How Consciousness Recalls Past Events

Sometimes, upon briefly waking in the morning, one may not immediately know where one is sleeping; even after a minute or two, one may not realize one is in their own home. This is a fragment of consciousness. A major fragment of consciousness occurs after the birth of the new five aggregates (skandhas), when one is utterly ignorant, forgetting everything from past lives, and without supernatural powers, one may forget an entire lifetime. A minor fragment occurs after waking from unconsciousness, after sobering up from drunkenness, after waking from sleep, or when the intermediate state body (antarābhava) arises after death. Whenever consciousness is not continuous, fragmentation occurs. What enables consciousness to connect with the past? It relies on the concomitant basis, the mind faculty (manas), and of course the eighth consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna), but we'll set that aside for now. When consciousness first appears, it strives to recall the past. All thoughts are given to it by the mind faculty. In a state of haziness, it can only perceive the immediate environment, unaware of everything that occurred before regaining clarity. The mind faculty prompts consciousness to think and recall. Consciousness then recollects, and the content of recollection is also the dharmas (phenomena) conditioned by the mind faculty. Consciousness continuously discriminates and judges these, and thus recollection emerges. In reality, all the internal dharmas that consciousness recalls are presented by the Tathāgatagarbha (Buddha-nature).