A Brief Discourse on the Essence of Consciousness

Chapter Eleven: The Mental Factors of the Six Consciousnesses

I. The Arising of the Six Consciousnesses and the Mental Factors

The six sense faculties contact the six sense objects, giving rise to the six consciousnesses. The six sense faculties and the six sense objects together constitute the twelve entrances (*āyatanas*). The six sense faculties refer to the superior sense faculties (*adhyātmika-indriya*), located at the back of the head. The five superior sense faculties plus the mental faculty (*manas*) constitute the six sense faculties, also known as the internal six entrances. The six sense objects are the internal five sense objects plus the form included in the dharmāyatana (*dharmāyatana-paryāpanna-rūpa*), constituting the internal six sense objects, also known as the external six entrances. The internal six entrances and the external six entrances together are called the twelve entrances. Among them, the sense faculties and sense objects are necessarily conjoined. The internal five sense objects arise within the superior sense faculties at the back of the head. The five types of form included in the dharmāyatana, manifested by the eighth consciousness (*ālaya-vijñāna*), all contact the mental faculty. Only when the sense faculties and sense objects are together can they contact each other. After contact, the mental faculty makes a choice, and then the eighth consciousness can produce the six consciousnesses.

The contact between sense faculties and sense objects indicates that they are necessarily together. The five superior sense faculties are located at the back of the head, and the internal five sense objects arise at that location within the superior sense faculties. After the sense faculties and sense objects contact, the mental faculty makes a choice, and the eighth consciousness produces the five sense consciousnesses. Simultaneously, the mental object (*dharma*) also contacts the mental faculty at the location of the superior sense faculties at the back of the head, and the mental consciousness (*mano-vijñāna*) arises concurrently, differentiating the six sense objects simultaneously with the five sense consciousnesses. This is called the mental consciousness concomitant with the five sense consciousnesses (*pañca-viṣayikā manovijñāna*).

When the six sense faculties contact the six sense objects, the six consciousnesses arise. Then, the three (faculties, objects, and consciousnesses) again combine and contact, meaning the six consciousnesses again contact the six sense objects, thereby differentiating the six sense objects. This contact between faculties and objects is continuous. If the faculties and objects do not contact, the six consciousnesses cease. Then, when the six consciousnesses again contact the six sense objects, after contacting, they acquire the nature of reception (*vedanā*), receiving and accepting the six sense objects. After accepting the six sense objects, the six consciousnesses differentiate the six sense objects and grasp them (*upādāna*), at which point the mental factor of perception (*saṃjñā*) arises.

After differentiating the six sense objects, the six consciousnesses begin to deliberate (*cetanā*). If deliberation is unclear, they again generate attention (*manasikāra*) towards the six sense objects. After attention, they again differentiate and again feel. At this point, the feelings of suffering (*duḥkha*), pleasure (*sukha*), sorrow (*daurmanasya*), joy (*saumanasya*), and equanimity (*upekṣā*) arise. The initial reception (*vedanā*) is the receiving and accepting; after accepting, it is equivalent to taking the six sense objects over, and only then does one know what the six sense objects are—this acceptance represents taking them over. Subsequent reception (*vedanā*) then carries emotional tones, and the feelings of suffering, pleasure, sorrow, joy, and equanimity arise.

After feelings arise, if they are unclear, one again grasps the characteristics and differentiates, and the mental factor of perception (*saṃjñā*) may again arise. When perception arises, after differentiating the characteristics, deliberation begins. If deliberation is unclear, one again contacts; after contacting, one again differentiates, or again perceives, or again continues to feel. After thus differentiating and feeling, one again deliberates until finally, the matter is deliberated clearly and differentiated distinctly. The six consciousnesses generate a decisive mind and begin to act.

