What This Concept Is About
The word 五塵 (pañca viṣayāḥ, "the five sense objects") carries an image built into its very letters — 塵 (dust). In Chinese, 塵 means fine ash, floating earth: it drifts in the air, and once it settles on a mirror or on one's eyelashes, it blurs the sight and itches unbearably. Buddhism uses this character to name the external objects faced by the five senses — not to call them filthy, but to say: these external objects land on the mind, disturb it, stain it, and cloud the mind that was originally able to contemplate clearly. The common Buddhist expressions 塵勞 ("dust-and-toil"), 塵勞妄想 ("dust-and-toil delusions"), and 塵垢 ("dust and grime") all carry this meaning.
So what exactly are the five sense objects? The classical definition is quite clear: 色 (rūpa, form), 聲 (śabda, sound), 香 (gandha, odor), 味 (rasa, taste), 觸 (spraṣṭavya, tangible objects):
1. 色塵 (rūpa-viṣaya, the visible object) — the visible form encountered by the eye faculty (眼根, cakṣur-indriya). It refers to all shapes that can be captured by the eyes, including color, shape, brightness and darkness, and moving or still objects. Its most salient feature is "visible." 2. 聲塵 (śabda-viṣaya, the sound object) — the sound encountered by the ear faculty. It refers to all vibrations receivable by the ears, whether speech, music, noise, rain, or wind. It is "invisible," yet genuinely occupies space. 3. 香塵 (gandha-viṣaya, the odor object) — the smell encountered by the nose faculty. It refers to fragrant, foul, faint, and everything smellable. The smoke of burning incense, the smell of a kitchen, the scent of rain-soaked earth — all belong to this category. 4. 味塵 (rasa-viṣaya, the taste object) — the flavor encountered by the tongue faculty. Sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, salty, astringent, savory, and all mixed flavors that the tongue can discern belong to 味塵. 5. 觸塵 (spraṣṭavya-viṣaya, the tangible object) — the tangible things encountered by the body faculty (身根, kāya-indriya). Cold and hot, soft and hard, smooth and rough, light and heavy, hunger and thirst, fullness and distention — every physical property felt on the surface of the body belongs to 觸塵.
When the *Saṃyuktāgama* (《雜阿含經》) introduces the five sense objects, it characterizes each category along three dimensions, and these three must be stated precisely if the concept is not to be narrowed or fudged:
色外入处——四大所造，可见，有对。声、香、味——四大所造，不可见，有对。触外入处——四大及四大所造色，不可见，有对。 *"The external sense base of form — produced by the four great elements, visible, resistant. Sound, odor, taste — produced by the four great elements, invisible, resistant. The external sense base of tangible objects — [comprising] the four great elements and the form produced by them, invisible, resistant."* (paraphrase)
Each of these three criteria has its own point:
- 「四大所造」("produced by the four great elements" [mahābhūta]): All five sense objects are phenomena constituted by the four basic elements — earth, water, fire, wind — and do not exist independently out of nowhere. Color, for instance, is not just light; it is the reflection of light off the surface of matter. Sound is not just a wave; it is the vibration of air. Taste is not just a sensation; it is the chemical property of soluble substances. - 「可見／不可見」("visible / invisible"): What makes 色塵 special is that it can be seen directly by the eyes; sound, odor, taste, and tangibles are all invisible and require other sense faculties to receive them. - 「有對」("resistant" [sapratigha], i.e., mutually obstructive, space-occupying): All five sense objects are "resistant," meaning they each occupy a position and have boundaries with other things — sound, though invisible, occupies space and can be blocked; odor, seemingly formless, is affected by walls and wind.
Especially worth noting is the entry for 觸塵: the *Saṃyuktāgama* writes "四大及四大所造色" ("the four great elements and the form produced by the four great elements"). This is more complex than form, sound, odor, and taste: 觸塵 includes both the great elements themselves (such as temperature, pressure, texture) and the derivative forms produced by them (such as the tangible quality itself). This also means that 觸塵 is in fact the closest to the body — it is the layer of external objects that the body meets most directly and from which it is hardest to gain distance.
