Facts speak louder than eloquence, and also louder than theory.

Question: One theory in Yogācāra holds that the mind consciousness is the coexistent support (sahabhū-āśraya) of the five sense consciousnesses; therefore the mind consciousness must arise before the five sense consciousnesses, or arise simultaneously with them—it cannot arise after the five sense consciousnesses, right?

Answer: The real experience in meditative concentration (dhyāna) is that the eye consciousness and ear consciousness first discern forms and sounds for one instant, and only then does one discover the subtle dharmas of those forms and sounds—and it is the mind consciousness that discovers them. This is a fact. Perhaps the mind consciousness takes one extra instant to discern, so that it can discern the mental sense-objects (dharma-viṣaya) a bit more clearly and identify what the mental sense-object is; its time for discrimination is one instant longer than that of the five sense consciousnesses. But such a short span of time is negligible. The vast majority of people without meditative concentration will never discover this fact. Whether in worldly dharmas or in the Buddha-dharma, facts always matter more than theories. Studying Buddhism is precisely for the purpose of realizing the true facts of all dharmas, not for rigidly studying theories that one cannot verify, with the result that wisdom fails to arise and liberation cannot be attained.