The content differentiated by the six consciousnesses must also be transmitted to the mental faculty. Simultaneously, the mental faculty also operates on the objects differentiated by the six consciousnesses using the five universal mental factors (*pañca-sarvatraga*), giving rise to a series of mental activities. Finally, when the mental faculty generates a decisive mind, determining how to act, the eighth consciousness discerns this and operates in accordance with the mental faculty’s deliberative decisiveness and its attention. This is because the eighth consciousness needs to know what the mental faculty attends to and which aspect of the sense objects it attends to. Only after knowing this can the eighth consciousness manifest the six consciousnesses upon that sense object. After the six consciousnesses manifest, they begin to produce bodily, verbal, and mental actions (*karma*).

If the mental faculty still deliberates unclearly, it will continue to contact, continue to attend, continue to feel, continue to differentiate, and finally deliberate again and make a decision again. Before a decision is made, these five universal mental factors operate repeatedly, and their sequence may not follow the order of attention, contact, feeling, perception, and volition; it may be reversed. Contact may come first, differentiation afterward; or contact may come first, feeling first, differentiation after feeling. Perhaps after differentiation, feeling arises again; if feeling and differentiation are still unclear, one returns to prior deliberation. If deliberation is still unclear, one again contacts, again feels, again differentiates.

Which mental factor comes first is uncertain; the sequence here becomes disordered. Initially, it is attention. Attention is necessarily at the seed stage (*bīja*). At the seed stage, corresponding to that mental object (*dharma*), attention arises. Then the consciousness-seed arises at the location of that mental object, and the mental faculty contacts the mental object. To whichever mental object attention is directed, the seed arises upon that mental object, forming the conscious mind (*vijñāna*). Contact with that mental object occurs after attention, then the seed arises. After the seed emerges and there is a conscious mind, contact with the mental object can occur.

After contact, there is reception; after reception, there is grasping of characteristics and differentiation; after differentiation, there is deliberation. If deliberation is unclear, one again contacts; after contact, there is reception and feeling, or at this point one again attends, and then again has the nature of differentiation. Again there is contact, again the nature of differentiation—here the sequence of subsequent mental factors becomes disordered. The initial sequence follows the order of attention, contact, feeling, perception, and volition; the operation of mental factors is like this.

II. Speaking of the Three Factors: Sense Faculties, Sense Objects, and Consciousnesses

Of course, this involves the five universal mental factors of the six consciousnesses: contact (*sparśa*), attention (*manasikāra*), feeling (*vedanā*), perception (*saṃjñā*), and volition (*cetanā*). The contact of the six consciousnesses is threefold conjunction (*trayaḥ-saṃnipāta*). Threefold conjunction is the union of the three: sense faculty, sense object, and consciousness, called contact. None of the three can be lacking. After the six sense faculties and six sense objects contact, the six consciousnesses arise. The six consciousnesses contact the six sense objects. Simultaneously, the six sense faculties continuously contact the six sense objects without ever separating from them, because the internal six sense objects arise at the location of the superior sense faculties, and the mental faculty is always in contact with the mental object. The contact spoken of here refers to the contact between sense faculties and sense objects and does not include the contact of the eighth consciousness. The contact of the mental faculty and the eighth consciousness only needs to directly contact the objective aspect (*nimitta*) and does not require other sense faculties to induce it.

The contact of the mental faculty directly contacts the mental objects manifested by the eighth consciousness. The contact of the eighth consciousness directly contacts the sense faculties and the objective realm (*viṣaya*), meaning it contacts the body as sense faculty (*indriya-kāya*), the receptacle world (*bhājana-loka*), and karmic seeds (*karma-bīja*). The contact mental factor of the six consciousnesses differs from that of the seventh and eighth consciousnesses. The contact mental factor of the six consciousnesses must be induced by sense faculties; contact exists only when inseparable from the six sense faculties. The feeling mental factor is also like this. The feeling mental factor is the feeling that arises after the six consciousnesses contact the six sense faculties and six sense objects. This feeling (*vedanā*) here includes not only reception and acceptance but also subsequent emotional feelings: feelings of suffering, pleasure, and neither-suffering-nor-pleasure. The feeling of the eighth consciousness is purely receptive and accepting, without the slightest emotion, devoid of suffering or pleasure, corresponding only to equanimity (*upekṣā*). The mental faculty also has three feelings: suffering, pleasure, and neither-suffering-nor-pleasure. For example, the mental consciousness tells the mental faculty not to be angry, yet it still becomes furious; the mental consciousness tells the mental faculty not to be excited, yet it still becomes extremely excited; the mental consciousness tells the mental faculty not to be too happy, yet it still cannot control itself from dancing for joy; the mental consciousness tells the mental faculty, "I should forgive his ignorance and rudeness," yet the mental faculty still refuses to comply. Does the mental faculty have emotions? Unaccountable crying, unaccountable emotional outbursts—these are inexplicably of the mental faculty.