Several commonly confused relationships must also be pointed out; these are key to understanding the five sense objects accurately:
First, 五塵 ≠ 五根 (the five sense faculties [pañcendriya]). The five faculties are the five sense organs themselves — eye, ear, nose, tongue, body — which are part of the body; Buddhism classifies them under the "internal sense bases" (內入處, ādhyātmika-āyatana). The five sense objects are the external counterparts of the five faculties, classified under the "external sense bases" (外入處, bāhya-āyatana). The internal and external sense bases correspond in pairs and together give rise to consciousness: the eye, facing form, gives rise to eye-consciousness; the ear, facing sound, gives rise to ear-consciousness… This is the structure of the twelve sense bases (十二入, dvādaśāyatana: six internal + six external). The five sense objects are the first five of the external sense bases.
Second, 五塵 ≠ 五欲 (the five desires [pañca-kāma]). The *Dīrghāgama* (《長阿含經》) contains a frequently conflated term, "五欲功德" (pañca-kāma-guṇa, "the five strands of desirable qualities"), which refers to the fact that when the eye knows form or the body knows tangibles, these objects are "可愛可樂、人所貪著" ("lovable and delightful, what people crave and cling to") — that is, the agreeable qualities that arise after being experienced by the senses. The *Saṃyuktāgama* states this very precisely: "功德本身非欲，欲在於覺想思惟" ("the qualities themselves are not desire; desire lies in awareness, imagining, and discursive thinking"). That is, whether an external object is lovable is one thing; a person's perception of it, imagination of it, thinking about it, and clinging to it is another. The five sense objects are external objects; the five desires are clinging. The two must be kept separate.
Third, beyond the five sense objects there is also 法塵 (dharma-viṣaya, the mental object). The *Saṃyuktāgama* has a complete formulation: "色聲香味觸，及第六諸法" ("form, sound, odor, taste, tangible — and the sixth, the dharmas"). Beyond the five sense objects there is one more, 法塵 — the object of the mind-consciousness (the sixth consciousness), which includes abstract concepts, thoughts, memories, imagination, emotions, rules, and everything in the category of "dharmas." The complete set of external sense bases is actually six; the five sense objects are only the first five. Later, when reading the *Madhyamaka-śāstra* (《中論》), we will see that it directly uses "六塵" (ṣaḍ-viṣaya, the six sense objects) rather than "五塵" — precisely for this reason.
**Fourth, the *Madhyamaka-śāstra*'s special treatment.** Although the *Madhyamaka-śāstra*'s subject matter involves the five sense objects, its terminology is "六塵," and it does not say "五根／六根" but "六情" (ṣaḍ-indriya, the six sense faculties) — pairing "內情／外塵" (inner faculties / outer objects) in place of the "root / object" terminology. It first establishes six pairs of relations (the eye as inner faculty, form as outer object; the eye can see form… up to the mind as inner faculty, dharmas as outer object; the mind can know dharmas), then immediately negates with the two words "無也" the reality of the capacity "the faculty can know the object." Then, with the sentence "餘耳等五情、聲等五塵，當知亦同見可見法，義同故不別說" ("the remaining five faculties — ear and so on — and the five objects — sound and so on — should be understood to be the same as 'seeing the visible': the meaning is identical, so no separate discussion is given"), it states: taking the eye-form pair as the example, the other four pairs follow exactly the same logic. So the *Madhyamaka-śāstra*'s treatment of the five sense objects is characterized by: terminology uses 六塵, framework uses 情 and 塵, method is "one example covers the rest," and the aim is to refute substantial existence.
Fifth, the five sense objects from the standpoint of dependent origination (緣起, pratītyasamutpāda). The *Saṃyuktāgama* says the five sense objects are not isolated phenomena but one link in the chain of causes and conditions: "眼與色因緣生眼識，三法和合而有觸，繼而有受、思、想；耳、鼻、舌、身亦復如是" ("the eye and form, through causes and conditions, give rise to eye-consciousness; the three dharmas coming together produces contact [觸, sparśa], and then feeling, volition, and perception; so too for ear, nose, tongue, and body"). In this chain, the five sense objects are the link that is the object of cognition (所緣, ālambana): only when they come together with the faculties and consciousness do contact, feeling, perception, and volition arise. In other words, with only the five sense objects and no eye, ear, nose, tongue, or body faculties, and no eye-, ear-, nose-, tongue-, or body-consciousness, there is no complete experience. The five sense objects are half of the twelve sense bases, not the whole.
