When consciousness contacts the sense-object, the faculty, the object, and the consciousness converge in contact—what is the result?

The eye consciousness discerns form, the ear consciousness discerns sound, and so on up to the mind consciousness discerning dharmas. The contact arising from the convergence of these three is a matter of great importance. When the faculties do not contact the sense objects, there is no consciousness; when consciousness does not contact the sense objects, consciousness has no function whatsoever. What kinds of sense objects does each consciousness contact? Clarify the range that each consciousness can contact, and then contemplate: without the six consciousnesses, what else could be done? Beings in the formless realm have no physical body and five faculties—why do they still possess mind consciousness? Once these questions are clearly understood, awakening in the future will be true realization. Otherwise, if meditative concentration is insufficient, contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) is impossible, and at most one gains only intellectual understanding/interpretive awakening. Nowadays more and more people have interpretive awakening, yet they derive no real benefit from it, and their afflictions remain just as heavy as before.

When the faculty contacts the sense object, consciousness arises; when the faculty does not contact the sense object, consciousness cannot arise. At the end of life, the four great elements decompose first, and consciousness still exists at that time, so the suffering is extremely intense. Everyone's physical body is held and sustained by their own eighth consciousness, and changes in one's own physical body are also the result of the functioning of one's own eighth consciousness. So how could one person kill another and thereby alter the physical condition of the other's body? Without mind consciousness, the five sense consciousnesses cannot arise. The discernment of the six sense objects is determined by the manas; the manas acts as the master. The manas necessarily contacts the mental sense objects. If the manas does not determine and does not act as master, the eighth consciousness does not give rise to the five sense consciousnesses; but once the manas exercises its mastery, it is already contacting the mental sense objects, and mind consciousness will certainly arise. Mind consciousness is also the dominant condition (adhipati-pratyaya) of the five sense consciousnesses.