What Does the Buddha Mean by "Beware of Trusting Your Own Mind"?

The Buddha said: "Beware of trusting your own mind, for your mind is not to be trusted. Only upon attaining the path of an arhat may you trust your own mind."

Faith is divided into deep faith and shallow faith, true faith and false faith. Deep faith and true faith is the belief deep within the manas; shallow faith and false faith is the superficial belief at the level of the mind consciousness, or the mind consciousness deliberately pretending to believe while the manas does not actually believe.

As for the mind, one aspect refers to the views, opinions, perspectives, and propositions deep within the manas; the other refers to the views, opinions, perspectives, and propositions of the mind consciousness.

Trusting one's own views has distinctions at different levels: First, the mind consciousness trusts the views, opinions, perspectives, and propositions of the manas; second, the manas trusts the views, opinions, perspectives, and propositions of the mind consciousness; third, the manas trusts its own views, opinions, perspectives, and propositions; fourth, the mind consciousness trusts its own views, opinions, perspectives, and propositions. In addition, there are many other situations, such as when the mind consciousness believes but the manas does not, or when the manas believes but the mind consciousness does not, and so on.

Because the manas has deeply rooted ignorance and defilement, deeply rooted self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi) and wrong view (mithyā-dṛṣṭi), and because beginningless ignorance (avidyā) is innate and cannot be reversed, sentient beings' manas, due to ignorance, deeply trusts its own wrong views and refuses to be transformed, so that life after life it leads the mind consciousness to hold wrong views, creating ignorant and defiled karma, with birth and death in saṃsāra continuing without end. In order to save such sentient beings, the World-Honored One turned the light inward to reflect upon His own ignorance and afflictions, admonishing sentient beings not to trust their own inherent views. Only after cultivating and realizing the fourth fruit of arhatship, having completely eliminated self-view and self-grasping, when the mind attains purity and liberation by wisdom (paññāvimutti), can one trust one's own views and opinions. Before that, due to the obstruction of afflictions, insufficient wisdom, and incorrect views, if one has unwavering deep faith in one's own views, one will be unable to escape the pit of ignorance and attain liberation from birth and death.