Why Do Infants Have Relatively Poor Memory? (Part 2)

The conscious mind of an infant is very weak, with poor perceptual ability and poor thinking ability. Because they have little power of determination (adhimokṣa), their power of mindfulness is extremely poor, and they have little memory. However, there are some special exceptions. For example, infants have innate habitual tendencies: they are very sensitive to the feeling of tangible sense-objects, yet their capacity to endure is relatively weak, and they cannot express themselves in language, so whenever things do not go their way they cry and fuss, using this to express their feelings of discomfort. Warmth and satiety belong to tangible sense-objects, and infants are extremely sensitive to these. Moreover, since food and drink are essential to the life activities of sentient beings, infants are innately endowed with determination (adhimokṣa) regarding food, drink, warmth, and satiety, and with determination regarding tangible sense-objects; they have memory of these, but not through any special deliberation—it is simply instinctive. Also, because food and drink and bodily tangible sense-objects are constantly present, and infants are constantly in contact with them—equivalent to being fixed on food, drink, and tangible sense-objects—infants have determination (adhimokṣa), mindfulness, and memory regarding these. Apart from this, the memory of infants is very poor.

Memory is one of the functional characteristics of the mind consciousness; at the fetal stage, as soon as the mind consciousness appears, the function of memory is present, and this is why prenatal education is possible. Prenatal education means that when the fetus hears sounds from inside and outside the mother's womb, its mind has a certain degree of understanding and can be influenced and thereby educated. When the fetus is four or five months old in the mother's womb, the mind consciousness is born; at that point it has perceptual ability, and thus the phenomenon of fetal movement occurs. Only when the conscious mind has arisen can there be fetal movement; without a conscious mind, the body would not move. Only because there is a mind consciousness can prenatal education have its effect; otherwise, prenatal education would be of no use.

Without the mind consciousness, there would be no determination (adhimokṣa) and no memory, and the fetus could not be educated. Fetal movement is a phenomenon of the joint activity of the mind consciousness and the body consciousness; otherwise, movement could not occur. The mind consciousness and the body consciousness can discern the environment within the mother's womb, and after discerning it there are feelings, so the body has corresponding reactions, and thus the phenomenon of fetal movement arises. When the fetus discerns sounds, there must be feelings in its mind, and the inner emotions are expressed through the body—either from stillness to movement, or from movement to stillness.
The determination (adhimokṣa), meditative concentration (samādhi), mindfulness, and memory spoken of above are all functional characteristics of the mind consciousness—they are the five object-specific mental factors (pañca-viśeṣaṇī-caittas) of the mind consciousness, plus the mental factors of desire (chanda) and wisdom (prajñā). The five consciousnesses, which arise together with the mind consciousness and perform the function of discrimination, also have the five object-specific mental factors. As long as an infant has the existence of the six consciousnesses, there must be the five object-specific mental factors; it is only that these mental factors manifest somewhat weakly. As survival experience accumulates after birth, the functions of the object-specific mental factors can grow strong, and only then can memory be correspondingly strengthened.