宗鏡錄 54.21

54.21

Answer: The ancient masters said: The sixth manovijñāna is inference. The manovijñāna is able to take as conditions the phenomena of the three times, the phenomena of the three natures, the phenomena of the three realms, the one hundred phenomena, and so forth; naturally, these are all conditions taken by the sixth manovijñāna. It has two modes: first, the lucid [manovijñāna]; second, the solitary [manovijñāna]. As for the lucid one, it grasps the objects of the five sense fields exclusively at the gates of the five faculties. In the initial thought-moment when it cognizes the same object together with the five, in the spontaneous mind, it is exclusively direct perception, taking the actual objects of the five sense fields as conditions. If it is from subsequent moments onward, it may certainly extend to inference and non-valid cognition. When it forms an interpretative understanding taking nominal forms such as length as conditions, that is inference. Or when it gives rise to attachment with respect to the five sense fields, that is non-valid cognition. Thus, the lucid manovijñāna is admitted to span the three kinds of cognition across prior and subsequent moments. Among the three kinds of objects: when it takes the real phenomena of the five sense fields as conditions, they are objects of intrinsic nature. When the subsequent interpretative mind takes nominal forms such as length as conditions, they are true solitary images, resembling cognitive-substance-bearing [objects]. Second, the solitary manovijñāna has three varieties: 1. Solitary in dreams: this also takes the phenomena of the eighteen dhātus as conditions, but they are exclusively solitary image objects and not real. These dream objects are subsumed exclusively under the locus of mental phenomena, and they also lack real bases. 2. Solitary in waking: this takes all phenomena as conditions—contaminated and uncontaminated, conditioned and unconditioned, mundane and supramundane, existent in substance and non-existent in substance, sky-flowers, rabbit horns—all phenomena of the three times can be completely taken as conditions.