Eliminating the Self-View of Taking the Mind Consciousness as Self (III)

Mind consciousness can be divided into two kinds: the mental consciousness accompanying the five sense consciousnesses (pañcavijñāna-sahagata-manovijñāna) and the solitary mental consciousness. When it operates together with the five sense consciousnesses, performing the function of discernment, it is the mental consciousness accompanying the five sense consciousnesses; when it does not operate together with the five sense consciousnesses and can function independently, it is the solitary mental consciousness. The mind consciousness that is together with the eye consciousness, when seeing material form, can simultaneously analyze the quality, source, and content of that material sense-object, as well as how boring or how interesting that material sense-object is; thus there arise feelings toward form, discrimination of form, comprehension of form, and judgment of form—all of these are the discriminating functions of the mind consciousness.

By what causes and conditions does the mind consciousness arise? For the mind consciousness to arise, there must be such conditions as the eye faculty, material sense-objects, the manas, the eighth consciousness, and its own seeds of consciousness. Because these causes and conditions exist, our mind consciousness can manifest presently and can discern the specific content of material sense-objects, discriminate form, judge form, think about form, plan to deal with form, and speculate about form. This is the mind consciousness that is together with the eye consciousness; if even one condition is lacking, the mind consciousness cannot be born and cannot arise to discriminate. From this, we can know how illusory our mind consciousness really is.