How Ālaya-vijñāna Perceives Sentient Beings' Physical Bodies and the Material World

The ālayavijñāna perceives the sense-body and the material world of sentient beings. Within the ālayavijñāna reside the seven great seeds as well as the karmic seeds of sentient beings. Since these karmic seeds exist within the ālayavijñāna, it perceives them, knowing whether they are ripe and when they will ripen. It then delivers the seven great seeds to create the five aggregates of sentient beings. As it perceives the karmic seeds of the five aggregates, it necessarily knows what kind of five aggregates a sentient being should have, thereby accurately transforming and creating the five aggregates. After they are transformed and created, the ālayavijñāna knows all circumstances of the five aggregates, for it constantly sustains the five-aggregate material body, continuously delivering and altering seeds so that the material body may continue to exist and undergo continuous development and change. The material world is jointly transformed and created by the ālayavijñāna of all sentient beings. All ālayavijñānas perceive the karmic seeds of the material world within their own essence, enabling them to deliver the seeds of the four great elements to transform and create the universe and material world. Thereafter, they must jointly sustain the material world, allowing it to undergo arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing.

The ālayavijñāna perceives the sense-body and the material world to know how to transform and create them; otherwise, it would be incapable of doing so. It does not create arbitrarily but follows definite patterns and principles, transforming and sustaining all dharmas according to the law of cause and effect. After transforming the body, it still perceives the body, knowing how it should change, and causes the body to change accordingly—all in accordance with the law of cause and effect, operating naturally and spontaneously. Unlike the six consciousnesses, which possess various nominal concepts regarding the five-aggregate body and the material world and know specific circumstances, it lacks this kind of discriminative perception and does not engage in specific discernment.

It also lacks the function of analytical thinking and judgment. Its knowing nature is entirely different from the knowing of the six consciousnesses. Regarding the food we consume daily, it extracts the four great elements from it to transform and recreate the body. It knows how much to extract and how to transform and create. Sentient beings with different karma, though consuming the same food and living in the same environment, possess different bodies precisely because their karmic forces differ, and thus the ālayavijñāna transforms and creates differently for them.