How Sentient Beings Are Born Within the Black Box

First, let us discuss how the black box comes into being. Since the black box is located at the supreme faculty (rūpa-prasāda) in the back of the brain and is part of the body faculty, it arises and is born along with the body faculty. The body faculty is gradually formed in the mother's womb as the seventh consciousness and the eighth consciousness enter the womb to take rebirth. When the eighth consciousness has transformed and fashioned the body faculty in the womb to around the fourth month, the rudimentary form of the supreme faculty at the back of the brain is basically complete, and thus the black box is formed.

At this time, the fetus's external sound sense-objects and tactile sense-objects can be transmitted through the fetus's ear faculty and body faculty into the black box at the supreme faculty in the back of the brain, becoming the inner representations of sound sense-objects and tactile sense-objects. When they contact the ear supreme faculty and body supreme faculty within the black box, the ear consciousness, body consciousness, and mind consciousness are born. Thereafter, the fetus can discern sounds within the mother's womb and sounds outside the mother's womb, as well as the cold and heat inside the womb and its own touch, pain, squeezing, and pressure. In fact, all of these contents that the fetus discerns are information within the black box of its own supreme faculty—not information from inside or outside the mother's body, nor are they external sense-objects of the fetus's own body; they are all the inner sound sense-objects and inner tactile sense-objects within the fetus's supreme faculty.

When the supreme faculty develops and matures further, scent sense-objects and taste sense-objects will also be transmitted through the gross physical sense organs—the nose faculty and tongue faculty—to the nose supreme faculty and tongue supreme faculty, becoming the inner scent sense-object and inner taste sense-object. When they contact the nose faculty and tongue faculty in the supreme faculty, the nose consciousness and tongue consciousness are born, to discern the scent sense-objects and taste sense-objects within the mother's womb—which are in fact the inner scent sense-object and inner taste sense-object within the fetus's own black box. Does the fetus's black box contain an inner material sense-object? There is an inner material sense-object, but although faculty and sense-object make contact, the eye consciousness does not arise, and the fetus cannot see the inner material sense-object. Why? Because there is no light in the mother's womb, and the arising of the eye consciousness requires nine conditions, with light being one of those conditions.

When the fetus's body faculty has developed completely and perfectly, the supreme faculty has also developed to perfection, the black box's functions are fully endowed, and the ten months of gestation are complete, the fetus is born from the mother's womb and becomes an infant. At first, the infant still cannot open its eyes. Only after a few days of adaptation can it open its eyes and dimly see the inner material sense-object within its own black box. The inner six faculties, inner six sense-objects, and inner six consciousnesses—the eighteen realms (dhātus)—are fully endowed, and the human form is complete.