The Principle of the Eye Faculty Contacting Material Sense-Objects

When the eye faculty contacts material sense-objects, this is divided into the outer eye faculty contacting outer material sense-objects, and the inner eye faculty contacting inner material sense-objects. Only when the inner eye faculty contacts inner material sense-objects can eye consciousness arise to discern material sense-objects. But the eye faculty is material form, not mind—how could it actively contact material sense-objects? For example, if there are trees, stones, grass, and flowers before your eyes, how does the eye faculty choose to contact only the flowers, and then eye consciousness discerns only the flowers and not the other objects? How long does the eye faculty's contact with material sense-objects take, and how long does eye consciousness take to discern the flowers? What determines this?

All of this is determined by the manas. The manas is the master of the five-aggregate body, the one who makes decisions. Of course, the manas is a false master, merely a fox borrowing the tiger's might; it relies on the true master behind it without knowing it. When this false master, the manas, faces numerous inner material sense-objects, it alone selects the flowers, because the mind delights in the flowers and there is nothing else to attend to at present, so it wants to admire the flowers. If there were important matters at hand, it would have no time for the flowers. When the manas wants to look at the flowers, the material sense-object of the flowers has already fallen upon the inner eye faculty; once the manas makes its decision, eye consciousness will arise. Thus the three—eye faculty, material sense-object, and eye consciousness—conjoin in contact, and eye consciousness discerns the material sense-object of the flowers. How long eye consciousness discerns is determined by the manas; when the manas has admired enough and no longer wants to look at the flowers, eye consciousness ceases on the flowers and arises elsewhere.

In this process, seeds fall and settle, and this produces the becoming of future lives. The manas's craving and the mind consciousness's craving are also faithfully recorded and become seeds. Eye consciousness also has slight craving; it can only have craving by following along with the manas and the mind consciousness—it cannot make decisions at all, being completely beyond its own control.

If we wish to be liberated from the suffering of the world, we should not let our actions leave behind seeds, especially seeds of greed, aversion, and delusion. What should we do then? We must control the six consciousnesses so that they do not create bodily, verbal, and mental actions, or create fewer of them, and when creating them, do not give rise to afflictions of greed, aversion, and delusion; if anything is to be left behind, let it be pure karmic seeds. Who decides to create fewer karmic actions? It is decided by the manas. The source of karmic actions lies in the manas: it is because the manas, due to various reasons, various mental activities, and various ignorances, wants to create that karmic actions appear and karmic seeds are retained, and only then does future suffering appear. Once the source of the suffering of birth and death is found in this way, how one should conduct oneself in the world from now on should become clear. Reduce contact, reduce the duration of contact; if contact is unavoidable, then during contact reduce or eliminate mental activities, letting the mind be as empty as possible, so as not to leave behind seeds of affliction. Train yourself in this way gradually, and liberation will have hope.