After the six consciousnesses arise, whether the attention mental factor or the contact mental factor comes first is uncertain. In the initial stage, when the six consciousnesses are at the seed stage, attention must come first. After directing the conscious mind to the objective realm it needs to face, attention is completed. When the conscious mind arises, there is contact with the sense object; the six consciousnesses can then contact the objective realm. After contacting the objective realm, they can differentiate it. This is the initial sequence: attention first, contact afterward. After contact, there is feeling, perception, and volition. After volition, the conscious mind again contacts; after contact, it may again generate attention, again receive, again differentiate, again generate volition, again have feelings. Thus, the order of these several mental factors may become reversed. It is possible that contact comes first; after contacting the objective realm, attention is drawn to the objective realm—this is attention.

The manifestation of the five universal mental factors sometimes begins with attention first; after all five universal mental factors are operating; sometimes contact comes first—contact first, then attention. After the six consciousnesses contact the objective realm, feeling arises, enabling the reception and acceptance of the objective realm. Then, grasping the objective realm occurs, thus giving rise to names and concepts (*nāma*), and perception (*saṃjñā*) arises. After names and perception arise, the volition mental factor begins to act, thus generating thought, deliberation, and consideration. After deliberation, one of the three feelings—suffering, pleasure, or equanimity—may also arise. At this point, a preliminary decision is made, and bodily, verbal, and mental actions begin to be produced.

After bodily, verbal, and mental actions are produced, one may again contact; because the objective realm cannot be fully decided, one must again contact, again receive, again differentiate, again deliberate, repeatedly until one can fully understand, become completely clear, and make a final decision, whereupon it concludes. The procedures here are quite complex; the finer details cannot be observed through contemplation. The five mental factors do not necessarily operate according to a fixed sequence, nor must they all proceed through five procedures in turn. It is possible that upon reaching feeling, one returns to contact again; it is possible that upon reaching perception, one again contacts; it is possible that after volition is completed, a decision still cannot be made temporarily, so one must again contact, contact again and attend; or attend first then contact—the sequence is uncertain. The number of times the five mental factors manifest and their durations all differ.

The volition (*cetanā*) in the volition mental factor (*cetanā-caitta*) contains the meanings of deliberation, action, and decision. These mental activities (*caitasika*) belong to the category of formations (*saṃskāra*); formations can be called the aggregate of formations (*saṃskāra-skandha*) or the covering of formations (*saṃskārāvaraṇa*). Why is it called the covering of formations? Because if we regard these mental activities, these functional activities, as real, as self and belonging to self, then they obscure the essential nature of the true reality (*tathatā*), obscure the wondrous luminous true mind (*citta*), and thus one only sees the operation of these phenomena without seeing the essential functionality of the eighth consciousness. Therefore, formations are also called the covering of formations. Why is it called the aggregate of formations? The operation of consciousness is a functional activity assembled and aggregated by various conditions (*pratyaya*), so it is also called the aggregate of formations. In reality, they are all mental factors (*caitta*), a function of the six consciousnesses.

