manas does not cling and does not give rise to the mental factor of volition, the tathāgatagarbha does not manifest the six consciousnesses to contact the inner six sense-objects. The manifestation of the inner object-aspect does not occur because the manas directs attention—it is not like that. The inner six sense-objects always exist, present at every moment. As long as there are the five faculties, and the five faculties are intact, the inner six sense-objects exist.
As long as the eye faculty exists, regardless of whether the external form sense-object is significant or not, the tathāgatagarbha at every moment transmits the external form sense-object through the eye faculty into the supreme faculties. When the manas directs attention and wants to look, the tathāgatagarbha manifests the eye consciousness and mind consciousness. After the eye consciousness and mind consciousness finish discriminating the inner object-aspect, they transmit the information to the manas; the manas cognizes the information, and after cognizing, directs attention and makes choices again. What to do next after the choice—the tathāgatagarbha knows it all. At the same time, the consciousness seeds of the eye consciousness, mind consciousness, and the seventh consciousness—the seven consciousnesses—return into the eighth consciousness, thereby bringing the information of cognition back into the tathāgatagarbha. The tathāgatagarbha then stores the information of cognition—this is called storing seeds and recording karmic actions. The external form sense-object and external five sense-objects are jointly manifested by the tathāgatagarbhas of sentient beings with shared karma; the inner six sense-objects are manifested individually by each person's own tathāgatagarbha, as images of the external five sense-objects. The internal and external six sense-objects are different.
IX. The Principle of the Interaction Between Faculty and Sense Object
The external six sense-objects have always existed in the universe, jointly born and jointly sustained by the tathāgatagarbhas of all sentient beings. The manner of sustaining is through the four great seed-elements, among which the four great seed-elements arise moment by moment and cease moment by moment. The external six sense-object realms likewise arise moment by moment and cease moment by moment. In the process of arising and ceasing, the four great seed-elements radiate outward into their respective tathāgatagarbhas, which is why we can feel a magnetic field around material objects.
When the tathāgatagarbha extracts the particles of the four great seed-elements, when we want to look, they are transmitted in through the various nervous systems of the five faculties—for example, the vitreous body in the eye and the neural transmission system—transmitting the four great particles radiated by the external material all the way into the supreme faculty of the eye. The inner form sense-object lands there, and then faculty and sense object make contact.
In this process, the manas can first cognize roughly what dharma it is. When it wants to cognize in detail, it produces the eye consciousness and mind consciousness to complete the task. If it does not want detailed cognition, the six consciousnesses do not know. That is to say, there are many dharmas within the supreme faculties; when the manas does not want to cognize them, the six consciousnesses do not know, and thus we cannot see those dharmas transformed from the external six sense-objects.
The same applies to the dharmas transmitted through the ear faculty, and even the dharmas transmitted through the body faculty. In the process of transmission, the dharma-objects are simultaneously transmitted along, generating the inner six sense-objects. The inner six sense-objects somewhat resemble the external six sense-objects, or rather, are very similar. Our cognition of the inner six sense-objects is like cognizing the reflections in a mirror, while the unseen external six sense-objects correspond to the actual objects outside the mirror. Those actual objects are composed of the four great elements, and only the tathāgatagarbha itself can condition them; the seven consciousnesses cannot. Only after the tathāgatagarbha, like a mirror,幻化s over the essences of the six sense-objects and reflects their shadows can the seven consciousnesses cognize this portion.
