Only Solitary Consciousness Can Have Thoughts

Question: The perceiving-aspect (darśana-bhāga) function of knowing and discerning in the first five consciousnesses and the consciousness accompanied by the five senses (pañca-sahagata-mano-vijñāna) is not thought, whereas the perceiving-aspect function of discriminating and thinking in the solitary consciousness (mano-vijñāna-eka-citta) is thought — is that correct?

Answer: Thought refers to mental activities such as thinking, ideas, plans, pondering, and deliberation (manasikāra/manana). This is a functional role possessed by the seventh consciousness (manas) and the solitary consciousness, not a functional role possessed by the consciousness accompanied by the five senses. The consciousness accompanied by the five senses, together with the five consciousnesses, makes contact with and discerns the five material sense-objects. On this basis, the solitary consciousness carries out activities such as thinking, analyzing, judging, and choosing with regard to the inner mental sense-object (inner dharma‑viṣaya) discerned by the consciousness accompanied by the five senses. The mental activity of thinking and analyzing is not on the five sense-objects; it is a subjectively imagined realm detached from the five sense-objects. Therefore, only the solitary consciousness can have thoughts, while the consciousness accompanied by the five senses has no thoughts, because it cannot leave the five sense-objects and the five consciousnesses and cannot act independently.

The solitary consciousness performs discernment through inference and non-valid cognition; the realm it faces is a subjectively imagined realm, detached from the present realm, and is not a dharma existing right before one. The consciousness accompanied by the five senses, however, discerns through direct perception; what it discerns is always a dharma existing in the present. If no dharma exists before one's eyes, the first five consciousnesses and the consciousness accompanied by the five senses do not appear. When the consciousness accompanied by the five senses is discerning dharmas that exist in the present, the solitary consciousness, on this basis, deliberates through inference about other dharmas not present before one's eyes, or engages in non-valid cognition such as recollection and fanciful imagination, indulging in wild fantasies. When the consciousness accompanied by the five senses is not present, the dharmas the solitary consciousness deliberates upon are even more unrelated to the dharmas present before one. Even when the consciousness accompanied by the five senses is discerning present dharmas, the solitary consciousness can still, just the same, leave the current realm and indulge in wild fantasies. Combining the consciousness accompanied by the five senses and the solitary consciousness together, we say that the mind consciousness has three kinds of discernment: direct perception, inference, and non-valid cognition.