The Right Understanding of Manas
Chapter 10: The Manas and Ignorance
1. All the ignorance of sentient beings is beginningless and is called beginningless ignorance (anādi-avidyā); it has existed since before beginningless kalpas. Since this is so, with which mind-essence does beginningless ignorance primarily correspond? It corresponds to the seventh consciousness, the manas. In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the World-Honored One taught that before beginningless kalpas, when all was chaos and undifferentiated, only the tathāgatagarbha and the manas existed; there was no threefold world, no five-aggregate world, and no six consciousnesses. At that time all ignorance already existed; no kind of ignorance was generated after birth. Therefore it is said that all ignorance is the ignorance of the manas. This passage in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra explains the origin of the world. Before this, there was no world; because of ignorance, the manas reached outward in grasping, and thus the world was formed. When there was no world, there could be no five-aggregate body and no six consciousnesses, for the five-aggregate body must have a place of dwelling to rely upon.
When the world arose, it also took countless kalpas of time. Why is empty space the same? If there were different empty spaces—one world, one empty space—then empty space would have boundaries, and what has boundaries is not empty space. This was the process of the initial formation of the five-aggregate world. Before this, everything was in a state of chaos. Who was in chaos? The manas was in chaos, because at that time there was no universe, no empty space, no heaven and earth, no world—only two conscious minds. When the manas gave rise to thoughts and reached outward in grasping, it did so imperceptibly and very subtly. Thereupon the tathāgatagarbha, according with the manas, gradually evolved empty space and the world, as well as the later five-aggregate world.
Since before beginningless kalpas there was no empty space and no world, did the tathāgatagarbha and the manas have concepts of time and space? Was there a tathāgatagarbha here and a tathāgatagarbha there? Do the tathāgatagarbha and the manas come and go? Can they move from one place to another? Since the tathāgatagarbha and the manas have no notions of time and space, we should then understand what the superknowledge of psychic power (ṛddhy-abhijñā) is about. We should also understand why rebirth in the lands of the buddhas can be reached in an instant.
2. The ignorance of the manas is not because the mind consciousness lacks wisdom; on the contrary, it is precisely because of the manas's ignorance that the mind consciousness has no wisdom. Therefore, the one who tied the bell is not the mind consciousness—the mind consciousness did not tie the afflictions of ignorance onto the manas—although the mind consciousness can in turn perfume the manas; but untying the bell requires the mind consciousness. The ignorance of the manas has existed since before beginningless kalpas and has never been illuminated; it is not the result of the mind consciousness's false teaching. Because at the very beginning there were only the tathāgatagarbha and the manas, and no mind consciousness—how could the manas's ignorance be the fault of the mind consciousness? The ignorance of the mind consciousness is precisely the fault of the manas, the result of being perfumed and led by the manas.
3. Does the Ignorance of the Manas Have Seeds?
Seeds are divided into the seven originally existing great-element seeds within the tathāgatagarbha, and the karmic seeds formed after the five aggregates create karma. In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the World-Honored One said that ignorance existed before beginningless kalpas and that sentient beings have never been illuminated. Then, since sentient beings have had the tathāgatagarbha and the manas since before beginningless kalpas, and the manas corresponds with ignorance—at the very beginning there were no five aggregates, and therefore no bodily, verbal, or mental actions were ever created, and thus no karmic seeds existed. This shows that the ignorance of the manas has no seeds; moreover, ignorance existed before beginningless kalpas, without cause and without reason. Ignorance manifests in the form of mental factors (caittas), and mental factors have no seeds; they are the aids and companions of the conscious mind. Through cultivation, mental factors transform from unwholesome to wholesome, ignorance is exhausted, the manas transforms from defiled to pure, consciousness is transformed into wisdom, and buddhahood is accomplished.
The manas is also a consciousness. Since it is a consciousness, it is formed from consciousness seeds. Once the consciousness is formed, it has two states: illumination and ignorance. The operation of the conscious mind is either illuminated or ignorant—one or the other, necessarily. When the ignorance of the manas is extinguished entirely and all is illumination, the cultivation of sentient beings is complete. The ignorance within the manas has been carried along since before beginningless kalpas and has never been illuminated; it is called beginningless ignorance.
