The Mental Factors of the Seventh Consciousness

The consciousness seeds of the tathāgatagarbha give birth to and form the seven consciousnesses, and as soon as the seven consciousnesses become active and begin to operate, they function in the form of mental factors (caittas). First are the five universal mental factors, then the five object-specific mental factors follow and operate at irregular intervals, and there are also wholesome and unwholesome mental factors that follow and operate. The seven consciousnesses are sometimes wholesome and sometimes unwholesome, and sometimes neither wholesome nor unwholesome mental factors manifest, but the five universal mental factors certainly accompany the seven consciousnesses and operate in their presence at every moment. However, these mental factors have no seeds—among the seven great elements' seeds there are no seeds of the five universal mental factors, and within the karmic seeds there are also no seeds of the mental factors. Yet as soon as the seven consciousnesses become active, the five universal mental factors, the five object-specific mental factors, and the wholesome and unwholesome mental factors come out and operate along with them, and thus the karmic actions of body, speech, and mind are produced.

The consciousness seeds are like drops of water; when the water drops connect continuously they form a stream of water, and this stream of water is analogous to the stream of consciousness of the seven consciousnesses. But the seven consciousnesses themselves depend on the mental factors in order to operate; only with the auxiliary operation of the mental factors do the seven consciousnesses have their functions and effects. After the seven consciousnesses are born, they direct attention (manaskāra), contact (sparśa), feeling (vedanā), perception (saṃjñā), and deliberation (manasikāra) toward the corresponding dharmas—this is the operating process of the seven consciousnesses, interwoven with other mental factors. The consciousness seeds themselves are pure, and the stream of consciousness they form is also pure; but when the mental factors participate in the operation, the seven consciousnesses are not necessarily pure, because among the mental factors there are impure ones, defiled ones, and thus the karmic seeds formed by the mental actions carried by the seven consciousnesses are not necessarily pure. Whatever kind of karmic seeds are stored in the tathāgatagarbha, the manas will have corresponding manifestations of that kind, so the manas necessarily corresponds to the karmic seeds.

The tathāgatagarbha makes the seven consciousnesses manifest according to the karmic seeds: if the karmic seeds are defiled, the mental actions of the seven consciousnesses are defiled; if the karmic seeds are pure, the mental actions of the seven consciousnesses are pure. When defiled seeds mature, the manas will manifest defiled karma, and the defiled karma is again stored as seeds into the tathāgatagarbha, while the consciousness seeds return into the tathāgatagarbha and remain pure. When the conditions ripen, the karmic seeds of evil deeds created by the seven consciousnesses manifest their retribution, and within this present retribution unwholesome mental actions arise again; relying on these unwholesome mental actions, unwholesome karma is again created, and taking this as cause, unwholesome fruits are again produced—thus karmic cause and effect cycle round and round without end, and sentient beings transmigrate through saṃsāra ceaselessly. The wholesome and unwholesome karmic seeds created by the seven consciousnesses, upon encountering conditions, become active and are exhausted; the karmic seeds disappear, but all dharmas and all mental actions, like archives, never vanish. The more sentient beings have experienced throughout beginningless kalpas, the more this tathāgatagarbha stores; every bit and drop of things in the long river of lives across the kalpas, the tathāgatagarbha archives them all. The tathāgatagarbha is without form and without mark; if it were not formless and markless, it could not store so many archives—and thus the archives, too, are formless and markless.