The State of Samādhi

When the eyes remain motionless, staring fixedly at one spot, whose meditative concentration (samādhi) is this? What causes it, and why does it happen this way? When the eyes are staring fixedly at a certain place, the eye consciousness is definitely in concentration, the consciousness accompanied by the five senses (pañca-sahagata-mano-vijñāna) is also in concentration, and the solitary consciousness (mano-vijñāna-eka-citta) does not appear; if it appears, one becomes distracted—this can be called "a mind like a monkey and thoughts like a galloping horse." This kind of concentration is the manas fixing the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness on the place where the manas is attending; it is brought about by the manas's attention (manaskāra), and is the result of the manas directing its attention to this one place. The tathāgatagarbha gives rise to the eye consciousness which discerns only this one place, not two and not three places. If the manas directs its attention to material sense-objects (rūpa-viṣaya) in multiple places, the tathāgatagarbha will necessarily give rise to the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness in multiple places, and then the eye consciousness will dart about in all directions.

When the mind consciousness is absorbed in focused contemplation, this is the concentration of the solitary consciousness (mano-vijñāna-eka-citta). The eye faculty may be in contact with some material sense-object, but the eye consciousness and the consciousness accompanied by the five senses do not discriminate it. This kind of concentration is also brought about by the manas: the manas wants to figure out a problem, so it lets the mind consciousness become absorbed in focused contemplation, without seeing, hearing, or attending to anything else. Therefore, only when the manas is focused can the six consciousnesses be focused and unmoving; the six consciousnesses are mobilized and directed by the manas.