What Form Contacts the Eye's Gross Organ?

Form is categorized into the form of the fundamental realm, the form of the realm with substance, and the form of the realm of intrinsic nature. Among these, the external form-dust of the fundamental realm can only be contacted by the eighth consciousness; the eye consciousness, the mental consciousness, and the floating dust roots of the eye cannot contact it, nor can the mental faculty (manas) contact it. After the eighth consciousness contacts the fundamental realm, it further manifests, based on the four great elements of the fundamental realm, a realm with substance. This part of form can be contacted by the mental faculty and can also be transmitted to the floating dust roots of the eye. What the floating dust roots of the eye contact are the four great elements of the realm with substance, manifested again by the eighth consciousness, not the four great elements of the fundamental realm. Therefore, the floating dust roots of the eye cannot contact the form-dust of the fundamental realm; there must be a certain distance from the fundamental realm for the form-dust to be transmitted into the subtle roots. Then, the sense organs and objects contact, giving rise to the eye consciousness perceiving form.

If the floating dust roots of the eye directly contact the form-dust of the fundamental realm without any intervening distance, the Tathagatagarbha cannot transmit the realm with substance (manifested based on the fundamental realm) through the floating dust roots into the subtle roots, and thus cannot give birth to the eye consciousness perceiving form. This is because the transmission of form-dust by the eye root is relatively unique, involving a principle of image formation by the eye root. There must be a distance between the form-dust and the eye root for an inverted image to be projected onto the retina of the eye root. The other sense faculties do not have this phenomenon; they do not require a specific distance from their respective sense objects. Therefore, the condition of spatial distance is an additional factor for the eye perceiving form compared to the other sense faculties perceiving their objects.