Persistence of Vision

Question: The human eye experiences the phenomenon of persistence of vision, where the actual color form has already ceased, yet its image lingers for a moment. Is this lingering image the "image-only condition" (pratibimba) discerned by consciousness?

Answer: Vision results from the combined function of eye consciousness (cakṣur-vijñāna) and mental consciousness (mano-vijñāna). What persists during visual persistence should be the manifest color (varna-rūpa) perceived by eye consciousness. However, mental consciousness must simultaneously be discerning form color (saṃsthāna-rūpa), expressive color (vijñapti-rūpa), and imperceptible form (avijñapti-rūpa). Mental consciousness must also possess a lingering function; eye consciousness alone cannot produce visual persistence, as that would not constitute a complete sense object (rūpa-viṣaya). What lingers is not the "image-only condition" (pratibimba), which is discerned solely by solitary mental consciousness (manasikāra). Here, eye consciousness is still jointly involved in the discernment. It is precisely due to this visual persistence that we perceive the act of seeing colors as continuous and the discerned sense objects as uninterrupted. In fact, neither is continuous. They arise instantaneously and cease instantaneously—discontinuous yet seamlessly connected, breaking off and then reconnecting.