But insofar as certain mental states naturally appear to follow from particular types of consciousness, we will arrive at an understanding of how certain mental states and types of consciousness go together. This is far more important than memorizing the list of mental states. Unspecified mental states are neither wholesome nor unwholesome, but take on the nature of the other mental states with which they are associated. These unspecified mental states play a central role in the construction of conscious experience, much like the cement without which the building of experience cannot hold together. The universal mental states are present in all types of consciousness without exception, whereas the particular mental states only occur in certain types of consciousness.
Contact is the conjunction of consciousness with an object.
It is the coexistence of subject and object which is the foundation of all conscious experience. Perception implies recognition of the sense-sphere of the faculty to which a given sense impression pertains, that is, to the sphere of eye consciousness, ear consciousness, and so on. Volition, in this context, does not mean free will but an instinctive volitional response. One-pointedness occurs not in the sense of a factor of absorption but in the sense of the limitation of consciousness to a particular object. Attention can be seen in relation to one-pointedness.