The Passive Discrimination of the Manas and the Six Consciousnesses

Question: The manas "silently encompasses all dharmas" — can "silently encompasses" be understood as passive reception? For example, with the sound object among the six sense objects — if a sound is grating and one does not want to hear it, there is no way to avoid it, unless one removes the condition of the sound object, or the manas directs its attention to other content.

Answer: The manas silently encompassing all dharmas means that the manas, together with the tathāgatagarbha, can perceive all dharmas and know all dharmas. On all dharmas there is not only the operation of the eighth consciousness but also the operation of the manas, and the operations of these two consciousnesses are extremely subtle and profound. They are called subtle and profound because the meditative concentration and wisdom of the mind consciousness are insufficient to observe the subtle and ever subtler operations of these two consciousnesses; that is why the dharmas of the manas and the tathāgatagarbha are said to be subtle and profound, with the operations of the consciousnesses being even subtler.

It is the six consciousnesses that passively receive the dharmas of sense objects. Because the manas's habitual power of discernment cannot be subdued by the mind consciousness, the latter has no choice but to discern some objects it would rather not discern. As for the manas passively receiving sense objects: when the tathāgatagarbha manifests the six sense objects, as well as objects that are not among the six sense objects, in accordance with ripened karmic seeds, the manas must passively receive and discern them. Many of these are adverse conditions and adverse circumstances, though there are also karmic retributions of wholesome karma.

The mind consciousness wants to enter meditative concentration and does not want to receive the six sense objects, but because the manas has not been subdued, it insistently keeps making the six consciousnesses discern objects that interest the manas, or objects to which the manas habitually clings, and so the six consciousnesses must continually discern in accordance with the manas. Then the mind consciousness must continually draw the manas to settle on the dharma that the mind consciousness wants to contemplate and reflect upon through contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā). When the manas has been persuaded and subdued by the mind consciousness, the manas reduces its clinging and discernment and settles on the six sense objects or mental objects (dharma-viṣaya) that require focused discernment, and only then can the six consciousnesses enter meditative concentration. In actuality, it is still the manas that first attains concentration, and only then can the six consciousnesses settle down.