Placed within the whole path of liberation, the five sense objects occupy the position of "所緣" — they are the objects that the mind-consciousness contacts, the external condition from which "觸" arises. Contact then triggers feeling, perception, and volition, and only then do we reach the源头 of greed, hatred, and delusion. So a verse in the *Madhyamaka-śāstra* states it heavily: "色聲香味觸、及法為六種，如是之六種，是三毒根本" ("form, sound, odor, taste, tangible, and dharmas as the sixth — these six kinds are the root of the three poisons") — the root of the three poisons (三毒, triviṣa) lies not in the faculties, not in consciousness, but in the external objects that are clung to. This is why the five sense objects deserve dedicated study.
A Walk-Through in Daily Life
This section walks through the five sense objects one by one, layer by layer, using the most everyday scenes. The key is to map strictly according to the classical definitions — nothing left out, nothing confused. I will deliberately point out the places where the mapping most easily goes wrong.
Seven a.m., you open your eyes.
The first thing — 色塵. The bedroom ceiling, the folds of the curtains, the city skyline outside the window, your partner's sleeping face, the little red notification dot on the phone screen. This is 色塵, "produced by the four great elements, visible, resistant": color, shape, light and dark, motion and stillness are all present, and all occupy space. The most common mapping error here is equating 色塵 with "images" — in fact, 色塵 includes every visible form: the movement of light and shadow, the warmth or coolness of colors, the whiteness of white paper, one's own reflection in a mirror. It is not just photos or videos on a screen; a patch of mottling on the wall, the glint off a glass of water on the table, the leaves swaying outside the window — all of it is 色塵.
Then you pick up your phone and head to the bathroom with music playing.
The second thing — 聲塵. The news broadcast from the phone's speaker, the crisp clink of the toothbrush against the cup, the rush of the faucet, the sound of a neighbor's door closing in the distance. This is 聲塵, "produced by the four great elements, invisible, resistant": invisible, but genuinely occupying space, blocked by walls, attenuated, overlapped. The common misreading here is equating 聲塵 with "speech content" or "musical melody" — but 聲塵 is the physical vibration itself; the meaning of the words (semantics, emotion, relationship) belongs to 法塵 (the sixth sense object), which is what consciousness takes as its object, not what the ear hears as 聲塵. This is a place where the line is cleanly drawn: what your ears receive is "frequency, loudness, timbre"; what your mind parses is "whether he said good morning or goodbye." The same melody — for a musical ignoramus and for a musician, the 聲塵 is identical; the 法塵 differs enormously.
You pick up the coffee you brewed last night.
The third thing — 香塵. The roasted aroma of coffee, the mint of toothpaste, the air outside the window, maybe the smell of fried eggs drifting over. This is 香塵, "produced by the four great elements, invisible, resistant." The mapping error to avoid here is equating 香塵 with "the scent itself" — 香塵 has a physical basis: it is the reaction produced when certain tiny volatile molecules contact the olfactory cells in the nasal cavity. The aldehydes and pyrazine compounds in coffee beans are real; the whole train of associations behind the aroma — "thinking about last night's insomnia," "wanting to bring a cup for someone" — is 法塵, already at the level of consciousness.
You bite into the toast and take a sip of coffee.
The fourth thing — 味塵. The blandness of the toast, the bitterness of the coffee, maybe a hint of scorch. This is 味塵, "produced by the four great elements, invisible, resistant." The common error is treating 味塵 as a judgment like "tasty or not" — but that is the level of feeling (受, vedanā) and perception (想, saṃjñā). 味塵 itself is only the physical-chemical properties that the taste organ can discern: sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, salty, astringent, and their various proportions. Whether something tastes good is the product of your 味塵 overlaid with memory, emotion, and expectation. The same sip of coffee is bitter when drunk hungover and sweet when drunk in love — the 味塵 is stable; the feeling and perception overlaid on it vary without end.
You change clothes and head out.
The fifth thing — 觸塵. This is the external-object layer most easily overlooked, yet actually the closest to the body. The slide of fabric as the T-shirt goes over your head, the softness of cotton against your shoulder, the heat or cold of the air, the tightness or looseness of your shoes, the hardness of your fingers tapping the phone, the feel of the keyboard, the cold of the subway handrail, the hardness or softness of the seat, the blowing wind. This is 觸塵, "the four great elements and the form produced by the four great elements, invisible, resistant" — it includes temperature (a great element), pressure (a great element), humidity (a great element), and also texture (form produced by the great elements), and so on. The biggest mapping error here is equating 觸塵 with "tactile impression" or "subjective sensation" — but the "resistant" (有對) mark of 觸塵 reminds us: 觸塵 is first of all physical occupation and contact, the actual spatial encounter between body and external object; only from that do neural responses arise, and only from that do subjective sensations arise. The three layers must be kept separate.
