The Combined Functioning of the Eye Consciousness and Mind Consciousness (II)

When we look at a form-body, at the very first glance we need to pause for a moment, and during that pause, how many kṣaṇas have already passed. Only after half a second or a second of discernment can we know what this form-body is. The Buddha said: in the snap of a finger, eighty-one thousand seeds have arisen and ceased, and there are eighty-one thousand kṣaṇas. So how fast must the flowing forth of the seeds of consciousness be! No wonder we all fail to perceive the existence of the phenomenon of arising and ceasing—it is simply that the arising and ceasing is so swift that we cannot perceive its existence.

This shows that in the first and second kṣaṇas we do not know what the material sense-object is; only after the third or fourth kṣaṇa can we know a little bit of it, and some people may need until the fifth kṣaṇa or even longer to see it a little more clearly. Those with impaired vision may need to look for half a minute or a full minute; exactly how long is not certain—it depends on a person's discriminative capacity, that is, on how capable the two consciousnesses, the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness, are at discernment. The weaker a person's discriminative capacity, the longer the time needed to look. For example, some people are nearsighted or presbyopic, having some visual impairment, and they need more time to discern the material sense-object; others have low wisdom and shallow insight, and their time for discernment is even longer.

But throughout this process of looking at forms, the eighth consciousness has never once stopped operating. Before it gives rise to the inner material sense-object in the first kṣaṇa, He has been continuously transmitting the particles of the outer material sense-object, transmitting them without pause through the optic nerves to the supreme faculty, and then manifesting the visible forms. After manifesting the visible forms, He further manifests, on the basis of those visible forms, the shapes, expressive forms, and non-expressive forms, while at the same time continuously grasping anew the particles of the four great elements from the outer material sense-object, and continuing to manifest the visible forms, shapes, expressive forms, and non-expressive forms. If the eighth consciousness were to stop in any kṣaṇa, no longer transmitting the particles of the four great elements into the supreme faculty, and no longer manifesting these inner material sense-objects, then the eye consciousness would immediately cease to exist, unable to see the material sense-object, and the mind consciousness would also immediately cease, unable to discern the material sense-object. In other words, there would be no arising of the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness, and of course these two consciousnesses could not discriminate the material sense-object.

Therefore, the eighth consciousness has never stopped operating for even a single kṣaṇa; at every moment He is transmitting and manifesting these material sense-objects. After these material sense-objects are transmitted to the supreme faculty at the back of the brain, the inner material sense-object appears. The eighth consciousness has not stopped for even an instant, manifesting continuously; if occasionally there is one kṣaṇa in which He does not manifest, the material sense-object stops appearing, and the eye consciousness and mind consciousness both cease and can no longer discriminate. Because there is no material sense-object, and without the material sense-object there is no existence of consciousness; the production of consciousness takes the contact of faculty and sense-object as its condition, and relying on this condition, the eighth consciousness then gives rise to the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness, and only then can we see the inner material sense-object.

If there is no material sense-object, the arising of consciousness lacks an important condition, and the eighth consciousness cannot give rise to the six consciousnesses; of course, the six consciousnesses would not exist. When the material sense-object disappears, the eye consciousness and mind consciousness that were discerning it immediately cease along with it; once the consciousnesses have ceased, they cannot discern the material sense-object, and there is no object to be discerned. Therefore, from beginningless kalpas, in every single kṣaṇa the eighth consciousness has never been idle, has never rested, and has never stopped; He thus operates tirelessly and unceasingly, serving us selflessly.