Is the Conscious Mind Inside the Body?

Neither the exhaustion of the aggregate of form (rūpa) nor the exhaustion of the aggregate of feeling (vedanā) has been realized, but theoretically the state of the exhaustion of the aggregate of feeling can be explained. The Śūraṅgama Sūtra says that when the aggregate of feeling is exhausted, the mind leaves the body, meaning that when there is no mind consciousness in the body, the body no longer has any feeling—there is no sensation of pain, nor any sensation of lightness, ease, and comfort. At that time, whether one is killed or dismembered, left to be butchered at another's will, there is no pain; the hands, feet, head, and eyes can be cut off without any sensation of pain, and the body is just like a piece of wood. So then, is the consciousness-mind inside the body?

If the consciousness-mind were inside the physical body, then by cutting the body open bit by bit, one would be able to find it; yet no matter how one searches, it cannot be found, so the consciousness-mind is not inside the physical body. If the consciousness-mind were outside the physical body, it would have nothing to do with the body, and the body would have none of the functions of the five aggregates; therefore the consciousness-mind is not outside the physical body either. If the consciousness-mind were in between, there is in fact no concept or location of "in between." If one calls the surface of the body "in between," that is incorrect, for the surface of the body belongs to the physical body; if one calls the location just outside the body's surface, adjacent to the body, "in between," that belongs to outside the physical body. Therefore the consciousness-mind is not in between within the physical body either.

So where is the consciousness-mind? No matter what the six consciousnesses discern, what they discern are only shadows/images, not the original appearance of the six external sense-objects; the original appearance is discerned by the eighth consciousness, and is called the essential object (the object in itself).