The Harmonious Operation of Eye Consciousness and Mind Consciousness (II)

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

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 the fifth kṣaṇa or even longer to see a little bit clearly. Those with impaired vision may need to look for half a minute or a minute; exactly how long depends on the individual—it depends on a person's capacity for recognition, that is, on how strong the recognition abilities of the two consciousnesses, the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness, are. The weaker a person's capacity for recognition, the longer the time needed for looking. For example, some people are nearsighted or farsighted—people with some visual impairment—so the time they need to recognize a material sense-object is longer; and some people have low wisdom and shallow experience, so the time they need to discern is even longer.

But throughout this process of looking at forms, the eighth consciousness has never stopped operating. Before it gives rise to the inner material sense-object in the first kṣaṇa, it has been continuously transmitting the particles of the external material sense-object, transmitting them without interruption through the optic nerve to the supreme faculty, and then manifesting visible forms. After manifesting the visible forms, it further manifests, on the basis of those visible forms, shapes, expressive forms, and non-expressive forms; at the same time, it continuously takes in the particles of the four great elements from the external material sense-object, and continues to manifest 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 to the supreme faculty, and no longer manifesting these inner material sense-objects, then the eye consciousness would immediately cease—one could not 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 it 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 never stopped for even an instant; it is always manifesting. If occasionally there is one kṣaṇa in which it does not manifest, the material sense-object stops appearing, and the eye consciousness and mind consciousness both cease, unable to discriminate. Because there is no material sense-object, and without the material sense-object there is no existence of consciousness; the arising 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 were no material sense-object, the arising of consciousness would lack an important condition, and the eighth consciousness could not 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 discern. Therefore, since beginningless kalpas, the eighth consciousness has never had a moment of leisure in any kṣaṇa, has never rested, and has never stopped; it is thus that He operates tirelessly and unceasingly, serving us selflessly.