4. How to Understand the Statement in the Cheng Weishi Lun That the Obstruction of the Knowable Is Manifest Only, Not Seed, and That Beginningless Ignorance Has No Seeds and Is Merely a Manifest Dharma?
The obstruction of the knowable (jñeya-āvaraṇa) spoken of in the Cheng Weishi Lun refers to sentient beings' not knowing or understanding the correct method for attaining buddhahood, or knowing very little of it, thereby obstructing their own cultivation so that their progress on the path cannot grow. Being ignorant of the correct dharma of attaining buddhahood, or knowing very little of it, is itself a tremendous obstruction, because without knowing, one has no way to actually set about cultivating, and one's practice will not get onto the right path.
This obstruction of the knowable is the manifest state of the conscious mind, not a seed. Seeds are divided into two parts: the seven originally existing great-element seeds within the tathāgatagarbha, and the karmic seeds deposited by sentient beings' bodily, verbal, and mental actions. Karmic seeds are further divided into three kinds: wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral (avyākṛta). Ignorance is foolishness (moha), not knowing, not understanding; it is divided into two kinds: ignorance in one thought-moment and beginningless ignorance; in fact, ignorance in one thought-moment is also beginningless. All ignorance—the not knowing and not understanding of all dharmas—does not exist as seeds stored in the tathāgatagarbha; rather, when the conscious mind operates, the deluded mental factor operates along with it, and the conscious mind then manifests as foolish and ignorant.
Among these, ignorance in one thought-moment corresponds to the manas. Before beginningless kalpas, the manas already possessed ignorance, and therefore it gave rise to the mind seeking outward, resulting in the birth of the threefold world, and thus the faculties, body, and material environment of sentient beings manifested. Sentient beings, relying on the five-aggregate body, gave rise to delusions and created karma, and only then did karmic seeds exist. These ignorances, although belonging to the defiled nature of the conscious mind, are not seeds; when the conscious mind operates, they operate in the form of mental factors. Mental factors themselves have no seeds; they appear simultaneously with the conscious mind. Apart from the five universal mental factors, which universally accompany the operation of the conscious mind, the other mental factors manifest only at times, do not always appear at every moment, and can also change and disappear. For example, the afflictive mental factors of ignorance in one thought-moment, such as greed, hatred, delusion, conceit, and doubt, can be cultivated away through practice and will no longer manifest.
The meaning of beginningless ignorance is that sentient beings, from beginningless kalpas until now, have never known that there is a mind of ultimate reality of the dharma realm—the tathāgatagarbha. Sentient beings, from beginningless kalpas, have never corresponded with the Mahāyāna dharma, have never known that they should cultivate the Mahāyāna dharma, return to their own pure self-nature, and accomplish buddhahood. This beginningless ignorance also corresponds with the manas and has no seeds; it can only manifest simultaneously with the conscious mind, operating along with it, and can be broken through and exhausted. It has no actual seeds stored in the tathāgatagarbha.
5. The Source of Afflictive Habits Such as Arrogance and Affectation
Afflictive habits such as arrogance and affectation all originate from the manas; the manas has had ignorance since before beginningless kalpas. Because of ignorance, all the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, along with the habits of those afflictions, have always been carried along and exist in the manas, manifesting through the tathāgatagarbha. Because these afflictions have been carried along from beginningless kalpas, their habitual force is very great and very hard to change. For example, when a person is accustomed to doing certain things, without deliberation, upon encountering conditions he does them, or makes rapid reactions upon encountering conditions—all this is the force of the manas's habitual inertia, which is difficult to overcome.
For example, some people always say, "I am accustomed to such-and-such." This being accustomed to such-and-such—in the other realms of the six destinies, if conditions permit, they would still be accustomed to such-and-such. Even after leaving the evil destinies and returning to the human world, they would still be accustomed to such-and-such; even if they run into walls everywhere, they are still accustomed to such-and-such, showing no visible change at all. Some people are a bit more severe: even if it would cost them their lives, they are still accustomed to such-and-such. For example, someone suffers alcohol poisoning from drinking; others urge him to stop, saying that drinking further will cost him his life, and he says, "Well, there's no way around it—if I don't drink, I'll die anyway." The manas is just this stubbornly, fatally obstinate.