X. The Combined Contact of the Three: Faculties, Sense Objects, and Consciousnesses
The mental dharmas are the seven consciousnesses; the material dharmas are the five faculties and six sense-objects. Faculties, sense objects, and consciousnesses belong to the dharmas of the three realms—they are dharmas of three kinds of boundaries (dhātu); "boundary" means limit. Since their boundaries differ, according to the rules of the mundane world, they do not connect and cannot merge together or operate in combination. In fact, the contact between the consciousness realm and the material realm, which are different realms, cannot be understood from the mundane perspective as contact similar to hand touching hand, or the kind of collision and contact of a hand touching material form. The extremely profound dharma of Yogācāra omniscient wisdom cannot be explained or understood from the perspective of mundane dharmas no matter what; the mundane mode of thinking can never solve the problems of Yogācāra. Only by having the sixth and seventh consciousnesses transform consciousness into wisdom (āśraya-parāvṛtti)—transforming the cognitive and thinking mode of mundane consciousness into the cognitive and thinking mode of non-mundane wisdom—can the problems of Yogācāra omniscient wisdom be gradually solved.
How should one think about the combined contact of faculties, sense objects, and consciousnesses from the mode of Yogācāra omniscient wisdom? We should know that although the three—faculties, sense objects, and consciousnesses—have different boundaries and are different kinds of dharmas, they have a common part: they are all constituted and formed by the seeds of the seven great elements within the tathāgatagarbha. The seven great seeds are equal, parallel, and juxtaposed; their attributes differ, but there is no boundary between them, and they can completely merge and make contact, giving birth to all dharmas in accordance with the minds of sentient beings, as the Buddha said in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra. In this way, it becomes easy to understand the question of whether dharmas of different realms can make contact.
The seven great seeds are all formless and without appearance, so one cannot speak of contact like that of material form in the mundane world; therefore, the question of whether they touch or not does not arise, and the faculties, sense objects, and consciousnesses thus formed are not the mundane kind of contact. Even said this way, many people still find it hard to understand, because the gap between mundane dharma and Buddha-dharma is too great. Profound Buddha-dharma often transcends one's imagination. As the Buddha said, the Buddha-dharma cannot be obtained through speculation and conjecture; only through actual realization can it be experienced.
The formless, appearanceless seven great seeds, when transmitted out to form the faculties, sense objects, and consciousnesses—do they have appearance? So-called appearance refers to the kind of visible form seen by the mundane naked eye. From the standpoint of actual reality, from the ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya), all dharmas lack that mundane kind of appearance; they all have the aspect of ultimate truth, invisible to the naked eye. To see is to have the defect of cataract; the diseased eye sees flowers in empty space, as the Buddha said in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra.
The consciousness-mind is formless and without appearance, invisible to the naked eye, and can only be perceived by the mind consciousness, ultimately letting the manas also know it. Faculties and sense objects are material dharmas, having form, having shape and appearance, visible to the naked eye. Faculties and sense objects are material dharmas of the same kind of attribute and can touch like hands and feet touching. The consciousness-mind then touches the faculties, sense objects, and material dharmas, like a mirror touching reflections. Reflections are not real material dharmas; the mirror can touch and can manifest them; the non-real material reflections can appear in the mirror—this is called illusory manifestation. What the seven consciousnesses touch are all non-real material dharmas—faculties and sense objects—all reflections. Therefore, reflections can appear in the mirror of the seven consciousnesses' minds without obstruction. Who can touch real material dharmas? Only the tathāgatagarbha can touch such real material dharmas and the most primordial material form.
These operational laws and rules of ultimate truth cannot be understood or imagined at all from the perspective of conventional truth. Therefore, the Buddha does not allow us to imagine or emotionally speculate and intellectually interpret, but rather to realize through actual practice after precepts, meditative concentration, and wisdom are complete. Only those who have actually realized can mutually understand each other, because those of the Path share the same designs and those of the Path share the same views.
The consciousness-mind accumulated from consciousness seeds lands upon the faculty-and-sense-object material dharmas piled up from the seeds of the five great elements. Since the seeds have no mundane appearance whatsoever, how could the faculties, sense objects, and consciousnesses formed from them have appearance? If the primordial original material form had appearance, how could the tathāgatagarbha touch it, recognize it, transmit it, transform it, and manifest it? If even the primordial original material form has no appearance, how could the image-material dharmas manifested by the tathāgatagarbha—the material dharma-images—have appearance? All are dharmas without appearance. The three—faculties, sense objects, and consciousnesses—can completely touch one another, and the consciousness-mind can completely manifest and cognize the faculties and sense objects, thereby giving rise to illusory feelings of joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, and suffering.
