唯識二十論述記 2.192

2.192

The commentary says: This shows two reasons establishing that the consciousness capable of seeing does not exist in the present. Both sides mutually agree that it must be the sixth consciousness, possessing the three kinds of discrimination, that can give rise to this discriminative direct awareness; the five consciousnesses do not possess the three kinds of discrimination, and so cannot give rise to this kind of direct awareness. Since this direct awareness resides in the mental consciousness, when this awareness arises, those five consciousnesses such as the eye consciousness that can see must have entered the past, having fallen away into non-existence. One first sees the object, and only afterwards gives rise to the awareness; therefore, the precise seeing and the awareness definitely cannot be simultaneous. Since the genuine direct awareness that can see does not exist at this time, how can this awareness be admitted to be direct perception proving the existence of external objects? When genuine direct perception experiences form and so forth, it takes an internal mental phenomenon as its object and is free from nominal cognition and verbal designations; hence the proof is unestablished. According to the Saṃmatīya, mind and caittas, lamp flames, and bell sounds perish solely by the mark of cessation, arising and ceasing from moment to moment; the cessation of material forms and so forth also awaits external conditions. They endure for a certain period of time, whether long or short, and only then perish. When the awareness directly experiencing such perception arises, the eye consciousness does not remain, and thus has passed into the past; its object, form and so forth, has not yet perished during that period. Therefore, this refutation merely shows that when this awareness arises, the seeing is already gone, without refuting that the seen object is non-existent at this time. Even granting that it exists, an inference should be formulated: 'When this awareness arises, it definitely cannot be direct perception; because it occurs in a distracted state of mind wherein the seeing is already gone; like a distracted state of mind taking as its object events of hundreds of thousands of eons in the past.' The refutation of an object's single period of duration is as explained in other treatises.