瑜伽論記 5.304

5.304

Regarding the statement that discourses based on common designation have six types: here consciousness and the five omnipresent mental factors are cited to answer regarding their distinct characteristics, meaning to show that conventional phenomena of common characteristics are not separate from real phenomena. These also each distinctively apprehend self-characteristics that are substantially existent phenomena; conventional phenomena of common characteristics apprehended by the six types may arise through superimposition onto self-characteristics. The characteristics and intrinsic natures of verbal discourse are termed 'common designations'. Conventional discourse is like jars, basins, and the like; hence the Cheng weishi lun says: 'Convention refers to superimposition; it does not exist as real characteristics.' Because superimposition is made onto the true self-characteristics attached to their respective substances among what is transformed by the six, although characteristics apprehended by the object-specific mental factors and the like could also be jointly established as conventional words, yet because the six types definitely pervade all objects, other objects are not mentioned.