How Can Mental Dharmas Interact with Material Dharmas?

The mental dharmas are the seven consciousnesses, the material dharmas are the five sense faculties and six sense objects. The sense faculties, sense objects, and consciousnesses belong to the dharmas of the three realms, which are dharmas of three distinct boundaries. "Boundary" here means demarcation. With different boundaries, according to the principles of the mundane realm, they are unrelated, cannot merge together, and cannot function in harmony. In reality, the "contact" between the consciousness realm and the material realm, being different realms, cannot be understood from the mundane perspective as similar to the contact of hand with hand, or the touching, physical contact of a hand touching material dharma. The profound and extremely profound Dharma of Consciousness-Only and the Wisdom of All Modes (Vijñāna-mātra and Sarva-bīja-jñāna) is utterly inexplicable and incomprehensible from the standpoint of mundane dharmas; the thought patterns of the mundane realm can never resolve the problems of Consciousness-Only. It is necessary for the sixth and seventh consciousnesses to transform from consciousness into wisdom, to shift the cognitive and thinking mode of mundane realm consciousness to the non-mundane cognitive and thinking mode of wisdom, in order to gradually resolve the problems of Consciousness-Only and the Wisdom of All Modes.

How should we contemplate the harmonious contact of the sense faculties, sense objects, and consciousnesses from the perspective of the Consciousness-Only and Wisdom of All Modes model? We should understand that although the sense faculties, sense objects, and consciousnesses have different boundaries and are different kinds of dharmas, they share a common part: they are all composed and formed from the seven great seeds within the Tathāgatagarbha. These seven great seeds exist in a relationship of equality, parallelism, and juxtaposition; their attributes differ, yet they have no boundaries and can fully merge and contact each other, giving rise to all dharmas in accordance with the minds of sentient beings, as the Buddha stated in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra. This makes it easier to understand the question of whether dharmas from different realms can contact each other.

The seven great seeds are all formless and without characteristics; they cannot be spoken of in terms of the kind of contact found in the material dharmas of the mundane realm. Therefore, the issue of contact or non-contact does not even arise. Thus, the sense faculties, sense objects, and consciousnesses formed from them are not the contact of mundane dharmas. Even explained this way, many still find it difficult to understand, because the gap between mundane dharmas and Buddhadharma is too vast. Profound Buddhadharma often transcends one's imagination, just as the Buddha said: Buddhadharma cannot be attained through conjecture or speculation; it must be realized through actual practice to be comprehended.

Are the sense faculties, sense objects, and consciousnesses, formed and projected by the formless, characteristicless seven great seeds, endowed with form and characteristics? So-called "form and characteristics" refer to the kind of appearance visible to the physical eye in the mundane realm. From the standpoint of ultimate reality (actual principle ground), from the perspective of the ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya), all dharmas lack the kind of appearance found in the mundane realm; they are all appearances of the ultimate truth, invisible to the physical eye. To see them is to have the affliction of diseased vision, like seeing illusory flowers in the sky due to diseased eyes, as the Buddha said in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra.

The conscious mind (citta) is formless and without characteristics, invisible to the physical eye, and can only be perceived by the mental consciousness (mano-vijñāna), ultimately allowing the mental faculty (manas) to also cognize it. The sense faculties and sense objects are material dharmas (rūpa-dharma), possessing color, form, and characteristics, visible to the physical eye. Sense faculties and sense objects are material dharmas of the same nature and can contact each other like hands and feet touching. The conscious mind then contacts the contacted material dharmas of the sense faculties and objects, like a mirror contacting an image. The image is not a real material dharma; the mirror can contact and manifest it. The image, which is not a real material dharma, can appear within the mirror; this is called illusory manifestation. What the seven consciousnesses contact are the sense faculties and objects, which are not real material dharmas but are all images. Therefore, the images can appear within the mirror of the conscious mind of the seven consciousnesses without obstruction. Who can contact the real material dharmas? Only the Tathāgatagarbha can contact such real material dharmas and the most primordial material dharmas.

Regarding these operational principles and rules of the ultimate truth, we fundamentally cannot understand or imagine them from the perspective of conventional truth (saṃvṛti-satya). Therefore, the Buddha does not allow us to imagine or comprehend them through emotional thinking or intellectual understanding. He instructs us to first attain the perfection of precepts, meditation, and wisdom, leading to actual realization. Only those who have realized it can mutually understand each other intuitively; those on the Path share the same understanding, those on the Path share the same vision. The conscious mind accumulated from consciousness-seeds falls upon the material dharmas of sense faculties and objects, which are heaps of the five great seeds. Since the seeds themselves have no appearance whatsoever in the mundane sense, how could the sense faculties, objects, and consciousnesses formed from them have any appearance? If the initial, primordial material dharmas had appearance, how could the Tathāgatagarbha contact, recognize, transmit, transform, and manifest them? If the initial, primordial material dharmas have no appearance, how could the manifested image-material dharmas, the material dharma images projected by the Tathāgatagarbha, have any appearance? Since they are all dharmas without appearance, the sense faculties, sense objects, and consciousnesses can fully contact each other. The conscious mind can fully manifest and cognize the sense faculties and objects, thereby giving rise to the false feelings of joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, grief, suffering, and sensation.

The sense faculties, sense objects, and consciousnesses are dharmas within the world of the black box, illusory and unreal, seen by diseased eyes.