Volition (*cetanā*) is a behavioral action. Anything that has behavioral action, change, or operation is called formation (*saṃskāra*). The scope of the covering of formations (*saṃskārāvaraṇa*) is broader than that of the volition mental factor. The covering of formations also includes the operational functions of the physical body. The operation of both body and mind constitutes the complete scope of the covering of formations. The operation of the volition mental factor is also complex. Its functions are deliberation, weighing, decision-making, and action, with the final link being decisive action. The volition mental factor has three processes: including thinking, reflection, analysis, judgment, decision-making, and finally taking actual action. The volition of the first five consciousnesses is relatively simple, deciding only whether to approach or withdraw from the objective realm. The volition of the sixth consciousness is the most complex, requiring repeated consideration and reflection; its wisdom power is relatively strong. The volition of the first five consciousnesses must rely on the perception and volition of the sixth consciousness to operate. Therefore, volition itself is mental action (*manaskāra*). After mental action is produced, bodily action (*kāya-saṃskāra*) and verbal action (*vāk-saṃskāra*) arise, and thus the five consciousnesses also participate.

The feeling (*vedanā*) in the feeling mental factor (*vedanā-caitta*) refers to the reception and acceptance by the six consciousnesses themselves. Reception and acceptance mean accepting the objective realm. After accepting the objective realm, differentiation occurs. After differentiation, the six consciousnesses then have emotional feelings of suffering, pleasure, and neither-suffering-nor-pleasure. The feeling prior to the emergence of emotional feeling is the feeling of receiving and accepting the objective realm. For example, after the eye consciousness contacts a visual object, the eye consciousness receives the visual object and accepts it. After accepting it, there is the perception (*saṃjñā*) of discernment and knowing. Then the grasping perception arises. Because there is knowing and grasping, feelings of suffering and pleasure arise.

Without knowing, there are no emotional feelings of suffering and pleasure; without grasping, feelings of suffering and pleasure do not appear. Therefore, the scope of the feeling mental factor is broader than that of the feeling aggregate (*vedanā-skandha*) in the five aggregates. The feeling aggregate is primarily emotional feeling, including the three emotional feelings: suffering, pleasure, and neither-suffering-nor-pleasure. The feeling mental factors of the seventh and eighth consciousnesses differ somewhat from those of the six consciousnesses. The eighth consciousness has only equanimity (*upekṣā*), no suffering or pleasure, and no emotional coloring. The five universal mental factors of the eight consciousnesses each have many subtle differences.

III. The Five Aggregates or Five Coverings

The aggregates of feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are entirely the nature of the six consciousnesses. The feeling aggregate is the nature and function of the feeling of the six consciousnesses. The perception aggregate is the functional activity of the perception of the six consciousnesses. The formations aggregate is the functional activity of the formations of the six consciousnesses. The consciousness aggregate is the functional activity of the discernment of the six consciousnesses. The four aggregates correspond respectively to the four mental factors of feeling, perception, volition, and discernment of the six consciousnesses. After the six consciousnesses contact the six sense objects, there is the feeling mental factor, the perception mental factor, and the volition mental factor. The volition mental factor has the meaning of moving the body and emitting speech, the meaning of deliberative action, and the meaning of being able to manifest bodily, verbal, and mental actions.

The five universal mental factors of the six consciousnesses begin with attention. Attention directs the focus to the objective realm. Whatever phenomenon the mental faculty, the seventh consciousness, wants to differentiate, the six consciousnesses attend to that phenomenon. Therefore, the attention of the six consciousnesses is determined and controlled by the mental faculty. After the six consciousnesses attend, the consciousness-seed arises, and the six consciousnesses manifest. Then the three—sense faculty, sense object, and consciousness—contact. After contact, the first thing is reception. What is reception? Reception does not refer to the feeling of suffering or pleasure; initially, there is no emotional feeling. It is first receiving the objective realm; the six consciousnesses receive the objective realm of the six sense objects, meaning they first accept it. After accepting it, the perception mental factor begins differentiation; it is contact first, then differentiation.

