How Sentient Beings Are Born in the Black Box

First, let us discuss how the black box comes into existence. Since the black box is located at the supreme faculty (indriya) in the back of the brain and is part of the body faculty, it arises and is born along with the body faculty. The body faculty is gradually formed in the mother's womb when the seventh consciousness and the eighth consciousness enter the womb to take rebirth. When the eighth consciousness has transformed and created the body faculty in the womb to around four months, the rudimentary form of the supreme faculty in the back of the brain is basically complete, and thus the black box is formed.

At this time, the fetus's external sound objects (rūpa-viṣaya) and tactile objects can be transmitted through the fetus's ear faculty and body faculty into the black box at the supreme faculty in the back of the brain, becoming the inner representative forms of sound objects and tactile objects. When they contact the ear supreme faculty and body supreme faculty within the black box, the ear consciousness, body consciousness, and mind consciousness are born. Afterward, the fetus can discern sounds within the mother's womb and sounds outside the womb, as well as the cold and heat inside the womb and its own sensations of touch, pain, squeezing, and pressure. In fact, all these contents that the fetus discerns are information within its own black box at the supreme faculty, not information from inside or outside the mother's body, nor are they external objects of the fetus's own body; they are all the inner sound objects and inner tactile objects within the fetus's supreme faculty.

When the supreme faculty develops and matures further, scent objects and taste objects will also be transmitted through the gross sense faculties of the nose and tongue to the nose supreme faculty and tongue supreme faculty, becoming inner scent objects and inner taste objects. When they contact the nose faculty and tongue faculty in the supreme faculty, the nose consciousness and tongue consciousness are born, to discern the scent objects and taste objects within the mother's womb—which are in fact the inner scent objects and inner taste objects within the fetus's own black box. Does the fetus's black box contain inner material sense-objects? Yes, there are inner material sense-objects, but although faculty and object make contact, the eye consciousness does not arise, and the fetus cannot see the inner material sense-objects. Why? Because there is no light inside the womb, and the arising of the eye consciousness requires nine conditions, of which light is one.

When the fetus's body faculty has developed completely and perfectly, the supreme faculty has also developed to perfection, the black box's functions are complete, and the ten months of gestation are full, the fetus is born from the mother's womb and becomes an infant. At first, the infant still cannot open its eyes; only after a few days of adaptation can it open its eyes and dimly see the inner material sense-objects within its own black box. The inner six faculties, inner six objects, and inner six consciousnesses—the eighteen dhātus—are complete, and the human form is complete.