The Black Box World (Fifteen)

The ear hearing sounds works the same way. In the first, second, and third instants, the sound enters the ear faculty, and the ear consciousness involuntarily hears the sound. If the manas feels it should not listen, it will divert and disperse the attention, or extinguish the conscious mind so as not to hear the sound. Of course, there are also cases where the mind consciousness or the ear consciousness is not interested and passes this on to the manas, and the manas decides not to listen; then it is as if there were no sound, or the sound is simply not attended to. All of this depends on whether the manas is interested and whether it engages in mental engagement (manaskāra). When the manas engages in mental engagement and gives rise to the volitional mental factor (cetanā), and the tathāgatagarbha knows this, it will give rise to the eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness, and mind consciousness to discern the six sense objects of the inner representation.

There is also a visible form (rūpa): the visible form formed at the back of the head by photons composed of the four great elements' particles. It is discerned by the eye consciousness. On the basis of this visible form, these particles are again re-integrated, and the tathāgatagarbha also integrates them according to the four great material substances in our brain cells. After the integration, there arise visible form (rūpa), manifested form (saṃsthāna-rūpa), and non-manifested form (avijñapti-rūpa); this is called form subsumed under the Dharmāyatana, also called the mental sense object (dharma-viṣaya). This mental sense object is what the mind consciousness discerns.

If the manas engages in mental engagement toward this mental sense object and gives rise to the volitional mental factor, the tathāgatagarbha will manifest the mind consciousness to discern this mental sense object. The mind consciousness appears one instant later than the eye consciousness, arising after the eye consciousness. Although the mind consciousness arises one instant later than the eye consciousness, in our experience these two consciousnesses arise almost simultaneously; as the two consciousnesses arise and cease instant by instant, they discern the material sense object simultaneously. If the manas does not engage in mental engagement and does not wish to discern this mental sense object, then the eye consciousness will not manifest, nor will the mind consciousness manifest. When the material sense object arrives, we cannot see it, and we do not know that there is a material sense object.