From Which Consciousness Do Concepts and Experience Arise?

Concepts exist only within the mind consciousness. The mind consciousness corresponds with concepts, whereas the five sense consciousnesses, the manas, and the eighth consciousness have no concepts of dharmas, because the mind consciousness corresponds with the characteristics of dharmas and possesses the ability to think, analyze, summarize, and generalize, which none of the other consciousnesses have.

Experience is the wisdom and cognition accumulated in the process of encountering corresponding dharmas. The five sense consciousnesses have experience of the five sense-object states, and the mind consciousness has experience of mental sense-objects. The experience of the six consciousnesses lasts only one lifetime and is subject to forgetting. The manas, however, accumulates experience from lifetime after lifetime, which is not extinguished, and at critical moments it can be swiftly put to use to protect one's own safety and interests. As for the eighth consciousness, although it persists lifetime after lifetime without perishing, it has no memory, and there is no such thing as experience for it, because its wisdom is fixed and is so by the very nature of things (dharmatā)—neither increasing nor decreasing. Therefore it has no experience and needs no experience, yet it can still operate all dharmas in an orderly and normal manner.