Then how can the manas's habitual afflictions be changed? Only through the path of studying Buddhism and cultivating. After studying Buddhism, eradicating the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa), and then cultivating the first dhyāna concentration, the afflictions will fall away bit by bit until they are exhausted and one becomes an arhat. This only severs the manifestation of afflictions; the habits still lie in ambush. The afflictive habits and inertia of the manas are only severed bit by bit beginning from the bodhisattvas who have attained the bhūmis; when all are exhausted, one has cultivated to the eighth bhūmi. After seeing the mind and seeing the nature, becoming a person of the third fruit, one begins to sever afflictions; after entering the first bhūmi, afflictions can be exhausted and one can become a person of the fourth fruit, yet retaining a little of the residual delusions (kleśa) in order to obtain a physical body again and continue cultivating the buddha path.
In order to retain delusions to moisten rebirth, bodhisattvas may retain a little affliction without exhausting it, not taking the definitive position of the arhat. Even so, bodhisattvas begin to sever the habits of afflictions upon entering the first bhūmi, whereas the Hīnayāna arhats enter nirvāṇa without remainder without having severed them. After bodhisattvas exhaust the habits of afflictions, they enter the eighth bhūmi, and two great immeasurable kalpas of cultivation time have passed, leaving only one-third of the time until buddhahood. Deep and subtle afflictive habits require two great immeasurable kalpas to exhaust; slight afflictive habits can be exhausted at the first bhūmi. But generally speaking, afflictive habits such as drinking alcohol or gambling, if one makes a firm resolution, can be severed immediately, within a few months—not too difficult. Because the time of being perfumed by these bad habits cannot be too long—they are often perfumed after birth—they are relatively easy to sever.
6. How Does Ignorance Condition Volitional Formations?
The dharma of the twelve links of dependent origination says: ignorance conditions volitional formations, volitional formations condition consciousness, consciousness conditions name-and-form, and so on. These are twelve links in the chain of birth-and-death; each exists because of the preceding link, and if the preceding link does not cease, the following link will arise. But the arising of the following link is not produced by the preceding link; rather, each link is produced by the tathāgatagarbha, which relies on the preceding link as a condition to produce the following link. Without the condition of the preceding link, the tathāgatagarbha cannot produce the following link. This means that when the preceding link ceases, the following link ceases along with it and can no longer exist; then the chain of birth-and-death is severed and sentient beings are liberated. The first link says: because sentient beings have ignorance, the manas reaches outward in grasping the six sense objects, grasping the myriad dharmas of the world. Because of the manas's grasping, the mind is not tranquil, and the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses are unceasing, necessarily arising continuously, producing all kinds of behaviors and activities.
These bodily, verbal, and mental actions are not directly produced by ignorance. Ignorance has no substance and no seeds and cannot produce the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses. All bodily, verbal, and mental actions are created by the six consciousnesses produced by the tathāgatagarbha, all generated by the tathāgatagarbha relying on various conditions. When the conditions cease, the bodily, verbal, and mental actions cease. The most important condition is the manas's grasping at self and at all dharmas—this is ignorance, ignorance in one thought-moment. When the arhat exhausts this ignorance in one thought-moment, he no longer wishes to create bodily, verbal, and mental actions, and while alive merely passes his days according to conditions. At the end of life, all bodily, verbal, and mental actions will cease; there will be no five aggregates arising in future lives, much less six consciousnesses in future lives, and still less bodily, verbal, and mental actions in future lives.
7. The arising and appearing of all dharmas is the result of the combined operation of the eight consciousnesses, or of the combined operation of the tathāgatagarbha, the seventh consciousness, and the sixth consciousness. The scope of "all dharmas" is extremely broad: everything sentient beings can contact and cognize belongs to the scope of all dharmas, and there are many more dharmas that cannot be contacted or cognized which also belong to the scope of all dharmas. Why are there so many dharmas that cannot be cognized, not known, not understood, not realized? Because of ignorance.
When sentient beings have not realized the tathāgatagarbha, they cannot observe the tathāgatagarbha's operation upon all dharmas. If the faculty of faith is not complete, they also do not acknowledge the tathāgatagarbha's operation upon all dharmas. What does this mean? It means this person believes that all dharmas arise naturally and spontaneously, that they exist by nature—this is ignorance, the naturalist heresy; or they believe that all dharmas are born of various causes and conditions, not born of the tathāgatagarbha—this too is ignorance, the heresy of causes and conditions. These two heresies are precisely the two kinds of heretical wrong views pointed out by the World-Honored One in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra.
