What Is Perception (saṃjñā)?

Among the five universal mental factors (caittas) of the eight consciousnesses, there is perception (saṃjñā) in each. This perception refers to the discerning, deliberating, and grasping functions of the conscious mind; it also represents desire and aspiration, representing hope. It occupies almost half of sentient beings' mental activities, and serves as the basis and driving force for the conscious mind's choices and decisions.

Among these, the perception of the five sense consciousnesses is relatively simple and direct: it simply performs the function of discerning and discriminating the five sense objects. Its grasping nature is not strong, nor is it evident; it all proceeds under the impetus and regulation of the manas. Without the manas's impetus, there would be no perception in the five sense consciousnesses. The perception of the mind consciousness is rich in content and relatively evident; its deliberation is rather complex, having a degree of autonomy, but also a large degree of passivity. Its autonomous portion cannot deviate too much from the thoughts, will, and views of the manas; otherwise, the manas will stop it and not allow the thinking to continue, and it can also easily cause the manas's emotions to become unstable, giving rise to psychological problems. The perception of the six consciousnesses is classified as the aggregate of perception (saṃjñā-skandha) among the five aggregates; it has the function of accumulating the seeds of all dharmas, arising and ceasing, changing and mutating, without autonomy.

The perception of the manas not only has the nature of discernment and discrimination, but its main function is grasping. It is because of the manas's grasping of all dharmas that dharmas continuously arise and cease, with unending arising, ceasing, change, and mutation. The manas's grasping nature is classified as "grasping" (upādāna) among the twelve links of dependent origination. Because of the manas's grasping, there is the becoming of future lives and birth-and-death. Therefore, the manas's perception plays a crucial role in both the arising and the cessation of all dharmas. Broadly speaking, the manas also has the function of accumulating dharmas, and indeed plays the principal role, so it too should be classified within the aggregate of perception among the five aggregates.

The perception of the eighth consciousness is relatively pure: it only performs the function of discernment and discrimination, and does so extremely fast. It never broods or agonizes over things; whatever dharma it encounters, it knows that dharma. It requires no mental activities such as deliberation, pondering (manana), or speculation and inference, and is utterly different from the seventh and sixth consciousnesses. Because the eighth consciousness has no ignorance (avidyā), its wisdom is especially powerful—its discernment is almost like an automated program, with no stagnation or pause in between, and it takes none of the dharmas to heart. Because of the perception of the eighth consciousness, there is the eighth consciousness's determination regarding all dharmas and seeds, and thus the dharmas continue to operate without interruption—this arising as that ceases, that arising as this ceases—operating in an orderly manner without the slightest error or confusion. Sentient beings always feel that the world is very chaotic, but that is because karma has determined it to be so. However chaotic the world of the seven consciousnesses and the five aggregates may be, the operation of the eighth consciousness is never chaotic. Therefore, the perception of the eighth consciousness has a decisive accumulating function for the world of the five aggregates, and broadly speaking, it also belongs to the category of the aggregate of perception.