On the way to work, you start scrolling your phone.
The sixth thing — here we must pause. Scrolling your phone is the most typical contemporary high-density scene in which the five sense objects and the five desires are mixed together. What the eyes see is 色塵 (icons, text, images, video), what the ears hear may be 聲塵 (short-video audio, podcasts), and the thoughts that jump up in the mind are 法塵 (seeing a news item, remembering someone, judging a viewpoint). But the real trouble is — here the five sense objects are engineered for continuous feeding: the algorithm adjusts the intensity of the next piece of content based on how long you linger, keeping you switching endlessly among form, sound, odor, taste, and touch (food scenes in short videos, ASMR sounds, coffee close-ups), with the five faculties, five consciousnesses, five feelings, five perceptions, and five volitions running in tandem, so that your awareness, imagination, and thinking never stop for a moment.
This is what the classics mean by "色聲香味觸，微妙可悅樂" ("form, sound, odor, taste, touch — exquisite and delightful," from the *Dīrghāgama*) — the five sense objects can indeed bring pleasure, and modern media design pushes the intensity and density of that pleasure to the extreme. But the same scripture also says "五欲因緣生樂，當速除滅" ("the five desires, through causes and conditions, give rise to pleasure — they should be swiftly removed") — such pleasure need not be forbidden, but clinging to it is where the problem begins.
Now let's walk through the two pairs that most easily go wrong:
觸塵 vs. the perception aggregate (想蘊, saṃjñā-skandha). At noon, sitting at your desk, you feel "cold" — that is 觸塵 — it is the physical property of air temperature meeting the body's surface, the object of "body-consciousness." But what you do next — "the office AC is set too low," "admin never adjusts it," "last time I caught a cold it was because of the AC" — has already left 觸塵 and entered the perception aggregate (identifying, naming, associating) and the volitional aggregate (行蘊, saṃskāra-skandha: volition, judgment, action-tendency). So a person being physically cold is 觸塵; being socially cold is 法塵; neither kind of cold is fully contained in the five sense objects — which confirms why the *Saṃyuktāgama* separates the five sense objects from 法塵, rather than stuffing everything into the five.
色塵 vs. 法塵. You scroll to a photo with your ex, and you see the image, the expression, the posture — that is 色塵, physical light, pixels, and shapes. But then a wave of discomfort surges up — that has already crossed out of 色塵 into 法塵; it is the object of consciousness, a trigger of memory and emotion. This is the most common slide between 色塵 and 法塵: the object seen by the eye can become the condition clung to by consciousness. The two happen in sequence, but analytically they must be separated; otherwise you cannot tell which link has gone wrong.
One more common scene, from intimate relationships:
In the evening your partner says something. The literal speech sounds you hear are 聲塵 — physical vibration, the sound layer; your recognition of his or her tone, facial expression, and implied meaning — that is 法塵; your feeling of being supported or hurt — that is feeling; your association with several similar past conflicts — that is perception; your decision to respond or stay silent — that is the volitional aggregate (行). In the whole process, 聲塵 is the vibration of that one second; everything else is not in the five sense objects but is the activity of consciousness. This matters: much resentment in intimate relationships comes from attributing a misreading at the 法塵 level of the other's expression and tone to the 聲塵 layer, the physical vibration — but these are two different things. Keeping them distinct helps you see which layer you are reacting on.
Why Contemporary People Need It
Why do contemporary people in particular need to know the concept of 五塵? I would say there are three reasons.
First, the practical pressure of "sensory overload." How much sensory stimulation did a person in an ancient agrarian society encounter in a day? Rising at sunrise and resting at sundown, one encountered roughly the rooster's crow, the smell of food, a neighbor's talk, tree shadows, the sound of rain. A contemporary person — especially one scrolling a phone in a city — encounters more visual information, sound, odor, taste, and touch in a single day than an ancient person might in a month. The information density of short videos, the multi-sensory stimulation of food delivery, the visual noise of the city, the sound bombardment of the subway commute, the all-sensory design of advertising — contemporary life itself is an environment of "extremely high density of the five sense objects, extremely easy clinging of the five desires." In such an environment, without first clarifying what the five sense objects are and where the crack between them and the five desires lies, it is very hard to see clearly how one's own mind is being disturbed.
