The Principle of Eye Base Contacting Form Object

When the eye faculty contacts form dust, it is divided into the external eye faculty contacting external form dust and the internal eye faculty contacting internal form dust. Only when the internal eye faculty contacts internal form dust can eye consciousness arise to discern form dust. However, the eye faculty is material form, not mind—how can it actively contact form dust? For example, when there are trees, stones, grass, and flowers before the eyes, why does the eye faculty exclusively choose to contact the flowers, causing eye consciousness to discern only the flowers and not other objects? How long does it take for the eye faculty to contact form dust? How long does it take for eye consciousness to discern the flowers? What determines this?

All this is determined by the mental faculty. The mental faculty is the master of the five aggregates body, the one in charge. Of course, the mental faculty is merely a false master, like a fox borrowing the tiger's fierceness—it relies on the true master behind it without knowing it. When this false master, the mental faculty, faces numerous internal form dust objects, it exclusively chooses flowers because the mind delights in them, and currently, there are no other matters requiring attention—it simply wishes to admire the flowers. If there were important matters, it would not attend to the flowers. When the mental faculty wants to see the flowers, the form dust of these flowers is already present at the internal eye faculty. Once the mental faculty makes its decision, eye consciousness arises. Thus, the eye faculty, form dust, and eye consciousness come together in contact, and eye consciousness discerns the form dust of the flowers. How long eye consciousness discerns the flowers is determined by the mental faculty. Once the mental faculty has admired them sufficiently, it no longer wishes to look at the flowers, and so eye consciousness ceases upon the flowers and arises elsewhere.

In this process, seeds fall away, giving rise to future existence. Within this, the craving of the mental faculty and the craving of mental consciousness are truthfully recorded, becoming seeds. Eye consciousness also has slight craving, but it merely follows the mental faculty and mental consciousness to have craving—it fundamentally cannot act as master and is completely involuntary.

If we wish to be liberated from worldly suffering, we must prevent our actions from leaving behind seeds, especially the seeds of greed, hatred, and delusion. How, then, should we proceed? We must control the six consciousnesses to refrain from creating bodily, verbal, and mental actions, or at least create fewer such actions. Moreover, when acting, we must not give rise to the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, striving instead to leave behind pure karmic seeds. Who determines the reduction of karmic actions? It is determined by the mental faculty. The source of karmic actions lies with the mental faculty—it is the mental faculty that, due to various reasons, mental formations, and ignorance, wishes to act, causing karmic actions to appear, karmic seeds to be retained, and future suffering to arise. Thus, having identified the source of the suffering of birth and death, how one should conduct oneself in the world henceforth should become clear. Reduce contact, reduce the duration of contact. If contact is unavoidable, during contact, reduce or eliminate mental formations, allowing the mind to remain as empty as possible, leaving no seeds of affliction. By gradually training oneself in this way, liberation becomes attainable.