Observing the Issue of Sentient Beings' Consciousness Through the Analogy of Mistaking a Rope for a Snake

When a person sees a rope, what the eye consciousness sees should be the rope's colors, which is material sense-object; the rest—the rope's length, thickness, material, texture, and so on—is form subsumed under the Dharmāyatana, the mental sense-object seen by the mental consciousness accompanying the five sense consciousnesses, and all contain the seeds of the four great elements. What falls into the eye consciousness is a real object-aspect, and what falls into the mental consciousness accompanying the five sense consciousnesses is a semblance of a borrowed-object-aspect. The two in combination complete the discrimination of the rope, arriving at the conclusion that a normal worldly person should arrive at—this counts as a normal worldly person. The subsequent handling of the rope should also be the way a normal person would handle it.

If, for some reason, this person's mind consciousness becomes deranged, he may see the rope as a snake. The eye consciousness sees the rope, and it may still be the rope's colors—the material sense-object unchanged—but the mind consciousness, seeing the rope's mental sense-object, forcibly discriminates the image and appearance of a snake, altering the mental sense-object. This altered mental sense-object is called an Image-Only object\: the mind consciousness discriminates it alone, without the eye consciousness discriminating it together with the mind consciousness. The more and greater the alteration of the mental sense-object, the more severe the mind consciousness's derangement, the less of the rope's substance it carries, and the less it accords with fact—the more frenzied the mind becomes. The more and greater the rope's substance it carries, the closer it is to fact, and the closer the mind is to normality.

In the process of seeing the rope, the rope's mental sense-object and the Image-Only Object may coexist, but as one wanes the other waxes. If it is entirely an Image-Only Object, the rope is completely taken to be a snake, the person is completely deranged, and will be so frightened that he turns and flees. If only a portion of the mental sense-object is altered into the Image-Only Object of a snake, the person, though afraid and trembling, will have doubts in his mind and not fully believe it; he will, while afraid, go on to carefully discriminate and observe. When he sees clearly that it is truly a rope, the Image-Only Object completely reverts to the mental sense-object, the fear disappears, and he can face the rope normally. If, however, due to the influence of psychological suggestion being relatively strong, after careful observation he confirms it is a snake, the mental sense-object will completely become an Image-Only Object, and the person may bolt and run.

As ordinary beings in the Sahā world, those with deranged mind consciousness are everywhere; all have some degree of mental derangement, and almost none are completely normal. Why? The afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion and karmic obstructions cause the mind to be chaotic and unsettled; erroneous cognitions are everywhere, and one cannot normally and correctly judge the people, affairs, objects, and principles one encounters—one does not recognize the truth of facts, but only recognizes the Image-Only Object engendered by wrong views, whether with substance or without, whether grounded or ungrounded.

The better a person's psychological constitution and the more normal his mental state, the more subdued his mind, the more calm and peaceful, the smaller his reactions, and the fewer his disturbances. Conversely, the mind will surge like billowing waves, exerting greater influence—or one might call it destructive force—on the surrounding environment, the more able to provoke disorder among the people and affairs around, leading to unrest in the group. The phenomenon of an entire group being mentally deranged is not uncommon, and will become more and more frequent in the future, mainly because the derangement of one dominant person taints and influences the whole group, causing everyone in the group to have deranged mind consciousness and disordered minds. When the group's problems grow ever more numerous and ever larger, with problems emerging one after another, it will lead to the point where the fire can no longer be wrapped in paper, and the group is not far from destruction.

As long as you are not an eighth-bhūmi bodhisattva, nor a first-bhūmi bodhisattva, then everyone may be tainted by conditioning and receive conditioning. What kind of conditioning one should receive, and what one should be conditioned into becoming—everyone has the right to choose; this right belongs to oneself and cannot be taken away by others. Therefore, choice involves wisdom, and also involves the questions of karma and merit. If one can make a correct, error-free choice, it shows that one has wisdom, that one's karmic obstructions are slight, and that one has merit. Some conditioning has an influence that is not limited to one life; it may manifest as conditioned habitual tendencies over many lives, or even life after life. Choosing one's environment and choosing the people, affairs, objects, and principles one comes into contact with is very important—indeed extremely important.