The Attention Mental Factor of the Six Consciousnesses: From What Time Does It Begin to Attend?

After the manas grasps at the dharmas manifested by the tathāgatagarbha, when it considers certain dharmas important, the manas will direct its attention (manaskāra) toward them; once attention has been directed, the three mental factors of contact, feeling, and perception arise, and afterward the mental factor of volition (cetanā) arises. After the tathāgatagarbha discerns the manas's mental factor of volition and its attention, it actively cooperates with the manas: whatever dharma the manas attends to, whatever dharma it deliberates upon and decides to discern, on that dharma the eighth consciousness gives rise to the six consciousnesses. The six consciousnesses that arise must do so upon the mental sense-object (dharma-viṣaya) toward which the manas has directed its attention and deliberation; if the manas does not attend to a certain dharma, the six consciousnesses cannot arise. Therefore, the discernment of the six consciousnesses is all brought about by the manas's attention and its mental factor of volition; after the manas has deliberated, the eighth consciousness, in cooperation with the manas, gives rise to the six consciousnesses.

For example, suppose the manas directs its attention to a flower. After making contact with the flower and experiencing feeling and perception regarding it, the mental factor of volition arises; at the same time, the eighth consciousness also discerns the manas's mental factor of volition, and upon the inner material sense-object of the flower at the supreme faculty (indriya) in the back of the head, it gives rise to the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness. Before the eye consciousness arises, while still in the seed stage, the eye consciousness tends toward and attends to the inner material sense-object of the flower. The seed stage is the stage of the consciousness seeds; before a consciousness seed is to arise, there must be a direction and a location for its arising, and it arises toward that location. Because the sense objects at the supreme faculty in the back of the head are extremely numerous, which sense object the eye consciousness—and the six consciousnesses—will arise upon depends on which dharma the manas attends to. If the manas attends to the flower, the eye consciousness seeds are output at the flower; thus, before the consciousness seeds arise, they are prepared to arise upon the inner material sense-object of the flower at the supreme faculty in the back of the head—this preparation is attention (manaskāra).

When the eye consciousness and mind consciousness, in the seed stage, are about to arise at the location of the flower, first there is the location of the flower's manifest color (varṇa); the eye consciousness seeds in the seed stage are prepared to arise upon the flower's manifest color, which is equivalent to attending to the flower's manifest color. After this attention, the eye consciousness seeds are transmitted onto the flower's manifest color, and the eye consciousness immediately arises. Once the eye consciousness has arisen, the operation of its four mental factors—contact, feeling, perception, and volition—begins. At the same time, at the supreme faculty in the back of the head there are also the flower's shape (saṃsthāna), expressive form (vijñapti), and non-expressive form (avijñapti), which are mental sense-objects; the mind consciousness's seeds are prepared to be transmitted at the location of the flower's shape, expressive form, and non-expressive form. The mind consciousness seeds are transmitted at the location of the flower's mental sense-objects, and the mind consciousness rushes toward the mental sense-object of the flower's shape and expressive form to arise there; thus the mind consciousness is formed. Next, the operation of the mind consciousness's four mental factors of contact, feeling, perception, and volition regarding the flower takes place.

After the eye consciousness and mind consciousness have arisen, the two consciousnesses make contact with the flower. Attention had already appeared in the seed stage, and after the two consciousnesses arise, the operation of the mental factor of contact begins. The initial attention necessarily takes place in the seed stage; after contacting the flower, the mental factors of feeling, perception, and volition arise. After operating in this way, attention arises again—but at this point the attention is no longer the attention of the seed stage; it is the attention occurring within the ongoing operation of the eye consciousness and mind consciousness themselves. Through another round of contact, feeling, perception, and volition, after discernment a final decision is made, and the matter of seeing the flower with the eyes comes to an end. This is the sequence of the arising and operation of the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness.