The Principle of the Interfunctioning of the Six Faculties

For example, when everyone is looking at the text on a phone screen, the mind can simultaneously know its meaning, while the hand can touch the screen and turn the page, knowing when one has read to the point where the screen should be swiped; then thoughts arise in the mind, and one cannot help but type a question. Clearly it is only the eyes that are looking at the text, yet the other faculties can all cooperate with one another, producing a whole series of activities. This shows that when one faculty moves, all six faculties can move.

Why can all six faculties move? Behind them there must be something in common that unifies the six faculties together. Although they are six distinct faculties, in essence they are still one, with no difference. Therefore, when one cultivates to a certain degree, the six faculties can interfunction and be mutually employed, without distinction or obstruction.

The World-Honored One said in the fifth volume of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra: （六根）在毕竟同中，生毕竟异。This means that the substance of the six faculties is originally one, with no difference; yet because sentient beings, since beginningless kalpas, have not guarded their own nature and have desired to seek outward, within a single faculty the six distinct faculties have each arisen. If through cultivation one unties and dissolves away all the six faculties, then in the end not a single faculty remains—it is all the true suchness of self-nature, with not the slightest dharma besides. In this way, sentient beings abide in the original state, return to their self-nature, and no longer transmigrate.