Guide to the Cultivation and Realization of the Manas: Part One
Chapter 10: The Manas and the Indeterminate (avyākṛta)
1. What Does "Indeterminate" (avyākṛta) Refer To?
In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the Buddha said that before the five-aggregate world of sentient beings had appeared, only the manas and the tathāgatagarbha existed in a dim and obscure state, muddled and confused, unaware of the height of the heavens and the depth of the earth. The manas was ignorant and deluded, but because there was no cooperation from the six consciousnesses and the five aggregates, the manas could not create any karmic actions, and thus there were no wholesome or unwholesome karmas, nor the retributions of wholesome or unwholesome karmas. This is the indeterminate (avyākṛta) nature of the manas.
When the five-aggregate body of sentient beings appears, even if the manas has wholesome or unwholesome mental activities, or mental activities that are neither wholesome nor unwholesome, when the six faculties cannot intercommunicate and interfunction, He Himself cannot create anything, and can only realize His own ideas and satisfy His own mental activities through the six consciousnesses. The reason sentient beings receive retribution is precisely that the manas, through the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses, realized His own mental activities; there is a record of bodily, verbal, and mental actions, karmic seeds are stored, and only when the karmic seeds are transmitted out does retribution occur.
Among the indeterminate (avyākṛta) karmas of the six consciousnesses that are neither wholesome nor unwholesome, if minds of joy and delight, or of craving and attachment, arise, this becomes the bondage of birth and death, and one will be bound within birth and death — this is retribution. Even if the six consciousnesses have no craving-attachment or resentment, their indeterminate karmas that are neither wholesome nor unwholesome must still be stored as karmic seeds in the tathāgatagarbha; as long as there are karmic seeds, there is retribution. When Buddhas and Bodhisattvas come to this world, in the wholesome karmas and indeterminate karmas they create, there is no craving-attachment and no mind of joy and delight; therefore there is no bondage of birth and death, and Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will not be bound within the birth and death of the six realms. When doing the same things, some do so with intent and some without intent, and the retributions differ accordingly.
2. What Does "Indeterminate" (avyākṛta) Mean?
Indeterminate mental activities are mental activities that belong neither to wholesome karma nor to unwholesome karma; these mental activities can be recorded neither as wholesome karma nor as unwholesome karma. For example, all the mental activities of the eighth consciousness cannot be classified as wholesome or unwholesome karma; no matter what mental activities the eighth consciousness has, they are not stored as karmic seeds, and there is no retribution.
Then, can the mental activities of the manas be stored as karmic seeds, with wholesome and unwholesome retributions? The Śūraṅgama Sūtra says that countless eons ago, in a living being there were only two consciousnesses: the eighth consciousness and the manas. Although the manas had ignorance and also had wholesome and unwholesome mental factors, the manas's mental activities could not manifest; He Himself could not create karmic actions, there were no karmic seeds, and thus there was no retribution of any kind — neither wholesome nor unwholesome retribution. In fact, the manas's ignorance and the power of His mental intentions were the cause, and the fruit was the eventual arising of the three-realm world and the five-aggregate body; from then on there was birth and death and saṃsāra. Because of ignorance, the manas had mental intentions — this was karmic action — and afterward there was retribution; the retribution was the appearance of the three-realm receptacle-world and the production of the five-aggregate body, and from then on there was the bitter retribution of birth and death.
Because the manas grasped outwardly toward objects, the eighth consciousness produced the receptacle-world and the six-consciousness five-aggregate body, and only then were there the bodily, verbal, and mental karmic actions of the six consciousnesses; the eighth consciousness then began to record these karmic actions and store them as karmic seeds, and the five-aggregate body came to have wholesome and unwholesome retributions. But these karmic actions of the six consciousnesses were entirely directed and influenced by the manas's ignorance and wholesome and unwholesome mental activities. The manas has wholesome and unwholesome mental factors, and thus has wholesome and unwholesome mental activities, and can direct the six consciousnesses to create wholesome and unwholesome karmas; yet He Himself cannot create bodily and verbal karmic actions — He has only mental action.
All mental activities of the six consciousnesses belong to karmic actions, will all be stored as karmic seeds, and all have retribution, including wholesome mental activities, unwholesome mental activities, and mental activities that are neither wholesome nor unwholesome. The manas's mental activities can influence the behavior of the six consciousnesses; He is the guide and principal factor in wholesome and unwholesome karmas, the master who creates karma, and so the one who truly receives the retribution is still the manas. On the surface it is indeed the six consciousnesses that receive the retribution, but in essence it is the manas that receives it. The six consciousnesses can cease and can be replaced with new ones; even in states without the six consciousnesses, there is still a retribution body — for example, while asleep, at the time of death, at the time of entering the womb, in the meditative absorption of no-perception (asaṃjñi-samāpatti), while unconscious, and in the meditative absorption of cessation (nirodha-samāpatti) — in all these the manas alone receives the retribution.