When sentient beings have not realized the seventh consciousness, they likewise do not know that the seventh consciousness operates upon all dharmas, much less can they observe the seventh consciousness's operation upon all dharmas. If a person's faculty of faith is not complete, they will not acknowledge the manifestation of the seventh consciousness in all dharmas. What does this mean? It means this person does not acknowledge that all dharmas are the result of the seventh consciousness's impelling, does not acknowledge that all dharmas are the result of the seventh consciousness's decisions and choices, does not acknowledge the seventh consciousness's imputed nature (parikalpita-svabhāva) of grasping at all, does not acknowledge that the seventh consciousness can silently contain all dharmas, does not acknowledge that the seventh consciousness, relying on the manas, can perceive all dharmas and thereby dominate the manifestation of all dharmas.
If one does not acknowledge the operation of the manas and the eighth consciousness upon all dharmas, then this person is a six-consciousness theorist, knowing only that the six consciousnesses—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—perceive, hear, feel, and know the six sense objects, and moreover mistaking the knowing nature of the sixth consciousness for the tathāgatagarbha, and the functions of the seventh consciousness for the functions of the sixth consciousness—gravely confusing the buddha dharma, unable to distinguish true from false. The result is that they become mired in the foolish quagmire of the six-consciousness theory, unable to extricate themselves, remaining for a long time in the dark pit of ignorance, undergoing immeasurable suffering of birth-and-death.
The ignorance of sentient beings is the hardest to break through, and their foolishness the hardest to transform. The root cause is sentient beings' meager merit (alpa-puṇya), never having cultivated precepts, meditative concentration, and wisdom, or having only very weak precepts, concentration, and wisdom. Only by long-term immersion in the ocean of the buddha dharma can one gradually accumulate some merit, and by strengthening the cultivation of precepts, concentration, and wisdom can ignorance be gradually melted away and thinned, so that one becomes a person whom the buddhas and bodhisattvas can transform and gather in.
8. Is the Five-Aggregate World Manifested with the Tathāgatagarbha as Cause and the Manas's Ignorance, Afflictions, and Karmic Power as Conditions?
The five-aggregate world of ignorant sentient beings is born with karmic power as condition and the tathāgatagarbha as cause. The tathāgatagarbha is the cause that manifests the myriad dharmas; the conditions are sentient beings' ignorance and karmic conditions. When the manas's ignorance has not been extinguished and karmic conditions mature, the tathāgatagarbha will, in accordance with the manas's ignorance and afflictions, manifest the five-aggregate world. All of this arises from the manas's grasping and attachment.
The manas delights in grasping because the manas has ignorance and afflictions and has the nature of attachment; He is unwilling to give up self and the five-aggregate world. When He decides that He wants a five-aggregate body and mind, the tathāgatagarbha will accord with Him, outputting the corresponding karmic seeds to produce the five-aggregate world and the myriad dharmas. The manas has existed since before beginningless kalpas; when the arhat enters nirvāṇa, He can be extinguished. Moreover, only because the tathāgatagarbha transmits consciousness seeds to Him can He operate. The manas is beginningless but has an end; yet the buddhas and bodhisattvas will never let Him end, letting Him operate forever, with the tathāgatagarbha thereby giving birth to the five-aggregate world and the myriad dharmas, to benefit and bring joy to sentient beings.
9. Why Is the Manas Unborn but Perishable?
The manas exists innately; He is not born afterward, not nonexistent before and existent after. Such is the dharma's intrinsic nature—there is no reasoning to be spoken of. That He is said to be perishable is because only when the tathāgatagarbha transmits consciousness seeds to Him and sustains His operation can He exist. The manas's existence is conditional; once the conditions are not complete and the causes and conditions of survival are extinguished, the manas will perish. The arhats who do not turn toward the Mahāyāna have all already extinguished the manas. If the manas were not innate, then innately only the tathāgatagarbha would exist. And the existence of only the tathāgatagarbha is the state of nirvāṇa without remainder, which results from the arhats having exhausted the manas's attachment to the dharmas of the threefold world.
