Life in the Black Box

First, let us discuss how the black box comes into existence. Since the black box is located at the brain, the supreme sense faculty, 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 when the seventh consciousness (manas) and the eighth consciousness (ālayavijñāna) enter the womb to take rebirth. When the eighth consciousness has transformed and fashioned the body faculty in the womb to around four months, the rudimentary form of the brain—the supreme sense faculty—is basically complete, and thus the black box is formed.

At this time, the fetus's external sound objects and tactile objects can be transmitted through the fetus's ear faculty and body faculty into the black box at the brain's supreme sense faculty, becoming the inner representations of sound objects and tactile 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 pressing. In fact, all these dharmas that the fetus discerns are information within the black box of its own supreme sense faculty—not information from inside or outside the mother's body, nor are they the external objects of the fetus's own body; they are all the inner sound objects and inner tactile objects within the fetus's supreme sense faculty.

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

When the fetus's body faculty has developed completely and perfectly, the supreme sense 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 after birth, the infant still cannot open its eyes; only after a few days of adaptation can it open its eyes and dimly see the inner form object within its own black box. At this point, the infant's inner six faculties, inner six objects, and inner six consciousnesses—the eighteen realms (dhātus)—are fully endowed, and the human form is complete.