Can the eighth consciousness exist separately from the physical body?

Question: Can the eighth consciousness exist apart from the physical body?

Answer: The eighth consciousness has five kinds of pervasiveness: it pervades all times, all levels of meditative absorption, all places, all realms, and all dharmas. Therefore, apart from sustaining the physical body, the eighth consciousness also sustains form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas; it sustains the material universe (the inanimate world), and it sustains the eighteen realms. Beings in the formless realm have no physical body, yet the eighth consciousness sustains the existence of the sixth and seventh consciousnesses. As for ghost beings without physical bodies, the eighth consciousness likewise sustains their sixth and seventh consciousnesses.

One's own body is held and sustained by one's own eighth consciousness, but external objects are not something a single person's eighth consciousness can manage; they are jointly managed and sustained by the eighth consciousnesses of all sentient beings with karmic connections. If a person wishes to change the external living environment, his power is very weak—even for a bodhisattva it is very difficult.