Faculties, sense objects, and consciousnesses are dharmas appearing in the black-box world—illusory and unreal, the sight of a diseased eye.
XI. The Mystery of Sound Propagation
Regarding the function of the eye seeing forms, the Buddha said in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra that the merit of the eye faculty is only eight hundred, not the complete twelve hundred—only two-thirds of the twelve hundred merits—because the eye faculty has a place that is not all-pervading: the form sense-objects behind the body cannot be seen by the eye faculty. The ear faculty hearing sounds is all-pervading: it can hear in all directions, can hear through walls, can hear distant sounds, and can hear sounds behind the body. We can hear sounds from anywhere, so the ear faculty has the complete twelve hundred merits.
The principle of the ear faculty hearing sounds is the same as the principle of the eye seeing forms. Sound is also a material form composed of the four great seed-elements. When the tathāgatagarbha conditions a sound, it also extracts the four great particles from the sound and transmits them to the supreme faculty of the ear. Faculty and sense object make contact, and then the tathāgatagarbha gives birth to the ear consciousness and mind consciousness to cognize the sound. Sounds emitted from within our own body are related only to our own tathāgatagarbha, manifested individually by our own tathāgatagarbha.
However, when we hear sounds transmitted from outside, or sounds emitted by others, our own tathāgatagarbha extracts the four great particles of the sounds emitted by other sentient beings, transmits them into the supreme faculties, and transforms them into the sounds of the inner object-aspect that we hear. Faculty and sense object make contact, and the tathāgatagarbha then gives birth to the ear consciousness and mind consciousness to cognize the sound sense-object. First, the ear consciousness cognizes in the first instant; then the mind consciousness cognizes in the second instant; then the two combine to cognize together—thus it seems as if we have heard another's voice.
The sounds we hear emitted by various objects, or the various sounds emitted in the universe and empty space, are created jointly by the tathāgatagarbhas of sentient beings with shared karma and jointly sustained by them. Our own tathāgatagarbha, in accordance with our own karmic conditions, extracts these sound sense-objects to form four great particles, which also arise and cease moment by moment—this one ceases, that one arises. The locations where the four great seed-elements are born shift slightly in sequence, and thus we feel that the sound sense-object seems to be continuously moving and changing. In fact, it is moment-by-moment arising and ceasing. Because the arising and ceasing is too rapid, we cannot perceive the true phenomenon of arising and ceasing, and can only see the false appearance of non-arising and non-ceasing.
All these moment-by-moment arising-and-ceasing four great particles seem to be continuously transmitted, but in fact the four great particles of the later instant are not those of the previous instant—there has already been a slight change. By the time they are transmitted to the ear faculty, the change in the four great elements becomes more noticeable. Thus the four great particles of sound are transmitted all the way to the ear faculty from very far away, and their transmitted energy gradually decreases. The greater the distance, the smaller and weaker the sound transmitted—just as if the energy were insufficient and the force of transmission increasingly weak. In fact, it is that this material form of sound has undergone change—the four great elements have become different.
There is no such thing as "energy." So-called energy is simply material particles composed of the four great elements—particles such as photons, electrons, neutrons, protons, and the like—constantly arising, ceasing, and changing, this one ceasing as that one arises, one linked to another, as if there were energy. Moreover, these particles arise and cease moment by moment along certain orbital domains, just as if matter were moving along orbits. In the surface movement of the particles, the four great seed-elements are constantly changing, and when we observe this, we feel it is a transformation of energy. But the role played by the tathāgatagarbha therein, we do not know and do not see—we only know the surface phenomena. This is ignorance (avidyā).
