When consciousness contacts a sense object, what is the result of the contact of the three—sense faculty, sense object, and consciousness?

The eye consciousness discerns form, the ear consciousness discerns sound, and so on up to the mind consciousness discerning dharmas. The contact that arises from the conjunction of these three is an extremely important matter. If the faculties do not contact the sense objects, there is no consciousness; if consciousness does not contact the sense objects, consciousness has no function whatsoever. What kinds of sense objects does each consciousness contact? Clarify the range of objects each consciousness can contact, and then contemplate: without the six consciousnesses, what else could be done? Beings in the formless realm have no material body and no five faculties—so why do they still have mind consciousness? Once these questions are clearly understood, realization at the time of future enlightenment will be true realization (realization through awakening). Otherwise, if the power of meditative concentration is insufficient and one cannot engage in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), at most it will be a conceptual understanding. Nowadays more and more people have conceptual understanding, but it brings no real benefit—their afflictions remain just as heavy.

When the faculty contacts the sense object, consciousness arises; if the faculty does not contact the sense object, consciousness cannot arise. At the end of life, the four great elements disintegrate first, and at that time consciousness still remains, so one feels intense suffering. Everyone's material body is held and sustained by their own eighth consciousness, and changes in one's own material body are also the result of the functioning of one's own eighth consciousness. So then, how could one person kill another and thereby alter the condition of the other person's material body? Without mind consciousness, the five consciousnesses cannot arise. The discernment of the six sense objects is determined by the manas; the manas is the one that governs, and the manas necessarily contacts the mental sense objects (dharma-viṣaya). If the manas does not determine and does not govern, the eighth consciousness will not produce the five consciousnesses; but once the manas governs, it is already contacting the mental sense objects, and mind consciousness will certainly arise—mind consciousness is also the mutual dependence (the accompanying basis) of the five consciousnesses.