The Meaning of "The Stirring of a Thought Is Already a Deviation"

"Divergent" means diverging, deviating, and not being. When we give rise to a thought, this mind that generates and stirs thoughts is not the original mind of the eighth consciousness. Because the eighth consciousness never gives rise to thoughts—especially thoughts belonging to the worldly dharmas of the three realms, thoughts with language, words, sounds, and mental activity—the eighth consciousness never produces such things. Only the deluded mind has thoughts, because the manas clings to worldly dharmas without cease and its preoccupations are unbroken, so the mind consciousness must continuously give birth to all kinds of thoughts and ideas, arising and ceasing, intermittent and fragmented—unable to be grasped, and tangled beyond untangling. Therefore, for a person without the seed-wisdom (bīla-jñāna) of Consciousness-only, all the thoughts that can be observed are conceived by the deluded mind; the mind that gives rise to thoughts is the deluded mind, not the original mind of the eighth consciousness.