Karmic Activities Are Primarily Mental Formations of Manas

Are karmic actions performed without conscious awareness still considered karmic actions? Do they bear karmic retribution? They are still karmic actions and bear retribution. Moreover, being actions arising dependent on karma, they are even more so considered karmic actions. For example, when the manas (mental faculty) and the tathāgatagarbha (Buddha-nature) undergo rebirth together, without the participation of consciousness, this karmic action is immensely significant. It is the largest and most crucial among all karmic actions, a decisive one that determines the destiny of sentient beings in the cycle of birth and death, being one of the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination. Because the manas possesses ignorance, it inevitably generates karmic actions leading to birth and death, and it inevitably undergoes rebirth, conforming to the cycle of life and death. If it were said that the manas and the tathāgatagarbha undergoing rebirth together is not a karmic action, then there would be no karmic actions whatsoever within the three realms.

When the manas and the tathāgatagarbha together construct lotus flowers in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, without the participation of consciousness, this karmic action is also extremely significant. It is an absolutely wholesome karmic action, determining that after death, beings will be reborn in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, liberated from the bonds of birth and death in the defiled five-turbidity world. In the future, under the guidance of Amitābha Buddha, they will realize their true mind and original nature, and then traverse the ten directions to broadly benefit sentient beings.

When the manas and the tathāgatagarbha together disturb others, together bless others, together enter others' dreams, together alert others, or when, without consciousness, one rolls over and accidentally crushes a newborn infant, etc. – all of these are karmic actions. There are wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral ones, and all bear karmic retribution. As long as there is volition (cetanā) and action, it is karma and bears retribution. Rolling over in the middle of the night while asleep without consciousness and accidentally crushing a newborn infant – this is unintentional, it is a neutral karmic action (avyākṛta-karma), but it still bears retribution. The immediate retribution is the suffering of losing the child; the retribution in a future life may also be being accidentally crushed to death. This is a painful result; it is not a result that is neither painful nor pleasant. Neutral karmic actions do not necessarily lead to results that are neither painful nor pleasant. "Unintentional" means without conscious awareness, but the manas is present. The manas is also not deliberate, without specific intent, but as long as there is volitional action, there is karma and there is retribution.

Karma is primarily the karma of the manas; it corresponds to the manas and is the process of the mental formations (cetanā) of the manas. The mental formations of the manas sometimes require the cooperation of the six consciousnesses; sometimes the six consciousnesses cannot cooperate, meaning there is no participation of the six consciousnesses in the action, but it is still a karmic action bearing retribution. If the manas does not intend to create karma, no karmic action arises, and the six consciousnesses will not arise to create karma either. Therefore, it is said that the manas is the master agent of karma creation; this is true for both wholesome and unwholesome karma.