Direct Perception and Discernment of the Six Consciousnesses (III)

When the ear is hearing sounds, the ear consciousness directly perceives (in terms of direct perception) the volume and vibration frequency of the sound, and the mind consciousness also has direct-perception discernment of sounds, but the content of its discernment is far richer than what the ear consciousness discerns. The direct-perception realm discerned by the mind consciousness is the subtle mental sense-object (dharma-viṣaya) of the sounds currently transmitted to it—not recollecting sounds heard in the past, nor fantasizing about some sound that has not appeared. When the mind consciousness can know the content of a sound without comparing or analyzing it, this is the mind consciousness's direct-perception discernment. For example, upon hearing the sound of someone speaking, the mind consciousness immediately knows the source, sound quality, content, and other information of the sound, judging it without error—this is direct-perception discernment. The mind consciousness may also engage in inferential discernment, using thinking, reasoning, judgment, comparison, and other means to discern the content of the sound and the speaker's hidden intentions and motives. Sometimes the mind consciousness discerns correctly, and sometimes it discerns erroneously; when the discernment is erroneous, it is entirely non-valid cognition.

Another example is hearing the sound of wind blowing and rain beating down: the ear consciousness directly and through direct perception discerns the vibrations of the wind and rain sounds and the impact and influence of the sound waves on the eardrum. The mind consciousness discerns the loudness, coarseness or fineness, source, direction, urgency, and other such contents of the wind and rain sounds; the mind consciousness can directly discern these contents without comparison or analysis—this is direct-perception discernment. But sometimes there are also cases of comparison, analysis, thinking, and reasoning, where the mind consciousness must rely on the thinking of comparison and imagination in order to discern clearly—this is inferential discernment; if the discernment is erroneous, it is entirely non-valid cognition. The mind consciousness can, without the participation of the ear consciousness, independently carry out inferential and non-valid discernment on its own. When the mind consciousness is discerning, if the ear consciousness does not arise and operate, the mind consciousness cannot discern sounds; the two consciousnesses must exist simultaneously in order to discern sounds through direct perception. Therefore, the mind consciousness's direct-perception discernment of the five sense objects always requires the participation of the first five consciousnesses.