How Can One Abandon Consciousness and Use the Faculties?

Some say that this "faculty" refers to the spiritual faculties (indriya) of sentient beings, but in fact it refers to the manas. Spiritual faculties are also functions and operations of consciousness; apart from consciousness, there is no way to speak of spiritual faculties. Good roots and spiritual faculties generally refer to the wisdom of the seventh consciousness, which is innate.

"Relinquishing consciousness and using the faculty" is something ordinary people can make use of when practicing Chan investigation: relinquishing the six consciousnesses—especially relinquishing the mind consciousness's emotional thinking, conceptual understanding, pondering, speculation, analysis, inference, comparison, and judgment—and relying solely on the deliberation (manasikāra) of the manas. Only in this way can one realize the Path. After realizing the Path, in subsequent cultivation one should also rely on the manas as much as possible, because using the manas is more direct and penetrating, appearing straightforward, upright, pure, genuine, and immaculate; it can accomplish all things—one does what one says, and may even accomplish things without necessarily speaking of them.

Without meditative concentration (samādhi), it is very difficult to make use of the manas; one relies entirely on the mind consciousness's inference and understanding, which is easy but shallow. Understanding comes faster than realization, but it is of no use: without meditative absorption (samādhi), there is no liberation and no ending of birth and death, and once the mind consciousness ceases, it all becomes void. The deeper the meditative concentration, the more the manas is employed, the greater its power, the more capable it is of solving problems, the more meditative absorption one has; the deeper the meditative absorption, the more penetrating the wisdom, and the greater the power of liberation.