For example, someone gives you an object. You first turn your attention to that object, then touch it with your hand, then accept the object, take it in hand, and afterward carefully differentiate and observe it. After observation, you grasp the characteristics (*nimitta*), develop a decisive mind regarding the object, and then feelings (*vedanā*) arise. As for which comes first afterward, the feeling mental factor or the perception mental factor, it is hard to say; they appear alternately, and the sequence of the five mental factors becomes disordered. Many people differentiating the same thing simultaneously will have different sequences of mental factors. This is related to each person's wisdom power (*prajñā*), concentration power (*samādhi*), karmic power (*karma*), and habitual tendencies (*vāsanā*).

Generally, after receiving the objective realm, perception arises. After having the functional nature of differentiation and grasping characteristics, feelings can arise. If the feelings are unclear, one again contacts and perceives, again differentiates and knows. After knowing, a decision-making mind arises, and various feelings also arise. The longer contact, perception, and volition take, the more internal feelings arise, and the greater the changes in mental state. This indicates continuous perception and continuous feeling; continuous feeling and again continuous perception; the emotions in the mind fluctuate, and the mind continuously grasps the characteristics of the objective realm. The five mental factors operate back and forth repeatedly, and their sequence is often disordered. For example, in the operation of the volition mental factor, when the perception mental factor differentiates the objective realm unclearly, volition is unclear, and the decisiveness of the volition mental factor cannot arise; there is no decision-making power. At this point, one must return to let the contact mental factor and perception mental factor operate. After differentiation becomes clear, the volition mental factor gains decision-making power and can make the final decision. Then the operation of the five universal mental factors upon this objective realm concludes.

When the perception mental factor has not differentiated clearly, one again differentiates and deliberates. When the volition mental factor still cannot make a decision, the six consciousnesses must repeatedly deliberate and perceive, again and again know; after knowing, again feel; after feeling, again know; after knowing, again deliberate; if deliberation is unclear, again attend. After attending, again contact, or again directly perceive, or after contacting, again perceive; after perceiving, again feel; after feeling, again deliberate; after deliberating, again feel—the sequence is entirely uncertain.

After all five mental factors have operated, if there is again attention, it means directing the attention of the six consciousnesses to the objective realm to be differentiated. Then the three—sense faculty, sense object, and consciousness—combine and contact. After combined contact, the first thing is acceptance and reception, then differentiation and knowing. After knowing clearly, feelings arise. If the feelings are unclear, one again differentiates and knows, possibly repeatedly attending, contacting, and knowing. After the six consciousnesses have all differentiated and grasped, and feelings have arisen, one can then decide the next corresponding action to take. This requires first deliberating, considering, judging, then making a decision, determining which bodily, verbal, and mental actions to take. This must be divided into many steps, progressing layer by layer, deepening layer by layer, until bodily and verbal actions are all produced. If thinking is unclear, one needs to again contact, again attend, again perceive, again know, until final differentiation is clear.

In the series of operations of the five mental factors, the contact mental factor must exist. This means the sense faculties, sense objects, and consciousness must be conjoined and cannot be separated. Otherwise, if consciousness separates from the objective realm, contact ceases and can no longer exist or operate; nor can sense objects separate from sense faculties, otherwise consciousness cannot arise. Furthermore, only when the six consciousnesses contact the six sense objects can they receive and differentiate the objective realm; contact is the prerequisite. If we do not wish to differentiate further, do not wish to feel further, do not wish to have further bodily, verbal, or mental actions, then consciousness should not continue to contact sense objects; shift the attention of the six consciousnesses away and do not attend further—then there will be no subsequent mental activities. This is the best method for cultivating concentration (*samādhi*) and mind (*citta*). Practicing thus enables one to forget the objective realm, not give rise to thoughts or give rise to few thoughts. The Arhats (*arhat*) are like this. Therefore, generally speaking, they have no emotional fluctuations, few feelings, and are mindless towards objects (*viṣaya*).

Ordinary sentient beings, when contacting an objective realm, because of craving (*tṛṣṇā*) and ignorance (*avidyā*), once they contact the objective realm, they are unwilling to leave. They differentiate and feel for a long time, deliberate for a long time; their minds have no leisure, thoughts are chaotic. Some people, precisely because they lack wisdom power, differentiate unclearly and think unclearly, cannot make decisions, and thus must continuously contact the objective realm, turning thoughts over and over, tossing and turning, their minds unsettled. Because they cannot perceive clearly, cannot deliberate clearly, they cannot decide, so they must repeatedly attend and contact.

