On the Subtle Sense Faculties

All sentient beings in the human realm possess subtle sense faculties, and beings in the animal realm also possess subtle sense faculties. The physical bodies of animals, like those of humans, are composed of the four great elements forming fleshly matter, possessing brains and subtle sense faculties. When the subtle sense faculties develop pathological conditions, animals too can experience schizophrenia or madness. Due to karmic obstructions, the subtle sense faculties of animals are inferior to those of humans, resulting in significant perceptual distortions when seeing people or objects, and they do not perceive the Dharma as it truly is. However, various animals possess specialized abilities characteristic of their kind; for example, some animals have acute vision enabling night sight, some have acute hearing, some have acute smell, some have acute taste, and some have acute touch. But generally speaking, animals have poor cognitive thinking power and lack logical analytical ability, relying mostly on the intuitive power of the manas. Thus, they appear relatively simple-minded. Apart from creating the karma of killing for the sake of filling their stomachs and survival, they scarcely use their minds to create other unwholesome karmas, belonging to beings who are purely experiencing retribution.

Beings in the Four Formless Heavens of the Formless Realm, because their environment is formless, lack the five sense objects of form, lack a physical body, and thus lack subtle sense faculties. They also lack the internal five sense objects and the internal mental sense object, and lack the five consciousnesses. However, they possess mind consciousness, manas, and the eighth consciousness. Their eighth consciousness and manas exist perpetually without cessation, and their mind consciousness also exists perpetually without cessation. What their mind consciousness perceives is the exclusive shadow realm within meditative absorption, lacking an external mental sense object, possessing only the exclusive shadow realm. If the mind consciousness ceases, only the eighth consciousness and manas remain, which pertains to the state of cessation. Therefore, the mind consciousness of beings in the Formless Heavens also exists perpetually without cessation. There is no distinction between day and night; they do not require sleep or rest, remaining perpetually in meditative absorption, facing the exclusive shadow realm.