How the Five Universal Mental Factors of the Six Consciousnesses Operate (Part Three)

In the series of operational processes of the five mental factors, the mental factor of contact must be present; that is to say, the sense faculty, the sense object, and the consciousness must be conjoined and cannot be separated. Otherwise, if the consciousness departs from the sense object, contact will vanish and can no longer exist or operate; likewise, the sense object cannot depart from the sense faculty, for otherwise no consciousness would arise. Furthermore, only when the six consciousnesses contact the six sense objects can the object-realm be received and discerned—contact is the prerequisite condition. If we no longer wish to discern, no longer wish to feel, and no longer wish to have bodily, verbal, and mental actions, then the consciousnesses should no longer continue to contact the sense objects; shift the attention of the six consciousnesses away, and no longer engage in manasikāra (intentional attention). Then there will be no subsequent mental activities. This is the best method for cultivating meditative concentration and cultivating the mind. By practicing in this way, one can achieve forgetting the sense objects, so that thoughts do not arise or arise only rarely—this is exactly how the arhats are. Therefore, as a general rule, they have no emotional fluctuations, few feelings, and no mind toward objects.

When ordinary sentient beings encounter object-realms, because they have craving and attachment and have ignorance and delusion, once they contact an object-realm they refuse to leave it. They discern and feel for a long time, deliberate for a long time, and their minds find no rest, their thoughts in disarray. Some people, because they lack the power of wisdom, discern things unclearly and cannot think them through, and thus cannot make a decision; therefore they must continuously and repeatedly contact the object-realm, pondering back and forth, tossing and turning, their minds unsettled. Because they cannot think it through, cannot deliberate it clearly, they cannot make a determination, and so they must repeatedly and continuously engage in manasikāra and contact.

Some people need a very long time to contact an object-realm, and also need a very long time to think through a matter. One reason is that the mind has craving and attachment; another is that the matter is complex and their discerning wisdom is weak; another is that the matter is very important and must be discerned and thought through clearly before a determination is made. If the discernment is unclear, the feeling will also be unclear, and the thinking and deliberation will consequently be unclear as well; this requires continuous manasikāra, continuous contact, and continuous discernment. Among these, as manasikāra and contact continue to operate, which one operates first and which one operates later becomes uncertain; likewise, which of feeling and perception operates first and which operates later is also uncertain—the sequence of these several mental factors is all indeterminate.