The Manifestation of the Manas's Acuity

Why can the manas take measures in emergency situations, thereby averting danger and turning peril into safety? How does the manas know that the situation encountered is dangerous and could endanger one's own life and safety? How does the manas discern and judge that an accident is about to happen?

First, it must be explained that here the mind consciousness absolutely has no time to carefully analyze the danger of the situation, or how to evade it and what measures to take. Moreover, most of the time, only after the event has occurred and the risk has passed does the mind consciousness know what actually just happened, only then realizing how perilous it was—and then, instead of thanking God, it thanks some kind of deity, never knowing that what it should thank most is the manas. So what should we thank the manas for?

Since beginningless kalpas, the manas has experienced countless events; it knows what is beneficial to itself and what is harmful to itself, and what can endanger life. He, together with the eighth consciousness, has also conditioned upon the physical body life after life, and understands the general condition of the physical body—which parts are important and can involve the life faculty; the manas knows all of this. Therefore, at critical junctures, the manas often does not wait for the mind consciousness's analysis and judgment, but independently handles all kinds of urgent and major unexpected events on His own, preventing accidents from occurring and safeguarding the safety of life.

When various unexpected events occur, if the manas insisted on waiting until the mind consciousness had analyzed, deliberated, reasoned, and judged before deliberating (manasikāra) on how to resolve and handle the matter, it would already be too late, and perhaps life could hardly be preserved. Therefore, we should thank the manas for His keenness, thank the manas for His precious experience accumulated since beginningless kalpas, thank the manas for His decisive and quick-witted nature that brooks no delay, and thank the manas for that automated wisdom of evading danger. So we should also stop saying that the manas is always so dull and so stupid; when He is quick-witted, we are far from being His match.