The State of the Interfunctioning and Mutual Application of the Six Faculties

In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the Buddha said that when cultivation reaches a certain stage, the six faculties can interfunction and be mutually employed (interfunctioning of the six faculties). Mahākāśyapa's perfect and clear knowing does not depend upon mental thought and does not use the mind consciousness; rather, it employs the manas, which takes the place of the mind consciousness and can also substitute for the five sense consciousnesses. Thus the manas can possess the functions and roles of the five sense consciousnesses, as well as those of the mind consciousness, and can concretely and in detail discern the objects of the six sense objects. This means the manas can see and touch the coarse sense objects of the five sense dusts, such as the specific colors of objects; it can substitute for the mind consciousness in discerning extremely subtle mental sense objects (dharma-dusts), and can think, analyze, infer, judge, recollect, and so on. For instance, Bodhisattva Ākāśagarbha, though without a body, could feel tangible objects—the manas substituted for the body faculty, the body consciousness, and the mind consciousness. Thus the manas is omnipotent; its functions are not limited. The mental factors (caittas) of the six consciousnesses can all be fully possessed by the manas. With only the manas and the eighth consciousness, the existence of a living being can be sustained, and one can display great supernatural powers, with nothing that cannot be done.

All dharmas are interconnected. When we have thorough mastery of the Buddha's teachings, all dharma meanings are linked together as one, not things unrelated to one another. It is only when one has not yet thoroughly mastered the Buddha's teachings that one's own cognition has obstructions—it is one's own mind that limits one's own mind, it is the innate afflictive obstruction (kleśāvaraṇa) that limits one's own mind—not that the dharma meanings restrict oneself. Dharma meanings have no mind to restrict people from understanding the principles.