Part 1a - The basis of confusion in the three worlds

Whatever sufferings exist, their basis of dependence is the inner three realms, it is said. These are body, speech, and mind; or desire, form, and the formless:

In the cities of appearance, half-appearance and non-appearance
Tormented by pain of composition, pain, and change,^[1]
The proliferations of senses, mind, and consciousness
Are remorselessly turning mills of the objects of joy and sorrow.

Body composed of coarse physical things is the city of appearance. Speech, as appearance that is non- existent like an echo, is the city of half-appearance. Mind, without the phenomena of the five gates and completely without things, is the city of non-appearance. These are also called the realms of desire, form, and the formless. Where does this come from? ???

The Sutra of the Summarized Intention (mdo dgongs pa a’dus pa) says:

Body is the coarse, the desire realm. Speech is the subtle, the form realm. Mind is the very subtle, the formless realm. Within these three cities lives the child of absolute appearance.

That child is explained as naturally-arising wisdom. However, superimposed on the three gates is being tormented by the three sufferings, arising with the condition of conceptualization, so that there is experience of one confusion after another. How does confusion arise? The objects of the six senses individually come forth by means of the powers of the six sense-consciousnesses. By fixating these objects, there is continuous attachment to them as pleasant, painful and neutral These individually arising phenomena of form and so forth are consciousness. The first, coarse, general phenomenal process of conscious is insightful apprehension, (rigpa), or mind, (sems). When we analyze the particular kinds, there are passion, aggression, and ignorance, a continual series of mental contents of one or another of these three kinds, comprising content-mind, (yid).

On this topic the Bodhisattva Levels (Bodhisattvabhumi, byang chub sems dpa’i sa) says:

Here the appearance of objects is consciousness. The first conceptualization of these is mind. Subsequent particular analysis of these objects deals with the mental contents (sems las a’byung ba). This is content-mind. These three accompany each other. They exist as an all-accompanying nature.
Moreover, when mind exists, mental contents also subsequently accompany it. Existing as universal companions, omnipresent with mind, since mental contents are established by mind as having a pervasive relationship with it, they are its accompaniments, and the omnipresent mental contents, as companions, exist with it omnipresently.

When objects are evaluated by insightful apprehension, at first there is a generalized perception of nature. The aspect that does this is mind, sems. Then, by discriminating particular aspects, mental contents are individually designated conventionally. These are our real objects and understanding, and except for just this analysis, there is no other.

The Precious Garland says:

If you ask about the objects that are seen by mind,
They are what is conventionally expressible.
Without the mental contents, mind cannot arise.
Not to maintain them as co-emergent is meaningless.

At the level of a sugata and the completely non-conceptual natural state, objects are discriminated by insight as individual apparent objects, but then there are no mind, content mind, or consciousness. This is because there is no grasper of dualistic appearance, or awareness of a grasped object by a fixating mind.

The Praise of Vajra of Mind (sems kyi rdo rje’i bstod pa) says:

Sentient beings, who have mind, content-mind, and consciousness are accustomed to grasping and fixation (gzung a’dzin), and so conceptualize them. Therefore, they do not have non-conceptual wisdom. Supreme wisdom is the apprehension, (blo), that sees reality.

The Jewel Heap Sutra (Ratnakuta Sutra, kun mchog brtsegs pa’i mdo) says:

There is complete freedom from mind, content-mind, and consciousness, but the existence of samadhi is not discarded. This is the secret mind of the sugata, which is incomprehensible by thought.

When phenomena of form, sound, and  so  forth  arise  that  are similar  to  external  phenomena,  and mind by insight apprehends them, it is called consciousness.

Moreover, since these are mental productions that are like objective phenomena, they are called nampar (phenomenal) shepa (awareness,apprehension). When first we know objects, the aspect of insight, that apprehends "this" is called mind. The analyzer of distinctions that arises continuously connected to that, it is called content mind.

After objects have been brought forth from the individual gates of sense, they are analyzed by the awareness that evaluates appearances of objects instant by instant as they occur. Then, if there is attachment to them as pleasant there is desire. if as painful, there is aggression. If there is neither pleasure or pain in them, but still attachment to "this," that is ignorance.^[2] Examples are times when we see a good woman we once knew; an enemy that once conquered us; and a wall, water, a highway, a tree, and ordinary people, toward which we have neither joy or sorrow. The Scriptures of Monastic Discipline (a’dul ba lung) say:

If we see pleasant people, desire will increase.
If harmful ones are present, our minds become aggressive.
For intermediate ones, since there will be ignorance,
In any case the gates of our faculties have been bound.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

The three types of suffering.

[2]:

These are the three poisons or root kleshas.