Brief Discussion on Material Elements (Draft)

Sixteen: The Mental Sense-Object Exists Simultaneously with the Five Sense-Objects

Material sense-objects and mental sense-objects together constitute material form (rūpa); the two are produced and manifested simultaneously by the tathāgatagarbha and cannot be separated. If the two were not together, if they were separated, then the trichiliocosm (three-thousandfold great world system) would be nothing but a field of color, without shape or substance, without content; then all material forms would be indistinguishable from one another, there would be no trichiliocosm, no existence of material form, and eye-consciousness could not arise either.

If the external world contained only the colors of visible form, and the mental sense-object were created separately within the supreme faculty (indriya) based on the material sense-object and the four great elements of the supreme faculty, then the external world would no longer qualify as an external world, and material forms would have no boundaries whatsoever. Therefore, the mental sense-object and the material sense-object arise simultaneously and undergo arising, ceasing, and change simultaneously; they are created at the same time by the tathāgatagarbha using the seeds of the four great elements.

By the same reasoning, the mental sense-object and the sound sense-object, the mental sense-object and the smell sense-object, the mental sense-object and the taste sense-object, and the mental sense-object and the touch sense-object all arise simultaneously and undergo arising, ceasing, and change simultaneously; they cannot be separated.