Brief Discussion on Material Elements (Draft)

X. Are There Really Outer Mental Sense-Objects?

Outer mental sense-objects (outer dharma-viṣaya) are, for example, the mountains outside. The shape of a mountain—its height, loftiness, majesty, and grandeur—are all outer mental sense-objects. After the tathāgatagarbha makes contact with them, they are transmitted into the supreme faculty (indriya), becoming inner mental sense-objects (inner dharma-viṣaya), and only then can the six consciousnesses discern them.

If there were no outer mental sense-objects, and the mountains outside had only colors with nothing else whatsoever, then how could one distinguish this mountain from that mountain, or distinguish mountains, rivers, and the great earth? Surely it cannot be that the entire material universe (the receptacle world) is just a riot of colors and nothing more?

Person A is a person, and Person B is a person. To B, A is an outer sense-object, including all six sense-objects: form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharma. A's height, build, gender, temperament, age, appearance, and so on are all outer mental sense-objects. After B's tathāgatagarbha makes contact with them, they are transmitted into B's supreme faculty, becoming inner mental sense-objects. One cannot say that A is merely a patch of colored form-sense-object, without outer mental sense-objects such as height, build, age, appearance, and so on, can one? If every person were only a patch of color, without any mental sense-objects, then what difference would there be between any two people? Does each person's tathāgatagarbha use other people's tathāgatagarbhas to create inner mental sense-objects? Does each person's tathāgatagarbha arbitrarily and randomly fabricate the appearances of other people's mental sense-objects?