Brief Discussion on Material Elements (Draft)

15. Can the Outer Five Sense-Objects Exist Without the Outer Mental Sense-Object?

A mental sense-object (dharma-viṣaya) must combine with one of the five sense-objects to form a single, distinct sense-object realm; the mental sense-object and the five sense-objects cannot be separated—once separated, nothing exists at all, and there would be no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, and no mental sense-object. In the sense-object formed by the combination of the mental sense-object and the five sense-objects, the proportion of the mental sense-object is very large; it is almost dominated by the mental sense-object. For example, with the form sense-object\: colors belong to the realm of the five sense-objects and are discerned by the eye consciousness; everything else is the mental sense-object, discerned by the mind consciousness. Only when the discernments of the two consciousnesses are combined is the form sense-object completely discerned—neither can be lacking. Especially if the mental sense-object discerned by the mind consciousness is missing, then nothing exists at all. Therefore, without the mental sense-object, the realm of the five sense-objects simply cannot exist; in a unified sense-object realm, the mental sense-object cannot be absent.

For example, a person's physical body is composed of colors and material mental sense-objects. The colors are discerned by the eye consciousness, while everything else is content discerned by the mind consciousness, including tallness or shortness, fatness or thinness, body weight, temperament, appearance, age, personality, disposition, whether one is healthy or not, and so on. Therefore, without the mental sense-object, there would be no physical body. Thus, when sentient beings' tathāgatagarbha gives rise to their physical bodies, it must simultaneously give rise to colors and mental sense-objects, to sound sense-objects and mental sense-objects; these together constitute the essential realm of the sentient being's physical body. When others look at it, they also see the sentient being's illusory transformed realm—one's own inner six sense-objects. It is impossible to have only the outer five sense-objects without the outer mental sense-object; there is no such thing as a standalone realm of the five sense-objects—no such dharma exists in the mundane world.