How Tathagatagarbha Records Karmic Actions and Manifests Karmic Seeds (Part 5)

After the seeds are stored, they serve as the habitual seeds of the manas (mental faculty), and thus the manas carries corresponding habits. When the seeds of the six consciousnesses are delivered, the six consciousnesses manifest. The manifestation of the six consciousnesses must, on one hand, align with the mental activities of the manas, because the manas is the master consciousness that governs the physical, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses; on the other hand, they encounter new environments and are influenced by them. It is like water flowing through an area, which carries along impurities from the surrounding area and mixes with them, thereby becoming tainted. When the six consciousnesses encounter different environments, their physical, verbal, and mental actions may differ. After being influenced, the six consciousnesses, in turn, influence the manas.

For example, the six consciousnesses, originally defiled in their mental activities, may suddenly encounter a wholesome condition, such as encountering the Buddha Dharma, and thus begin to learn and practice Buddhism. After studying the Dharma and understanding cause and effect, they know what should and should not be done. Then, the consciousness (vijñāna) transmits the principles it has comprehended to the manas, enabling the manas to understand as well. In this way, the manas is influenced. The physical, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses engaged in Buddhist practice are stored as seeds in the tathāgatagarbha (Buddha-nature). If the manas is influenced, its mental activities are also stored as seeds in the tathāgatagarbha. The tathāgatagarbha then delivers these seeds, causing them to manifest, and the physical, verbal, and mental actions align with Buddhist principles. In this manner, the manas is transformed, the seeds delivered become pure, and the mental activities of the manas are altered.

In this process, all physical, verbal, and mental actions are decisively governed by the manas. The tathāgatagarbha stores the karmic seeds of these actions, and the manas also plays a decisive role as the link or intermediary between the tathāgatagarbha and the six consciousnesses. The manas is a crucial hub for the tathāgatagarbha in storing and delivering karmic seeds. Because the manas has relatively inferior discernment regarding specific objects of the six senses (six dusts), it cannot perform detailed discernment of them. The detailed discernment performed by the six consciousnesses is transmitted moment by moment to the manas, enabling the manas to discern what the six consciousnesses have discerned. Subsequently, the manas gives rise to the mental factor of deliberation (cetanā), deciding how to act. These decisions may be made according to the habitual tendencies of the manas itself or based on the analysis of the six consciousnesses; this is uncertain.

The manas may follow its habits or make choices based on newly influenced content, newly discerned information, or principles analyzed by the six consciousnesses. Which factor dominates—whether the manas’s own habits or the newly influenced principles from the six consciousnesses—is uncertain. The manas might integrate both, follow its own habits, or adhere to the principles analyzed by the six consciousnesses. After the manas deliberates and makes a choice, the tathāgatagarbha discerns its mental activities and generates the six consciousnesses accordingly, initiating physical, verbal, and mental actions based on the manas’s deliberation and mental state. How these actions are performed depends critically on the deliberation and choice of the manas.

After the manas discerns the information provided by the six consciousnesses, how it deliberates, what choices it makes, what mental activities arise, and whether those mental activities are defiled or pure—all these are accurately recorded by the tathāgatagarbha, which stores the seeds of these mental activities. The tathāgatagarbha also brings back all mental activities of the manas, whether wholesome or unwholesome, into itself to be stored as seeds. What constitutes the mental activities of the manas? One aspect is its original habits; another is the influence of the content discerned by the six consciousnesses. In other words, the physical, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses are also stored in the tathāgatagarbha via the manas. Within these actions, whatever mental activities the six consciousnesses exhibit, the tathāgatagarbha records and stores them; whatever mental activities the seventh consciousness, the manas, exhibits, the tathāgatagarbha records and stores them—all with complete accuracy, without the slightest omission. Moreover, this storage occurs simultaneously, moment by moment, without missing any part of the process. After everything is stored, the entire event is preserved as karmic seeds.