Second, the "market for attention." The core resource of contemporary society is attention. Algorithms, media, advertising, consumer goods, games, short videos — almost all of their business models rest on "how to keep your five faculties continuously in contact with external objects, and keep the five consciousnesses continuously clinging to the five desires." Understanding the five sense objects is like seeing the "chessboard" of this game: which things are external objects (the five sense objects), which are external objects commercially packaged into desirable, lovable things (the five strands of desirable qualities), and which are your own cognition and emotion (consciousness, feeling, perception, volition). Without seeing these three layers clearly, it is very hard not to be led around by the nose.
One may borrow a point of comparison from neuroscience — but its limits and open questions must be stated: modern neuroscience has found that the dopamine system secretes most intensely in the "anticipation of reward" phase (not at the moment of "receiving the reward"). This means that the pleasure of scrolling short videos lies not in how good the next piece of content is, but in the sustained anticipation that "the next one might be better." This mechanism is strikingly consistent with Buddhism's claim that "五欲功德" is "覺想思惟" rather than the external objects themselves (the *Saṃyuktāgama*: "the qualities themselves are not desire; desire lies in awareness, imagining, and discursive thinking"). But note: this consistency is only a description at the level of "mechanism"; it does not constitute scientific proof of the Dharma. Buddhism speaks of "how to stop being hijacked by this mechanism"; neuroscience can only describe what the mechanism is. The two differ in both purpose and method. To equate them would compress Buddhism's dimension of renunciation (出離) into "neuromodulation."
Third, "knowing where one begins to contact the external world." The starting point of the entire path of liberation is the twelve sense bases (six internal + six external). The starting point of the twelve sense bases is the external sense bases as objects of cognition — that is, the five sense objects (the first five external sense bases) and 法塵 (the sixth). Without seeing clearly what the object of cognition is, the next step — "觸" (contact) — and the step after — "受" (feeling) — and the "想、思" (perception and volition) that follow, all cannot be seen clearly. This is like wanting to understand how a system works without looking at its input: the more you look, the more confused you get. So the concept of the five sense objects is not an abstract scholastic term, but the first window for seeing clearly the entire mind-body mechanism.
Moreover, this concept is useful at both the "demolishing" and the "establishing" ends.
The "demolishing" side: the *Madhyamaka-śāstra* says "色聲香味觸、及法為六種，如是之六種，是三毒根本." Knowing that the five sense objects are what the three poisons cling to, one can, at the very moment greed, hatred, and delusion arise, first identify which external object touched which faculty and which consciousness. Being able to identify it interrupts one step of the automaticity of greed, hatred, and delusion. That is the "demolishing" side.
The "establishing" side: the *Dīrghāgama* says "色聲香味觸，微妙可悅樂," and further "菩薩福所致，因而在其中娛樂" ("produced by the bodhisattva's merit, and therein one takes delight"). This is the "establishing" side — the five sense objects are not merely dangerous things to be avoided; they are also pure and delightful objects of cognition felt through the bodhisattva's accumulated merit. Seeing this clearly, one does not fall into ascetic barrenness. So the concept of the five sense objects neither tells people to flee the world, nor tells them to cling to the world — it tells them to see clearly this relationship itself: the world as external object. Once the relationship is seen clearly, the world remains the world, but one's way of responding to it can be completely different.
Common Misreadings and Clarifications
Finally, let me sort out the most common and most dangerous misreadings, each clarified against the classical definitions.
Misreading one: 五塵 = sensory desire (五欲) "I should stay away from the five sense objects" — this is a rather popular saying. But strictly according to the classics, the *Dīrghāgama*'s "五欲功德" refers to the quality of external objects being lovable and delightful, and clung to by people; "欲" (desire) itself does not lie in the external object but in awareness, imagining, and discursive thinking (per the *Saṃyuktāgama*). That is, "五塵" are external objects; "五欲" is the clinging mind. Mistaking external objects for desires and fleeing them develops into one of two illnesses: either ascetic repression, or self-flagellation of the "even looking at a flower makes me guilty" sort. The five sense objects themselves are not what is to be kept away from; what needs to be dealt with is the clinging to them.
Misreading two: 五塵 = the body Some people loosely equate the five sense objects with "the flesh body" or "the bodily senses." This is completely wrong. The five sense objects are things outside the body, not the body. 色塵 is external shape, 聲塵 is external vibration, 香塵 is external molecules, 味塵 is the chemical property of external soluble substances, 觸塵 is external physical contact — all are objects outside. The body is the five faculties (internal sense bases), not the five sense objects (external sense bases). This distinction is crucial: when Buddhism says "external objects" (外塵), its first meaning is things external to the body, not inside your body. So it is not your body that makes you suffer, but those things outside the body that you cling to.
