The Difference and Boundary Between the Internal Six Elements and the External Six Elements

What the six consciousnesses perceive is all the inner six elements; the outer six elements cannot be seen. The outer six elements are constituted of the real seeds of the four great elements and the five great elements; they are real material form, the essential object (本質境), and this portion of material form corresponds only to the tathāgatagarbha. The inner six elements, however, are image-objects with essence (帶質境), not the most real material form; they are object-form bearing the substance of the five great seeds of the outer six elements, and are no longer the original substantial material form—like an image in a mirror: although the shape is similar, it can no longer be touched. What can be touched is substantial material form; what can only be empty and cannot be touched is similar, false dharma, and therefore has no practical use. 

Since what the six consciousnesses perceive is false dharma without practical use, why do sentient beings use it every day? In fact, sentient beings do not truly use it either; the so-called use is merely sensation. Sensation is illusory, and what is sensed is also illusory. This hurdle is very hard to get past; only after personally realizing emptiness can one see through it. 

Then where is the boundary between the inner six elements and the outer six elements? After the tathāgatagarbha initially transforms and produces the six elements using the seeds of the five great elements, the manas relies on the tathāgatagarbha to perceive dharmas. But what the manas perceives differs from what the tathāgatagarbha perceives: the objects perceived by the manas are material form bearing the appearance of the mundane world, belonging to mundane dharma, whereas what the tathāgatagarbha perceives is not mundane dharma and has no mundane appearance—this part sentient beings simply cannot understand. After the manas perceives dharmas, the tathāgatagarbha continues to transmit the dharmas into the supreme faculty. During this transmission, the material form is constantly arising, ceasing, and changing, until it arrives in the supreme faculty; what the six consciousnesses perceive is then no longer the six elements outside the supreme faculty. The six elements begin to change from the moment the manas perceives them; when the six consciousnesses perceive them after the manas has done so, they are no longer the original six elements.

In this way, the six elements are roughly divided into three levels: first, what the tathāgatagarbha perceives; second, what the manas perceives; third, what the six consciousnesses perceive. The further along, the less essence the six elements carry, the greater their transformation, the more they are altered, and the more false and unreal they become—just like images reflected through three layers of mirrors. When the solitary mental consciousness further recalls, fantasizes, and compares them in the mind, that object has not a single trace of essence left. After the six consciousnesses make distinctions among the various images, the arising of thoughts and intentions influences the manas; the manas then stirs intentions, which influence the tathāgatagarbha. If the karmic seeds allow it, the essential objects—the outer six elements—will be changed; once the outer six elements change, the inner six elements that arise in accordance with them will also change, and the world will be transformed. If the six consciousnesses do not make distinctions among these layered images and remain unmoved by them, what will the result be?