The Pervasively Cognizing Nature of the Manas

When asleep, a "bang"—a major sound appears, and only then does the manas give rise to the six consciousnesses, and the person wakes up. So when there is no major sound, do the six consciousnesses arise or not? For example, when we sit in meditation cultivating samādhi, the mind consciousness single-mindedly wants to settle down and does not want to discern sounds, yet the habitual momentum of the manas cannot be stopped: sounds still arise at the ear, the mind consciousness still knows them, and the mind cannot empty itself. When one is awake and the mind is calm, no matter how faint a sound at the ear, it can be heard—the faintest sound of the heartbeat, the sound of breathing, the buzzing of mosquitoes and insects, a distant sound about to fade away—the mind consciousness knows them all.

Because the manas universally contacts all dharmas, there is no dharma that the manas does not contact—subtle, coarse, major, or minor—the manas contacts them all. Even if the mind consciousness does not want these dharmas and dislikes them, the manas still brings them forth, and the mind consciousness has no way to stop it. This is the manas's universal contacting nature, the operation of its habitual tendencies. When the manas universally contacts all dharmas, sometimes it is because of desire, sometimes because of aspiration and vow-power, sometimes because of habitual tendencies, and at other times the sense objects are simply too powerful—the manas cannot resist the temptation and has no choice but to discern them, thus giving rise to the tendency of grasping. After the manas contacts dharmas, it causes the mind consciousness to manifest, which can then discern the six sense objects and perceive the appearances of sense objects.

So is the manas's own capacity to perceive the appearances of sense objects inferior? In fact, it is not inferior at all. Where a natural disaster or human calamity is about to occur, the mind consciousness knows nothing, yet the manas knows, and decides to move house to escape the disaster, or displays panicked behavior—all of which shows that the manas knows something is about to happen. Sometimes, when the manas knows something is going to happen and wants the mind consciousness to know it too, it produces a dream, letting the mind consciousness discern it in the dream, or lets the mind consciousness discern it in samādhi. Would you say the manas is nimble or not? Prior to this, did the mind consciousness know these things? If the manas does not alert it, the mind consciousness has no idea at all.

When the manas knows these things about to occur, it knows them entirely on its own by relying on the tathāgatagarbha—the six consciousnesses have nothing to do with it, and the mind consciousness knows nothing at all; only when the manas informs it through a dream can the mind consciousness know what is about to happen. While sitting in meditation, the manas can also return to past lives and manifest the affairs of past lives for the mind consciousness to discern—who owed you how many dollars in a past life, even a few cents, a whole pile of important and unimportant matters, all of which the mind consciousness can discern. Is the mind consciousness involved here? No; all of it is known by the manas alone relying on the tathāgatagarbha. When the manas operates alone, it is extremely nimble and has no need to rely on the six consciousnesses.

The dharma of the manas is extremely subtle; our mind must be extremely subtle, our meditative concentration must be extremely good, our wisdom extremely good, and our direct-perception cognition extremely good, before we can excavate those subtle dharmas bit by bit. Lacking meditative concentration and wisdom, one can only engage in coarse contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) at the surface level. Some people's minds are extremely coarse; even at the surface level they still cannot carry out contemplative practice, let alone with subtle dharmas.