Some people need a long time to contact an objective realm; they also need a long time to think about a matter. One reason is that the mind has craving; another is that the matter is complex and their discerning wisdom is insufficient; another is that the matter is very important and must be differentiated and thought through clearly before deciding. If differentiation and knowing are unclear, feelings are unclear, and deliberation and consideration follow unclearly, then one must continuously attend, continuously contact, continuously differentiate. Among them, attention and contact, operating later, which operates first and which operates afterward is uncertain; feeling and perception, which operates first and which operates afterward is also uncertain; the sequence of the several mental factors is entirely uncertain.

IV. The Actual Operation of the Five Universal Mental Factors

The actual situation of the operation of the five universal mental factors can be explained with an analogy. For example, suppose there is a painter painting. The five universal mental factors can be likened to the painter. The six sense objects differentiated by the mental factors are like the landscape painting the painter is painting. When the painter is about to paint and copy, he first looks at the scenery he is copying. When he looks up at the scenery before him, that is attending to the scenery before him. He shifts his eye consciousness to the scenery, equivalent to directing his attention to the scenery before him, thereby inducing the next mental activities of contact and grasping characteristics. The painter looking at the scenery is attention. After attention, he contacts the scenery. After contacting the scenery, there is feeling. At this time, feeling is generally the meaning of reception; it is receiving the objective realm of the six sense objects and accepting the objective realm.

At this time, there is no emotional coloring yet; it does not contain emotions like suffering, pleasure, sorrow, joy, equanimity, etc. He does not yet consider the landscape before him beautiful or magnificent, nor does he feel the scenery desolate and give rise to inner emotions. This is because differentiation and grasping of characteristics have not yet begun; it is merely simply accepting the objective realm. After accepting it, he differentiates it; differentiation is perception. He can know what this is, thus grasping the characteristics, grasping the objective realm. After grasping the characteristics of the objective realm, he withdraws his eyes and mentally recalls and visualizes, firmly imprinting the landscape scene in his mind, then decides how to copy it. This is equivalent to the operation of the volition mental factor. After the landscape scene is imprinted in his mind, he begins to sketch on the drawing board. These sketching actions are equivalent to the action of the volition mental factor; bodily, verbal, and mental actions have already arisen.

After the painter copies for a while, he does not know how to continue painting because the image in his mind has become blurred. He must again look up at the scenery before him. This is again attending. He again contacts the scenery. After contacting, he again receives and accepts. At this time, emotional feelings arise; he feels the landscape before him is so beautiful and magnificent, and the poetic and artistic conception within his mind emerges. These feelings might have been present during the initial sketching. After receiving the objective realm, he again differentiates. After differentiation, he again considers how to sketch. After considering, he begins to sketch again. This series of action processes is equivalent to the repeated operation of the five mental factors: attention, contact, feeling, perception, and volition.

After attention, he contacts the objective realm. After contacting the objective realm, there is feeling. After feeling, there is differentiation. If differentiation is unclear, he again contacts; he may not need to attend again because he has been continuously looking at the scenery, his attention not shifted elsewhere. He again contacts; at this time, he may not need to contact separately because he has been continuously contacting the objective realm, never separated from the scenery before him. After contacting the objective realm, he again receives; at this time, he may not need to receive the objective realm again because he has been continuously receiving it; he directly generates the perception mental factor, repeatedly differentiating and deliberating. This series of actions continuously operates until the landscape painting is completed. This is equivalent to the six consciousnesses having fully differentiated and made the final decision; the matter is considered concluded. The operation of the five universal mental factors upon this objective realm is considered complete. Bodily, verbal, and mental actions are produced to completion; the painting is finished.

