The Profound Yogācāra Meaning of the Diamond Sutra (28)

The six consciousnesses are the aggregate of consciousness (vijñāna): the eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness, and mind consciousness are all born from the tathāgatagarbha when the six sense faculties contact the inner six sense objects. If the manas has no interest in the six sense objects, the tathāgatagarbha will not give rise to the six consciousnesses, and phenomena of mindlessness such as looking without seeing and hearing without listening will occur. When one enters the samādhi of non-perception or the samādhi of cessation, the mind consciousness does not manifest either, and the sentient being knows nothing at all, without the slightest discrimination.

To summarize the above: all the dharmas of the five aggregates and eighteen realms of sentient beings are arising-ceasing and illusory. The body of the five aggregates is like a puppet in a shadow play, an electric doll, a character in an animated film, like the images of cats and dogs formed by clouds in the sky, like the figures on a television screen—utterly unreal. Sentient beings, being ignorant, are lost in and attached to it, falsely creating bodily, verbal, and mental actions, and cannot escape the cycle of the six realms of rebirth. If a disciple of the Buddha wishes to transcend this bitter ocean of saṃsāra, he should frequently engage in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and reflection on the illusory nature of the five aggregates and eighteen realms as described above; then he can realize the fruits of the Small Vehicle, or even enter the path of the Mahāyāna Buddhadharma and realize the true tathāgatagarbha.