How to Ensure the Direct Realization of Manas

When severing the view of self, consciousness must first provide manas with all the evidence and data. Then, consciousness should engage in less thinking, exert less effort, cooperate with the psychological activity needs of manas, let go and allow manas itself to ponder and deliberate, letting Him personally verify certain facts. If manas feels the facts are still insufficient, the evidence is still inadequate, or the data is still lacking, then consciousness must again engage in contemplative thinking, gather more data, and hand it over to manas. Manas then deeply ponders and deliberates once more. In this way, with consciousness constantly supplementing additional data and materials on the side, manas can continuously process and refine its thinking, ultimately arriving at a solid, well-evidenced conclusion, thereby attaining the fruit. If there are many matters needing handling, and consciousness must emerge from concentration to perceive the six dusts, then manas can still exert effort covertly, investigating whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, even during dreams or dreamless sleep at night. When manas genuinely feels the matter is of great importance, He may decide to forgo sleep and food, neglecting rest and meals, because manas is striving for diligence. These activities of eating and drinking interfere with manas's focused contemplation; He would be distracted by daily trivialities, so He decides to reduce other activities of the five aggregates to ensure He is not distracted. During sleep, without consciousness assisting from the side, manas lacks sufficient data and materials and cannot proceed with investigation. Therefore, manas decides not to sleep, not allowing consciousness to cease.

In the investigation of all dharmas, initially, manas cooperates with consciousness's thinking and analysis, assisting consciousness in gathering various data and materials. Once consciousness has gathered relatively sufficient materials, adequate for manas to utilize, consciousness must then cooperate with manas's deep deliberation, cooperate with manas's processing and integration work, cooperate with manas's examination and filtering work, letting manas expend more mental effort while consciousness becomes less active. In this way, the investigation work can be completed quickly.

To make consciousness engage in less active thinking and let manas ponder more, one must cultivate concentration. Only within concentration can manas's dedicated investigation be ensured. Although He cannot be completely fixed on one point, being able to fixate on a very few dharmas is sufficient. Apart from the Dharma principles requiring dedicated investigation, others are merely perceived slightly and will not affect one's own investigation. Therefore, contemplative practice must occur within concentration. Consciousness must not engage in emotional thoughts and intellectual interpretations; instead, one must employ manas's deliberative nature more, fully and effectively utilizing manas's pondering to personally realize the selflessness of the five aggregates. This is the secret of contemplative practice and Chan investigation.

Therefore, if manas does not realize the Dharma, it is impossible to realize the mind and attain enlightenment, and equally impossible to sever the view of self. When investigating Chan and practicing contemplation within concentration, one should use consciousness's thinking less and employ manas's deliberative nature more. This is the secret of Chan investigation and contemplative practice.

Without the cooperation and assistance of consciousness, manas can still investigate and ponder the principles of the Dharma, though it may take longer—it's unpredictable how long. However, the prerequisite is that consciousness must hand over the content and data of its thinking to manas. Manas needs something to follow in His deliberation to be able to ponder clearly and attain realization. For example, one might ponder a problem at night without resolving it and then fall asleep. After sleeping all night, the moment one opens one's eyes the next morning, inspiration arises, and one suddenly understands the unresolved problem. This indicates that throughout the night, manas was working and pondering. Leaving a doubt for manas before sleeping at night results in obtaining the answer upon waking in the morning. Many people have had similar experiences.

Another example: sometimes after pondering a problem, one might not get an answer immediately, so one goes to attend to other matters. Superficially, it seems the matter is forgotten, and consciousness no longer considers it. Then, unpredictably, at some point, the answer suddenly appears in the mind. This is manas silently pondering in the background all along, finally arriving at a result. Cultivation is precisely about employing manas more. The cultivation of manas is true cultivation; only then can one realize all dharmas and attain all wisdom.