The five universal mental factors can be likened to the painter. He is always contacting the landscape scene he needs to copy, attending to that objective realm, differentiating that objective realm, deliberating on that objective realm, and then beginning to copy according to the differentiated objective realm. The five universal mental factors of the six consciousnesses operate similarly.

V. When Does the Attention Mental Factor of the Six Consciousnesses Begin?

After the mental faculty (*manas*) grasps the phenomena manifested by the storehouse consciousness (*ālaya-vijñāna*), regarding important phenomena, the mental faculty must attend. After attending, the mental factors of contact, feeling, and perception arise, followed by the volition mental factor. After the storehouse consciousness discerns the mental faculty's volition mental factor and attention mental factor, it actively cooperates with the mental faculty. Whatever phenomenon the mental faculty attends to, whatever it deliberates on, whatever it decides to differentiate, the eighth consciousness manifests the six consciousnesses upon that phenomenon. The six consciousnesses that arise are necessarily upon the mental object (*dharma*) that the mental faculty attends to and deliberates on. If it is a phenomenon the mental faculty does not attend to, the six consciousnesses cannot arise. Therefore, the differentiation of the six consciousnesses is all induced by the mental faculty's attention and volition mental factor. After the mental faculty deliberates, the eighth consciousness cooperates with it to produce the six consciousnesses.

For example, the mental faculty attends to a flower. After contacting, feeling, and perceiving this flower, it generates the volition mental factor. Simultaneously, the eighth consciousness discerns the mental faculty's volition mental factor and manifests the eye consciousness and mental consciousness upon the internal visual object of the flower at the superior sense faculties at the back of the head. Before the eye consciousness arises, while the eye consciousness is in the seed stage (*bīja*), it directs itself towards attending to the internal visual object of the flower. The seed stage is when it is in the consciousness-seed phase. Before the consciousness-seed can arise, it must have a direction and location for arising and move towards that location to arise. Because there are very many six sense objects at the superior sense faculties at the back of the head, which sense object the eye consciousness and six consciousnesses arise upon depends on which phenomenon the mental faculty attends to. If the mental faculty attends to the flower, the eye consciousness seed is projected onto the flower. Thus, before the consciousness-seed arises, it prepares to arise upon the internal visual object of the flower at the superior sense faculties at the back of the head. This preparation is attention.

The eye consciousness and mental consciousness, while in the seed stage, prepare to arise at the location of the flower. First, at the location of the flower's appearance (*varṇa-rūpa*), the eye consciousness seed in the seed stage prepares to arise upon the flower's appearance, equivalent to attending to the flower's appearance. After attending, the eye consciousness seed is projected onto the flower's appearance, and the eye consciousness immediately arises. After the eye consciousness arises, the operation of the four mental factors—contact, feeling, perception, and volition—of the eye consciousness begins. Simultaneously, at the superior sense faculties at the back of the head, there are also the flower's shape (*saṃsthāna-rūpa*), expressive movements (*vijñapti-rūpa*), and non-expressive movements (*avijñapti-rūpa*); these are mental objects (*dharma*). The mental consciousness seed prepares to be projected at the location of the flower's shape, expressive movements, and non-expressive movements. The mental consciousness seed is projected onto the mental object of the flower, and the mental consciousness rushes to the mental object of the flower's shape and expressive movements to arise. Thus, the mental consciousness is formed, followed by the operation of the four mental factors—contact, feeling, perception, and volition—of the mental consciousness towards the flower.

After the eye consciousness and mental consciousness arise, the two consciousnesses contact the flower. Attention already appeared at the seed stage. After the two consciousnesses arise, the operation of the contact mental factor begins. The initial attention necessarily occurs at the seed stage. After contacting the flower, the feeling mental factor, perception mental factor, and volition mental factor arise. After operating thus, there is again attention. At this time, attention is no longer at the seed stage but is the attention within the operation of the eye consciousness and mental consciousness themselves. After again contacting, feeling, perceiving, and deliberating, differentiation gives rise to a final decision, and the matter of seeing the flower concludes. This is the sequence of the arising and operation of the eye consciousness and mental consciousness.