How to Exert the Function of the Manas to Attain Greater Wisdom (I)

Some people conducting scientific research say that our brain scans the external environment five times per second. What they are referring to is precisely the manas, but the frequency is not that slow; the instruments' measurements are inaccurate. The manas, at every moment, instant after instant, is always grasping at the objects of the six sense objects. What is called grasping is exactly the conditioned reflex mentioned in that research report—this very scanning. Conditioned reflexes belong to karmic force, seeds, habitual reactions, nerves, and so on—things of various kinds—and belong to reactions made by the manas. All dharmas that the manas contacts are manifested by the tathāgatagarbha; whatever the tathāgatagarbha manifests, the manas can grasp. The manas is extremely quick and agile, and its grasping nature is extremely broad. The things it can grasp are not necessarily all known to the mind consciousness; there is much content that the mind consciousness does not know.

What the mind consciousness knows does not cover as broad a range as what the manas knows. The range the manas grasps is quite extensive. Look at this matter of karmic force: the tathāgatagarbha produces it for you; the nervous system, various aspects, matters of the body and of physiology—the tathāgatagarbha manifests all of them for you. After they are manifested, the manas grasps them first, and after the manas has grasped them, sometimes He will directly make a response. Why is there a direct response? One reason is that the matter is too weighty; another is that His habitual tendencies make it so. Especially when it involves the body or matters concerning oneself, His habitual functioning can manifest very rapidly, leaving no room at all for the mind consciousness to initiate the function of deliberation.

That research enables us to have a deeper level of understanding of the natures of the mind consciousness and the manas, and a deeper level of knowing of all the object-aspects (nimitta) manifested by the tathāgatagarbha; then we will know that these object-aspects are all grasped by the manas. The range discerned by the mind consciousness is still somewhat smaller than that of the manas. When can it discern more? When the mind consciousness possesses the wisdom of wonderful observation, after cultivating to the stage of a bodhisattva of several bhūmis, the range it discerns can come close to the range discerned by the manas. After becoming a Buddha, the ranges and contents discerned by the two may be nearly the same. Then the dharmas that the manas can grasp, the sixth consciousness can also grasp. All the dharmas manifested by the tathāgatagarbha, the mind consciousness with its wisdom of wonderful observation can also know.

That research shows that when a person's mind settles down and becomes quiet, inspiration will manifest. What does this mean? When the mind settles down and becomes quiet, the mind consciousness becomes relatively deep and subtle. That is to say, the mind consciousness no longer gives rise to coarse functions of thinking and analysis, but does the mind consciousness still exist? Here there is still the mind consciousness, only it is relatively deep and not easy to detect, and the power of introspection (pratyavekṣā-bala) is somewhat weaker. Because the mind consciousness has already become clear and settled, there is no coarse discrimination, and the information transmitted to the manas is correspondingly reduced; the content transmitted is also relatively deep and subtle, and at this time the manas will also settle into tranquility (praśama).