Misreading three: 色塵 = color Equating the character 色 with "color" is the easiest error to make in a Chinese-language context. In the scriptures, "色塵" means "visible form," which includes two layers: first, visible color (顯色: blue, yellow, red, white, etc.), and second, shape (形色: long, short, square, round, high, low, level, crooked, etc.). White light, white paper, white wall, white cloud — same color, different forms; a red bean and a red sunset glow — same color, completely different forms. So the character "色" in "色塵" actually corresponds to "form that can be captured visually," far more than mere color. If this layer is not clarified, one will understand "色" as a visual filter and entirely miss Buddhism's fine-grained analysis of the visual object.
Misreading four: 觸塵 = the sense of touch Equating the character 觸 with "touching something with the hand" is another narrowing. The classical definition of 觸塵 is "四大及四大所造色，不可見，有對," which includes temperature (the temperature property of earth, water, fire, wind), pressure (the pressure property of the great elements), texture (the smoothness, roughness, lightness, heaviness of forms produced by the great elements), humidity, hunger and thirst, and every physical property felt on the body's surface. So 觸塵 is not just the instant you touch the keyboard; your entire body at every moment is in contact with air, with the seat, with the ground, with clothing — 觸塵 continuously covers the body; it is the layer of the five sense objects least able to maintain distance from the body. This also explains why in sensory life, touch-related addictions (food, sex, massage, comfortable environments) tend to be the hardest to become aware of.
Misreading five: 五塵 = the five aggregates (五蘊, pañcaskandha) These two conceptual frameworks are completely different. The five aggregates are about "the five elements composing experience" (form, feeling, perception, volition, consciousness); they analyze how an already-occurred experience is composed. The five sense objects are about "the five types of external objects as objects of cognition"; they are about what kinds of objects the mind-consciousness goes to contact. The first aggregate — the form aggregate (色蘊, rūpa-skandha) — in fact includes both the five faculties and the five sense objects (internal form + external form); it is "material form in the broad sense," far more than just the five external sense objects. So the "五蘊" in "照見五蘊皆空" ("seeing that the five aggregates are all empty," from the *Heart Sūtra* 《心經》) is not equal to the five sense objects discussed here. Conflating the two concepts is like using a ruler that measures "the composition of experience" to measure "the objects of the external sense bases" — the scales are entirely mismatched.
Misreading six: the five sense objects are bad, so practice must eliminate them The *Dīrghāgama* contains words like "菩薩福所致，色聲香味觸，微妙可悅樂，因而在其中娛樂" — indicating that the five sense objects themselves can be objects of pure delight. Buddhism does not advocate treating the five sense objects as "things to be eliminated"; rather, it advocates seeing clearly the relationship between the five sense objects and clinging. What is to be cultivated is not the external objects, but the mind's clinging to external objects. The *Saṃyuktāgama* states this very clearly: "眼色乃至身觸緣生之識，可能生可意、不可意、可意不可意三種感受；聖弟子如實知其生滅，以寂滅、勝妙、捨為處置，得捨即離厭不厭" ("consciousness born from conditions — from eye-and-form up to body-and-tangible — may give rise to three kinds of feeling: agreeable, disagreeable, and both agreeable-and-disagreeable; the noble disciple (聖弟子, ārya-śrāvaka) knows their arising and ceasing as they really are, and takes cessation, excellence, and equanimity as his resort; having attained equanimity, he is free from both aversion and non-aversion") — neither aversion nor non-aversion, but equanimity (捨, upekṣā). This "equanimity" neither denies the existence of the five sense objects nor is led away by them. Understanding this, one truly understands the position of the concept of the five sense objects on the path of liberation — it is an object to be observed as it really is, not an object to be hated or craved.
If one sentence must summarize the concept of the five sense objects: they are the five kinds of external objects faced by the five faculties, the "object of cognition" half of the entire mind-body experience; seeing them clearly is the precondition for seeing where the three poisons begin to cling, and for seeing the very layer at which greed, hatred, and delusion first arise. And then remember: seeing clearly is not about eliminating them; it is about, when facing them, no longer being automatically carried away by them. This is the true starting point of the entire twelve sense bases, the entire chain of dependent origination, and the entire path of liberation.