The dharmas contacted by the six consciousnesses are all false and illusory

Now, when we hear the sound of thunder in the sky and the buzzing of a mosquito beside our ear, we hear them at the same time. But how long has passed since the thunder sounded, and how far has it traveled before being heard? By the time we hear it, the thunder has long since ceased—the sky is no longer thundering. Yet since the thunder and the mosquito's buzz are heard together, within the ear faculty there is no before or after among sounds. If a sound takes several seconds to reach the ear faculty, or several minutes to be transmitted to the ear faculty, does the essential realm of that sound still exist? It no longer exists at all. By the time the sound is heard, the real sound in the external world has already vanished. So when the sound of someone scolding me is heard by me, does that scolding still exist? It does not. What is heard is the illusory manifestation of the essential realm of sound, like an echo in a valley. So how false and illusory is the sound of scolding that we hear? Extremely false and unreal. All the dharmas contacted by the six consciousnesses are like this.