3. Is the Manas Indeterminate (avyākṛta) in Nature?
Indeterminate nature means that the mental nature belongs neither to the wholesome nor to the unwholesome — it is of a nature that is neither wholesome nor unwholesome. Because the manas is the consciousness that takes charge, dominating the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of sentient beings, if the manas had no wholesome nature, the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of sentient beings could not include wholesome conduct, there would be no wholesome people in the world, the heavenly realms would not exist, and sentient beings who study Buddhism could not become wholesome people — studying Buddhism would be useless. If the manas had no unwholesome nature, He would not direct the six consciousnesses to create unwholesome bodily, verbal, and mental actions, there would be no unwholesome people in the world, and there would be no three evil destinies in the world. In fact it is not so: the transmigration through the six realms exists precisely because the manas has wholesome and unwholesome mental activities that impel the six consciousnesses to create wholesome and unwholesome actions; only thus are there wholesome and unwholesome people in the world, and only thus do sentient beings transmigrate through birth and death in the wholesome and evil destinies.
If the manas were neither wholesome nor unwholesome, the manas would have no afflictive mental factors and none of the eleven wholesome mental factors either; then sentient beings would originally have no afflictions, and studying Buddhism would not require eradicating afflictions; and since sentient beings would originally not be wholesome, studying Buddhism could not make them wholesome people, let alone Buddhas. If the manas had no wholesome or unwholesome nature and were merely indeterminate, then all the wholesome people in the world would have become wholesome from neutral people who were neither wholesome nor unwholesome, and all the unwholesome people in the world would have become unwholesome from neutral people; then there would be no innately wholesome or innately unwholesome people — all would have been transformed into such through the mind consciousness's postnatal perfuming by wholesome and unwholesome dharmas. Yet this is impossible.
Moreover, such wholesome people would merely be false wholesome people whose mind consciousness is wholesome, and such unwholesome people would merely be false unwholesome people whose mind consciousness is unwholesome; there would be no true wholesome people or true unwholesome people. If, no matter how the mind consciousness is perfumed by wholesome and unwholesome environments into wholesomeness or unwholesomeness, the manas is never perfumed by the mind consciousness into wholesomeness or unwholesomeness, then there would be no wholesome or unwholesome people. Because the manas does not correspond to wholesome and unwholesome mental factors, has no wholesomeness or unwholesomeness, is neutral, and would forever remain neutral, then no matter how sentient beings cultivated, they could not become Buddhas, could not store wholesome and unwholesome karmic seeds, and could not transmigrate through birth and death in the six realms.
If that were so, the manas would not be the consciousness that takes charge; the activities of the five aggregates would not be decided by the manas; the manas and the mind consciousness would each go their own way, and the five aggregates would fall into chaos. The manas, as the one in charge, creates one kind of indeterminate karma, while the mind consciousness, as the one in charge, creates wholesome and unwholesome karmas; the manas wants to go east while the mind consciousness wants to go west — where does the material body ultimately go? The mind consciousness wants to study Buddhism while the manas does not want to — how is the five-aggregate body to act? Split in two, does that work? Schizophrenia and split personality are both caused by severe inconsistency and lack of coordination between the mind consciousness and the manas, with the two deadlocked against each other; the manas is utterly distressed, nearly on the verge of collapse. If the mind consciousness and the manas each had their own karmic seeds, there would be two sets of karmic retributions: the mind consciousness ascends to heaven while the manas descends into hell — ultimately, does the five-aggregate body ascend to heaven or descend into hell? Therefore, the manas has a wholesome and unwholesome nature and has wholesome and unwholesome mental factors; He is not merely indeterminate in nature.
4. Seeds of Memory Are Stored in the Tathāgatagarbha Through the Manas
The contents of memory, as well as all dharmas, become seeds stored in the tathāgatagarbha; they cannot be stored in the brain. Seeds are formless and without marks, whereas the brain is material form (rūpa) that has form and marks and can be destroyed; the two are incompatible. If the contents of memory were all stored in the brain, then when the brain is destroyed, all these contents would vanish in future lives, and there would be no cause and effect. In this life, brain cells arise, cease, and mutate, and the contents of memory would also arise, cease, and mutate; then afterward one could not recall them.
The eighth consciousness has no function of memory and retention; the five consciousnesses have a weak function of retention; both the mind consciousness and the manas have the functions of memory and retention, but only the mind consciousness can recall. When the manas grasps at past mental sense-objects (dharma-viṣaya), this is called remembering and retaining (smaraṇa-dhāraṇā), not recollection; recollection is relatively subtle, and the manas cannot make subtle discriminations and cannot discern details.
5. Amnesia Is the Mind Consciousness Forgetting, Not the Manas Forgetting
There are people with amnesia, and there are also elderly Parkinson's patients, who forget who they are and their relationships with all the people and affairs around them. Problems of the mind consciousness are related to the supreme faculties (indriya); but does the manas forget? If a person with amnesia is cured of the illness, memory is restored, which shows that the manas has all along cognized all past dharmas. When a person with amnesia encounters certain people and affairs, he will also vaguely feel as if they seem familiar, which shows that the manas cognizes them. When a person with amnesia strives to recall and tries to recover his memory, it is the manas's intention (saṃjñā) that impels the mind consciousness to strive and think of ways.