If sentient beings were innately within nirvāṇa without remainder, then sentient beings would originally be arhats, not originally ordinary beings. Since sentient beings would be arhats within nirvāṇa without remainder, why would the manas arise again from the state of nirvāṇa without remainder, and the five aggregates arise again, becoming karma-creating ordinary beings with birth-and-death and transmigration? This could not be explained. Moreover, if there were no ignorance in the manas and no karmic conditions, the tathāgatagarbha alone could not produce any dharma whatsoever.
A single tathāgatagarbha alone cannot produce the dharmas of the threefold world, cannot produce sentient beings' five aggregates. If within the tathāgatagarbha there were no dark, agitated appearance of the manas's ignorance, He would not go on to produce any dharma. If He did produce some dharma, it would certainly be because of the manas's ignorance and grasping—unless the great power of vow of the buddhas and bodhisattvas could sustain the manas's existence. Therefore there must be the innate existence of the manas, and the manas must innately possess ignorance, so that the tathāgatagarbha can accord with the manas's ignorance and manifest the faculties, body, and material environment, thereby producing the universal world of the threefold realm and the myriad dharmas.
The manas's ignorance and attachment can be extinguished through cultivation. Then one must cultivate the truth of the Four Noble Truths taught by the World-Honored One and the dharma of the true thusness tathāgatagarbha of seeing the mind and seeing the nature, so that the manas's three kinds of ignorance are all extinguished. After ignorance in one thought-moment is extinguished, the sentient being's manas no longer grasps at the self of the five aggregates, will be willing to extinguish himself, and can leave the suffering of worldly birth-and-death. Once the manas no longer grasps, He can extinguish Himself and enter nirvāṇa without remainder; then there is no manas, only the tathāgatagarbha. The great arhat liberated in both ways, in the cessation attainment, can extinguish the manas's two mental factors of feeling and perception, leaving three mental factors, which can also be extinguished; when all are exhausted, the entire five aggregates and eighteen elements disappear. Therefore the manas can be extinguished. Since He can be extinguished, He is of a nature of arising and ceasing, not a true dharma. Moreover, the manas's existence depends on the tathāgatagarbha transmitting consciousness seeds to the manas instant after instant; only then can the manas manifest and function.
But if the manas has extinguished ignorance in one thought-moment and retains only a little greedy craving, He can continue to exist in the threefold world and practice the bodhisattva path—this is how the bodhisattvas on the bhūmis are: the manas has no afflictions and consciousness is transformed into wisdom. When all the manas's ignorance is extinguished—for example, a buddha at the stage of fruition—the manas's nature of consciousness is transformed into the nature of wisdom, and He can still continue to discriminate; that is discrimination with great wisdom, not the foolish discrimination of a darkened mind. The discrimination of ordinary beings is all ignorant and foolish; the discrimination of sages has wisdom and is wholesome discrimination. The discrimination of the manas or of the seven consciousnesses is the discrimination of conditioned dharmas, and the discrimination of conditioned dharmas is false discrimination. Although false, arising and ceasing, impermanent, discrimination is still necessary, and skillful discrimination is necessary; no one can do without discrimination, otherwise one would be like a dead person.
10. Why Has the Manas Existed Since Before Beginningless Kalpas?
Since beginningless kalpas, there have been two dharmas not born of causes and conditions. One is the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha, originally existent, not born by any dharma. The other is the manas, the seventh consciousness, which has also existed together with the eighth consciousness from the very beginning, not a dharma born afterward, not born by the eighth consciousness relying on any conditions. But the manas is still a conditioned, perishable dharma, not a real dharma, requiring the eighth consciousness's continuous output of consciousness seeds to maintain His existence, requiring the eighth consciousness's continuous sustenance to exist. Why has the manas existed since before beginningless kalpas, not born of causes and conditions, yet still belongs to the dharma of arising, ceasing, and change? Because the manas has innately possessed ignorance since before beginningless kalpas, especially the ignorance in one thought-moment—the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion—not knowing his own falsity; therefore the view of self and the grasping at self cannot extinguish himself, and he coexists with the eighth consciousness without disappearing. Once the manas exhausts ignorance in one thought-moment and exhausts the grasping at self, he will necessarily disappear, leaving only the eighth consciousness existing alone—formless and featureless, without clamor or tumult, in tranquil nirvāṇa.
