The Discrimination of the Eighth Consciousness

For example, flowers are material dharmas (rūpa), encompassing the form dust (rūpa-viṣaya) of color, as well as the mental dust (dharma-viṣaya) of intangible attributes such as vividness, delicacy, beauty, and richness, including the mental dust of shape such as height, size, length, roundness, etc., and the mental dust of manifest form such as posture, shape, etc.

Color is coarse form, discerned by eye-consciousness; the rest are subtle forms, discerned by mind-consciousness. The mental faculty (manas) discerns all of them, but only vaguely, which is why it summons eye-consciousness and mind-consciousness to assist in discernment.

These four types of dust on material dharmas all belong to form dust (rūpa-viṣaya), each possessing an external perceived aspect (bāhyapratyaya) which is the objective realm, and an internal perceived aspect (ādhyātmikapratyaya) which is the image. Does the eighth consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna) contact the internal perceived aspect? Does it discern it? Does it know it? The eighth consciousness, Tathāgatagarbha, knows all dharmas; it should be all-contacting and all-knowing. If the eighth consciousness neither discerns nor knows, how could it manifest and alter the images of the internal perceived aspect?

For instance, if you want to move furniture, how can you move it if you cannot see it? For example, if you want to make steamed buns, but do not know where the flour is, where the bowl is, where the water is, where the kneading board is, nor how to use these things, nor the state of the water-flour mixture, nor where the pot is, nor where the heat source is, how could you possibly make steamed buns?

If a person is destined to get cancer, and the eighth consciousness does not discern the state of the body, how could it cause cancer to appear in the body? How could this person get cancer if it doesn't even know where the cancer cells should appear? The same applies to surgery. If the eighth consciousness is to produce an eye, but does not discern the condition of the fetal body, where would it place the eye appropriately? If the body is to grow a polyp, and the eighth consciousness does not discern or know the condition of the physical body, where would it cause the polyp to grow appropriately? If the mental faculty (manas) wants to eat, and the eighth consciousness does not discern the food, does not discern the mental faculty, does not discern the state of the six consciousnesses, how could the six consciousnesses eat?

The eighth consciousness does not specifically discern what the objects of the six dusts (viṣaya) are; it does not possess the discerning functional attributes like the seven consciousnesses do. For example, there is a lump of rice: a human can discern it and then eat it; a ghost can discern it and then eat it; a dog can discern it and then eat it; ants and flies can discern it and then eat it; bacteria can discern it and then eat it. These various classes of sentient beings can all discern it, celestial beings can discern it, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas can discern it. Are the content, manner, and result of their discernment the same? Their various perceptions differ, yet each one's perception is valid. Therefore, it is known that all is only consciousness (vijñapti-mātra).

The eighth consciousness's discernment of the external perceived aspect, the objective realm, is also a unique kind of discernment, fundamentally different from the discernment of the seven consciousnesses. It is beyond our imagination.