The Innate Self-Grasping (sahaja-ātma-grāha) of the Manas and the Afflictions of Greed, Hatred, and Delusion

Question: Innate self-grasping is a seed formed through delusive conditioning since beginningless time and continuously corresponds with the manas. But the mind consciousness is new in each life and cannot correspond with memories of past lives; logically, there should be no innate self-grasping. Yet the thinking of the mind consciousness is drawn by the habitual tendencies of the manas. For example: upon seeing an enemy from a past life, anger arises in the mind consciousness, but one does not know why. Is it still the manas that grasps at the karmic seeds of past lives, drawing the mind consciousness to give rise to anger?

Answer: "Innate" (sahaja) means present from birth. Innate self-grasping and innate afflictions refer to the afflictions such as greed, hatred, delusion, and conceit that the manas possesses from birth—the habit of grasping at self carried since beginningless kalpas. Therefore, the manas corresponds with karmic seeds: whatever kind of seeds have been created and stored since beginningless kalpas, the manas manifests as mental activity of that kind, and it can impel the seeds to become manifest, and can direct the mental activities of the mind consciousness to correspond with the karmic seeds.

Moreover, the manas is not born along with the birth of a life; it exists throughout each period of life and in every form of life, coexisting with life itself—this is called "innate." And because, since beginningless kalpas, the manas has been obscured by ignorance, it has constantly grasped the five aggregates as self and as belonging to self; hence it is called innate self-grasping.

The mind consciousness has no innate quality. When an infant is just born, and even the consciousness in the mother's womb, it is newly arisen and brand new, carrying none of the afflictions and habitual tendencies from past lives and from beginningless kalpas. Everything in this life must be learned anew in order to be mastered; only the degree and speed of mastery are still related to the karmic seeds accumulated over many lifetimes, fostered and influenced by the manas and the karmic seeds. On the one hand, the mind consciousness is conditioned by the living environment of this life, giving rise in accordance with conditions to mental factors that are wholesome, unwholesome, or indeterminate (avyākṛta); on the other hand, it is conditioned by the manas: if the manas is wholesome, the mind consciousness is wholesome; if the manas is unwholesome, the mind consciousness is unwholesome.

Therefore, when the manas gives rise to afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, often without allowing the mind consciousness to explain or choose, the manas will direct the mind consciousness to inexplicably produce mental activities of greed, hatred, and delusion, creating karmic actions of greed, hatred, and delusion, and the rationality of the mind consciousness sometimes cannot play its proper role. When karmic seeds are about to become manifest, when the emotions and habitual tendencies of the manas are about to manifest, even if the mind consciousness has rationality, it is hard put to withstand them—let alone that for the vast majority of people, the mind consciousness has no rationality at all, and then the afflictions will run rampant.