11. How to Make the Manas Repent Its Past Ignorance and Faults
After realizing the selflessness of the Great and Small Vehicles, directly observing that the five aggregates, eighteen elements, and the myriad dharmas of the world are all born of the tathāgatagarbha and are all selfless, that none of the dharmas is the self—when the manas confirms this, He will no longer take the functions of the five aggregates' form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness as His own functions, will no longer take the functions of the five faculties, six sense objects, and six consciousnesses as self and belonging to self, will no longer take the manas himself as the true self, and likewise will no longer take the tathāgatagarbha's functions as his own. From then on He will have the ability to no longer greedily grasp the five aggregates and all dharmas, and will gradually sever the attachment to these dharmas. Because these dharmas all belong to the tathāgatagarbha, not to the manas himself—recognizing this fact, the manas will let go of everything, slowly loosening both hands, the mind settling down, karmic obstructions eliminated, the grasping at self and grasping at dharmas exhausted, ignorance exhausted, utterly selfless—and one becomes a buddha.
Countless people's manas, due to ignorance, not understanding the ultimate reality of the dharma realm, has been continuously grasping since beginningless kalpas, clutching at everything; not only has he gained no benefit, he has instead grabbed a body full of karmic obstructions and afflictions. If all dharmas were one's own, there would be no need to grasp at all; if they are not one's own, one cannot grasp anything anyway—one can only lose more than one gains. Everyone grasps tightly at the people, affairs, things, and principles of the world, unwilling to give up or let go of a single one; the result is a body full of karmic obstructions, immeasurable afflictions, falling into the sea of suffering—and still not knowing it, still grasping continuously. The more one craves, the deeper one falls, the more one loses, the more foolish and distressed one becomes. Those who have never tasted the flavor of liberation do not know how light and free the body and mind would be to let go of self and let go of all dharmas. Sentient beings can be described and summarized in one word: foolish! Ignorant! Deluded!
12. The seventh consciousness's ignorance, grasping, and attachment are such by the dharma's intrinsic nature—originally so, without cause, without a cause that produced the ignorance. If ignorance had a cause, it would not be ignorance. Read carefully in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra where the World-Honored One said that the manas's ignorance is rootless and has no place of origin; ignorance existed before beginningless kalpas, so we have been sentient beings since before beginningless kalpas, never having been illuminated, and therefore have never been buddhas.
Because of ignorance, the seventh consciousness continuously grasps and clings; the objects it grasps and clings to are the six sense objects and myriad dharmas manifested by the karmic seeds that the tathāgatagarbha outputs upon encountering conditions, and He also outputs the consciousness seeds of the seventh consciousness, so that the seventh consciousness has the causes and conditions to grasp and cling to the six sense objects and myriad dharmas. Cultivation means to cultivate away the seven consciousnesses' ignorance, grasping, and clinging nature, to sever the manas's grasping at self and grasping at dharmas, to return all dharmas to the manas; when the obstructions of grasping are exhausted, ignorance is extinguished. Once the seven consciousnesses' ignorance is extinguished, consciousness is completely transformed into wisdom, and sentient beings become buddhas. The extinguishing of the seven consciousnesses' ignorance depends entirely on the tathāgatagarbha: realizing the tathāgatagarbha, studying the tathāgatagarbha, understanding all the seeds and their functions within the tathāgatagarbha, not taking any dharma as self—only then can the seven consciousnesses' ignorance be exhausted.
13. When sentient beings give rise to mental activity and thoughts, it is because the conscious mind has contacted sense objects, has experienced them, cognized them, known them, deliberates (manasikāra) upon them, takes the objects as truly existing dharmas, and then repeatedly cognizes, feels, and deliberates—and thus thoughts arise in the thousands. Thus the conscious mind constantly arises and ceases, creating and fabricating; suffering-feeling is unceasing, and birth-and-death is also unceasing.
But the arhat's conscious mind, at the very moment of first contacting a sense object, will move away and will not proceed to further cognition, nor wish to cognize more; it only roughly knows the object, will not investigate in detail, will not repeatedly deliberate and feel, and the subsequent emotional states of mind do not arise. Therefore, their states of mind are peaceful and stable, without impressions, without thoughts, with the conscious mind rarely manifesting. Only thus can the karmic seeds of future birth-and-death be severed, and one can escape the transmigration of birth-and-death.
