Consciousness

Atlanta, July 2014

The eight forms of consciousness - the six sense consciousnesses, self consciousness, and substrate consciousness - can be grouped into three categories of consciousness - perceiving consciousness, object-producing consciousness, and true consciousness.  

In this simpler, three-fold categorization, perceiving consciousness includes the first five sense consciousnesses (awareness of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch), object-producing consciousness includes the sixth sense (awareness of thought) and the self consciousness, and true consciousness consists of the substrate consciousness.

It should be noted that perceiving consciousness is affected by conditions, object-producing consciousness causes conditions, and true consciousness is free from cause and effect.