The Order of Discrimination between the First Five Consciousnesses and the Consciousness Accompanied by the Five Senses

The first consciousness seed of the eye-accompanied mind consciousness is necessarily born after the eye consciousness seed is born, and then the two consciousness seeds are born simultaneously, with no distinction of before or after. From the second onward, the birth of eye consciousness seeds must be accompanied by the running of the mind consciousness; otherwise, they could not be born either. We can blank out for a moment and personally experience it ourselves to see whether, when looking at forms, the eye consciousness sees first or the mind consciousness sees first. If the mind consciousness saw first, then would the forms seen by the mind consciousness contain no color whatsoever—neither white and bright, nor black and dark, and certainly not red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, or violet? Clearly not.

Next, observe and experience: when forms are no longer seen, does the mind consciousness disappear first, does the eye consciousness disappear first, or do they disappear simultaneously? According to theory, the mind consciousness disappears first and the eye consciousness disappears afterward, because the mental sense-object can only manifest by relying on material sense-objects. For example, the length, shortness, squareness, and roundness of forms—if there were no colors of the manifesting sense-object, they could not set off the length, shortness, squareness, and roundness. If the material sense-object does not exist and disappears, the mental sense-object certainly cannot exist; whereas if the mental sense-object disappears, the material sense-object can still remain for one instant—only one instant, not a second instant—otherwise the eye consciousness could exist independently. It is impossible for the mental sense-object to still exist when the material sense-object is gone; this is absolutely impossible. Therefore, the eye consciousness cannot disappear before the mind consciousness. Upon waking, it is the reverse: there must first be the mind consciousness and then the five sense consciousnesses, or the solitary consciousness (mano-vijñāna-eka-citta) transforms into the consciousness accompanied by the five senses (pañca-sahagata-mano-vijñāna), and then the five sense consciousnesses arise.