Because sentient beings have ignorance, they take all sense objects as truly existent; therefore feelings are unceasing, thoughts unceasing, actions and creations unceasing, the six consciousnesses arise unceasingly, and there will be the birth of name-and-form in future lives, and the transmigration of birth-and-death begins again. When sentient beings' ignorance ceases, volitional formations cease—this is said for the Two Vehicle practitioners. Mahāyāna bodhisattvas can extinguish ignorance yet never extinguish bodily, verbal, and mental actions; but those actions must be pure, so as not to create unwholesome karma, avoid unwholesome retribution and the suffering of birth-and-death transmigration, and attain liberation.
The manas corresponds to mental sense objects; the tathāgatagarbha produces the mind consciousness; all six consciousnesses are produced by the tathāgatagarbha when faculties contact objects; the source of all dharmas is the tathāgatagarbha. When ordinary beings' manas has heavy ignorance and has not been subdued, He will grasp everywhere at the six sense objects, causing bodily, verbal, and mental actions to arise unceasingly; thus the mind is scattered and distracted, unable to attain stability of concentration, the mind is not tranquil, afflictions cannot be effectively subdued, and true wisdom cannot arise.
The arhat's manas has already been effectively subdued; the manifestation of afflictions has been eliminated; He no longer grasps at the five-aggregate world and no longer grasps at worldly dharmas; therefore the six consciousnesses rarely discriminate and the mind is tranquil. If we wish the mind to be tranquil, without afflictions and distress, we must subdue the manas as much as possible, letting Him grasp less at worldly dharmas. In worldly life, it is enough to have just one mind that responds; do not treat all dharmas as real and take them overly seriously. In this way the manas can gradually be subdued, and the mind consciousness will also rarely give rise to mental activity and thoughts.
14. The dharma of the twelve links of dependent origination: ignorance conditions volitional formations, volitional formations condition consciousness, and so on. Here, "volitional formations" refers to the mental activities of the manas, and "consciousness" refers to the six consciousnesses. Then "ignorance" must refer to the ignorance of the manas. Because of ignorance, the manas has the mental activity of wanting bodily, verbal, and mental actions to appear; thus the six consciousnesses arise and operate unceasingly, and the six consciousnesses have no choice but to create bodily, verbal, and mental actions, so that they cannot cease.
What does the ignorance here include? It must include all ignorance: the six root afflictions of greed, hatred, delusion, conceit, doubt, and wrong view (mithyā-dṛṣṭi), as well as the twenty secondary afflictions. Because of these ignorant afflictions, the manas constantly impels the arising and manifestation of bodily, verbal, and mental actions, making the six consciousnesses create unceasingly; the six consciousnesses cannot become pure, cannot attain the unconditioned, cannot cease, and the seeds of their creations must be left behind, giving rise again to existence in future lives.
"The six transforming consciousnesses are called the basis of defilement and purity"—this is also this meaning. The manas is the basis upon which the six transforming consciousnesses are pure or defiled; only by relying on the manas's purity or defilement can the six consciousnesses have their own purity or defilement. When the manas is pure, the six consciousnesses are pure; when the manas is defiled, the six consciousnesses are defiled. Therefore the afflictions of the six consciousnesses originate from the afflictions of the manas, and the purity of the six consciousnesses originates from the purity of the manas. Solving the problem of the manas solves the problem of the six consciousnesses, and thus solves all problems. Then, severing the manas's afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion and all afflictions also severs the six consciousnesses' afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion and all afflictions; when the manas has no afflictions, the six consciousnesses also have no afflictions; severing the manas's ignorance also severs the six consciousnesses' ignorance. Therefore the manas's afflictive mental factors absolutely cannot be fewer than the six consciousnesses', and the six consciousnesses' afflictive mental factors absolutely cannot be more than the manas's; the manas's wholesome mental factors cannot be fewer than the six consciousnesses', and the six consciousnesses' wholesome mental factors cannot be more than the manas's—otherwise the manas would not be the basis of defilement and purity for the six consciousnesses.
All dharmas are entirely born and operate because of the manas—no exceptions, no special cases. The manas is the driving force and fundamental cause of the production of all dharmas in the threefold world. Once the manas's ignorance is exhausted and there is no power of vow, the five-aggregate world immediately ceases. When the manas has no ignorance and afflictions, the six consciousnesses have no reason to create the karma of ignorance and afflictions, because they cannot act freely nor decide on their own.
