The Profound Consciousness-only Meanings of the Diamond Sutra (28)

The six consciousnesses are the aggregate of consciousness: eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness, and mind consciousness—all arise from the tathāgatagarbha when the six faculties contact the inner six sense objects. If the manas has no interest in the six sense objects, the tathāgatagarbha does not give rise to the six consciousnesses, and there occur phenomena of absent-mindedness such as looking without seeing and hearing without listening. When one enters the samādhi of no perception or the samādhi of cessation, the mind consciousness also does not manifest, and sentient beings know nothing at all, without a trace of discrimination.

To summarize the above: all the dharmas of sentient beings' five aggregates and eighteen realms are arising-ceasing and illusory. The body of the five aggregates is like a puppet in a shadow play, an electric doll, a character in an animated cartoon, like the images of cats and dogs formed by clouds in the sky, or like the figures on television—utterly unreal. Sentient beings, being ignorant, are deluded and attached to it, falsely creating bodily, verbal, and mental actions, and cannot escape the cycle of the six realms of rebirth. If a disciple of the Buddha wishes to transcend this bitter ocean of saṃsāra and karma, he should frequently, in accordance with what has been described above, engage in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and reflection on the illusory nature of the five aggregates and eighteen realms; then he can realize the fruits of the Small Vehicle, or even enter the path of the Mahāyāna Buddhadharma and realize the true tathāgatagarbha.