The Principle of Consciousness, Contact, and Feeling

Speaking of the three dharmas of faculties, sense-objects, and consciousness, we must of course touch upon the five universal mental factors (caittas) of the six consciousnesses: contact (sparśa), attention (manaskāra), feeling (vedanā), perception (saṃjñā), and volition (cetanā). The contact of the six consciousnesses arises from the threefold convergence: the threefold convergence is the coming together of the faculties, sense-objects, and consciousness, and this is called contact—none of the three can be absent. After the six faculties and six sense-objects make contact, the eighth consciousness gives birth to the six consciousnesses, and the six consciousnesses then contact the six sense-objects; at the same time, the six sense-objects are continuously contacting the six faculties and have never departed from them, because the inner six sense-objects are born precisely at the site of the supreme faculties (rūpa-prasāda), and the manas is likewise constantly in contact with the mental sense-objects. The contact spoken of here refers to the contact between faculties and sense-objects; it does not include the contact of the manas or the contact of the eighth consciousness. Of course, the contact of the manas and the eighth consciousness requires only direct contact with the object-aspects, without needing other faculties to induce and generate it.

The contact of the manas directly contacts the mental sense-objects that the eighth consciousness has transformed and manifested; the contact of the eighth consciousness directly contacts faculties and objects—that is, it contacts the sense faculties and the material world (the vessel realm), as well as contacting karmic seeds. The contact mental factor of the six consciousnesses differs from the contact mental factors of the seventh and eighth consciousnesses: the contact mental factor of the six consciousnesses must be induced and generated by faculties—only by not departing from the six faculties can there be contact. The feeling mental factor (vedanā-caitta) is also like this: the feeling mental factor is the feeling that arises after the six consciousnesses contact the six faculties and six sense-objects. The feeling here involves not only receiving and experiencing, but afterward also emotional feelings—painful feeling, pleasant feeling, and neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling. However, the feeling of the seventh and eighth consciousnesses is simply pure receiving and experiencing, without a trace of emotion, without painful or pleasant feeling, corresponding only to neutral feeling (upekṣā-vedanā, neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling).