The Process of the Six Consciousnesses Discerning the Six Sense Objects

There are six kinds of mental sense-objects (dharmāyatana): the mental sense-object within material sense-objects, the mental sense-object within sound objects, the mental sense-object within scent objects, the mental sense-object within taste objects, the mental sense-object within tactile objects, and the Image-Only Object—six kinds in all. The first five are discerned by the mental consciousness accompanying the five sense consciousnesses (pañcavijñāna-sahagata-manovijñāna), while the last is discerned by the solitary mental consciousness.

When one's meditative concentration is fairly good, observe material sense-objects—reading a book works, looking at flowers works, looking at mountains works, anything works. Close your eyes and then open them again: the moment you first open your eyes, what you see is surely a patch of color. This is the manifest form (varṇa) discerned by the eye consciousness. In an instant after that, the color takes on shape, revealing length and shortness, squareness and roundness, thickness and thinness—this is the mental sense-object, discerned by the mind consciousness. After that, the appearance of the form becomes clear, and its connotations and characteristics are all displayed. These are all the expressive form (vijñapti-rūpa) and non-expressive form (avijñapti-rūpa) of material form; they are mental sense-objects, discerned by the mind consciousness. When the discernment reaches its end, names and designations appear.

The entire process of discernment is that the eye consciousness arises first, and the mind consciousness appears an instant later. With only the eye consciousness, one cannot discern mental sense-objects; with only the mind consciousness, one cannot discern colors. Only when the two combine can both the coarse and the subtle aspects of the material sense-object before one's eyes be discerned clearly, and only then can the complete appearance of the material sense-object be presented. However, in this process, the colors discerned by the eye consciousness appear first—color is the coarsest form of matter, while the mental sense-object is a relatively subtle form; the subtler the form, the later it manifests. The mental sense-object discerned by the mind consciousness appears afterward, and the time gap between them is extremely, extremely brief. The two consciousnesses depend on each other, and neither can be dispensed with. The relationship between the other four consciousnesses and the mind consciousness is the same as this.