What are the objects of the sixth and seventh consciousnesses?

Question: Without the dust-marks (objects), consciousness cannot arise. Therefore, when the fifty-one mental factors of the first seven consciousnesses operate, they must necessarily be directed toward certain dust-marks. The first five consciousnesses can only be directed toward the object-aspects of the five dusts, which belong to material form (rūpa-dharma). As for the objects of the sixth and seventh consciousnesses, do they include both material-form dharmas and mental dharmas?

Answer: One of the conditions for the arising of the six consciousnesses is the contact between faculty and object; the six dusts are a necessary condition for the arising of the six consciousnesses. However, the condition for the manas to arise and continue its present activity without ceasing is the presence of seeds of the three realms, with craving and desire. Although the manas has existed since beginningless kalpas, it has also had the afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion, as well as ignorance, since beginningless kalpas.

The condition for the operation of mental factors (caittas) is this: as long as a consciousness exists, the mental factors necessarily accompany the mind-consciousness in its activity; consciousness operates precisely in the form of mental factors.

The objects of the first five consciousnesses are the five dusts of form, sound, smell, taste, and touch, which do not belong to the mental dusts. The material-form dharmas that the sixth and seventh consciousnesses take as objects are the dharmas upon the five dusts, as well as subjectively imagined realms, and also mental dharmas—the eight consciousnesses and the mental factors of the eight consciousnesses—and also dharmas that are neither material nor mental, such as the conditioned formations not associated with the mind (citta-viprayukta-saṃskāra).