Karmic Activities Are Primarily the Mental Activities of Manas

Are dharmas created in the absence of the mind consciousness karmic formations? Do they have karmic retribution? They still belong to karmic formations and have karmic retribution; moreover, being formations that arise in dependence on karma, they belong even more to karmic formations. For example, the manas enters the womb together with the tathāgatagarbha without the participation of the mind consciousness, yet this karmic formation is enormously significant—it is the greatest and most crucial of all karmic formations, a decisive one that determines the direction of sentient beings' birth and death, and it is one link in the twelve-linked chain of dependent origination of birth and death. Because the manas has ignorance, it will inevitably produce karmic formations of birth and death, and will inevitably enter the womb, conforming to birth and death. If the manas entering the womb together with the tathāgatagarbha were not considered a karmic formation, then there would be no karmic formations at all in the world of the three realms.

When the manas and the tathāgatagarbha together go to the land of bliss (sukhāvatī) to create the lotus flower, without the participation of the mind consciousness, this karmic formation is also extremely great; it is an absolutely wholesome karmic formation that determines the sentient being's postmortem destination toward the land of bliss, far from the bondage of birth and death in the five turbidities and evil world, so that in the future, under Amitābha Buddha's embracing care, the being can see the mind and realize its nature, and then fly off to the worlds of the ten directions to broadly benefit sentient beings.

The manas and the tathāgatagarbha together disturbing others, together blessing others, together entering others' dreams, together alerting others, as well as rolling over in sleep and crushing a newborn to death when there is no mind consciousness—all of these are karmic formations, some wholesome, some unwholesome, some neither wholesome nor unwholesome, and all have karmic retribution. As long as there is mind and there is action, there is karma, and there is karmic retribution. In the middle of the night, asleep without the mind consciousness, one rolls over and crushes a newborn to death; this is unintentional, an indeterminate (avyākṛta) karma, and it also has karmic retribution. The immediate retribution is the pain of losing the child, and the retribution in later lives may also be being unintentionally crushed to death oneself. This is a bitter fruit, not a retribution of neither pain nor pleasure; the karma of indeterminate (avyākṛta) nature does not necessarily bring a retribution of neither pain nor pleasure. "Unintentional" means without the mind consciousness, but there is still the manas; the manas is also not deliberate, without intent, but as long as there is action, there is karma and there is karmic retribution.

Karma is primarily the karma of the manas, corresponding to the manas; it is the process of the manas's mental actions and creations. The manas's creation of mental actions sometimes requires the cooperation of the six consciousnesses, and sometimes the six consciousnesses cannot cooperate, with no participation of the six consciousnesses in the creation, yet these are all karmic formations and all have karmic retribution. If the manas does not wish to create karma, no karmic formations appear, and the six consciousnesses will not arise to create karma. Therefore, the manas is the master of karma creation; wholesome and unwholesome karma are both like this.