Dharma and dharma are interconnected; no dharma exists independently or in contradiction with other dharmas. It is only that in individual cultivation, whether one has penetrated these dharmas: when not penetrated, this dharma is this dharma and that dharma is that dharma, not interfering with each other. When penetrated, dharma and dharma are perfectly harmonious, complementary and mutually assisting, all closely linked together. When the buddha dharma is penetrated, from any single aspect one can prove this dharma and also prove that dharma, and can discover more facts and truths, with wisdom perfectly harmonious and unobstructed.
15. The Obscuring Nature of the Manas
The manas perpetually grasps all dharmas as self and belonging to self, and also grasps the tathāgatagarbha's functions as belonging to himself; thereby he obscures the tathāgatagarbha's true reality, suchness, and various functional natures, and the mind consciousness cannot know the tathāgatagarbha's functions and nature. Thus one wanders lost in birth-and-death, recognizing only the false and not knowing the true. If the manas did not take the tathāgatagarbha's functions as his own, the mind consciousness would search and investigate for the true self—the tathāgatagarbha—and would realize the true dharma, escaping the suffering of birth-and-death transmigration. If the manas had no ignorance and did not take the five aggregates as self, the mind consciousness would also not take the five aggregates as real, and there could be no suffering of the five aggregates' birth-and-death.
The fundamental cause of the transmigration of birth-and-death is that the manas has ignorance, thereby manifesting the five aggregates, eighteen elements, and the dharmas of the threefold world; because of ignorance, the true reality of all dharmas is obscured. The manas is a conscious mind that exists from the stage of ordinary beings all the way to the stage of buddhahood and has never perished. Then, when becoming a buddha, one can say that He becomes the buddha, and one can also say that He does not become the buddha. In fact, among the eight consciousnesses, none can be found who becomes the buddha, and none can be found who does not become the buddha; certainly it is the eight consciousnesses combined together that produce the image of the buddha, the buddha's merits, and powers—the dharma of "becoming a buddha" is false.
16. The arising, ceasing, and changing of the physical body, from the fertilized egg all the way to death, is all the tathāgatagarbha's doing in accordance with karmic seeds. But if there were no manas's craving for the dharmas of the threefold world, the karmic seeds could only lie dormant in the tathāgatagarbha, unable to manifest; then there would be no fertilized egg and no subsequent physical body, and there would be no arising, ceasing, and changing of the physical body to speak of. If there were no manas's craving for the dharmas of the threefold world, there would also be no creations, no so many karmic seeds existing and manifesting; everything would be quiet and still, nothing happening.
In the fertilized egg, when there are no five consciousnesses and no mind consciousness, what exactly is the manas doing, what mental activity is He engaged in? Our mind consciousness, before consciousness has been transformed into wisdom, certainly cannot observe even the slightest bit. Even when the mind consciousness is very clear-headed, in the very moment of creating bodily, verbal, and mental actions, it still cannot know what the manas is doing at that moment, what mental activity, how He operates—this not-knowing is ignorance. Ordinary beings' ignorance is heavier than mere not-knowing: they will do everything possible to deny the dharmas they do not know, to comfort themselves and cover up this not-knowing—yet this only makes things more conspicuous, merely adding to karmic obstructions.
17. Non-valid cognition is erroneous cognition, unreasonable ideas and concepts. Before seeing the mind and seeing the nature, the seven consciousnesses' cognition of self is all non-valid cognition, all wrong views. Even after eradicating the view of self and realizing the fruit of arhatship, the cognition of the five-aggregate self is still not entirely direct perception, because the arhat still does not know what the essence of the five-aggregate body and mind actually is. Therefore, the person whose cognition of the five-aggregate body and mind is entirely direct perception, without a trace of wrong view, is the Buddha; the Buddha's wisdom is entirely wisdom of direct perception.
The non-valid cognition of the five-aggregate self comes entirely from the manas's ignorance. Therefore, all the aims and the ultimate goal of studying Buddhism and cultivating are to break through all of the manas's non-valid cognition, to break through all of the manas's inverted wrong views; when the manas's ignorance is exhausted, one becomes a Mahāyāna practitioner beyond training (aśaikṣa).
