The Meanings of the Five Names of Manas (Part 2)

Original text: 四名智识。谓分别染净。诸差别法。

Explanation: The fourth name of the manas is "the consciousness of discriminating wisdom" (dhī-vijñāna), which can discriminate all defiled and pure dharmas, such as wholesome and unwholesome, true and false, and can clearly distinguish the differentiating marks of all dharmas. The Awakening of Faith says that the manas is the consciousness of discriminating wisdom, which is absolutely correct. A master-consciousness represents the root of sentient beings and determines everything about them. If the master-consciousness of the five-aggregate body did not possess such wisdom, then the five aggregates would have no wisdom, and there would be no wise people in the world. To say that the manas has inferior wisdom is not entirely correct. When discriminating dharma-objects that are excessively specific and subtle, the manas is indeed inferior to the mind consciousness, and that is why the mind consciousness is needed. But once the manas has the ability to discriminate subtle dharma-objects, the mind consciousness and the five sense consciousnesses become useless; the manas itself directly replaces the functions of the six consciousnesses—relinquishing consciousness and using the faculties—and then there are not so many troubles, not so many obstructions, and great supernatural powers manifest. 

Original text: 五名相续识。谓恒作意。相应不断。任持过去。善恶等业。令无失坏。成熟现未。苦乐等报。使无违越。已曾经事。忽然忆念。未曾经事。妄生分别。

Explanation: The fifth name of the manas is "the continuous consciousness" (saṃtati-vijñāna). The reason the manas is called the continuous consciousness is that the five universal mental factors of the manas operate continuously without interruption, so the Ālayavijñāna, following the manas, ceaselessly produces all dharmas and operates all dharmas, and the five-aggregate world appears continuously—this life ceases, the next life arises, birth following birth without end. In this way, all wholesome, unwholesome, defiled, and pure dharmas continuously manifest following the manas; wholesome and unwholesome karma is never cut off, and the karmic retribution of wholesome and unwholesome deeds is never lost or corrupted. Moreover, the manas can ripen the present and future retributions of suffering and happiness, without violating the principles of cause and effect. The events the manas has experienced life after life throughout beginningless kalpas will suddenly be recollected when conditions arise, and events not yet experienced will also be falsely discriminated.

Bodhisattva Aśvaghoṣa said that the manas can sustain wholesome and unwholesome karma, not letting the karmic seeds be lost or destroyed, and can ripen karmic retribution. This meaning is extremely profound and its significance extremely great. The bodily, verbal, and mental actions created by the six consciousnesses are, first, stored as seeds into the Ālayavijñāna, which holds and contains them; second, sustained by the manas and carried into future lives. What does "sustain" (dhāraṇa) mean? To sustain means to bear and carry, to take responsibility for karmic actions.

Why must karmic actions be borne and taken responsibility for by the manas? Because the manas is the master-consciousness, the sovereign of the five-aggregate body, the master and originator of all karmic actions; the six consciousnesses only play the role of assistants and cooperators, not the master. And the Ālayavijñāna is even less the master of karmic actions; it does not make decisions to create karma. Therefore, after karma is created, all karmic actions are the responsibility of the manas, which bears the karmic results. The six consciousnesses cannot bear karma even if they want to: first, they do not make the decisions; second, they cease and perish at death and cannot carry karmic seeds into future lives. Since all dharmas are created under the manas's mastery, the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of karmic actions reflects the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of the manas. The manas is fully endowed with wholesome and unwholesome mental factors, which correspond to karmic actions and karmic seeds, and it carries these wholesome and unwholesome mental factors into future lives. Therefore, cultivation is the cultivation of the manas—perfuming the manas and transforming the manas.

The manas can also ripen the karmic retribution of wholesome and unwholesome deeds, of suffering and happiness, corresponding to cause and effect. Someone may ask: Is not karmic retribution ripened by the Ālayavijñāna? The Ālayavijñāna can only manifest ripened karmic seeds and realize karmic retribution; it does not ripen karmic retribution and karmic seeds. Only when karmic conditions are complete and the karmic seeds are ripened can the Ālayavijñāna manifest the ripened karmic seeds, and only then does karmic retribution appear. Ripening karmic seeds and karmic retribution is not the Ālayavijñāna's task but the manas's. The manas has karma following it, and when external conditions manifest, karmic retribution appears.

Here the Awakening of Faith says the manas has the function of recollection, and this statement is extremely correct, because the manas is also a mind, and an extremely important mind, playing an extremely important role. The manas has experienced all dharmas, and having experienced them, it can of course recollect them, and it will prompt the mind consciousness to recall the past based on this recollection. Therefore it is said that the manas has the mental factor of mindfulness (smṛti) and will recollect and be mindful of all dharmas. Only the master of all dharmas would be mindful of and recollect them; when it wants to deal with something, it summons the assistant to handle it specifically. The assistant does not appear constantly; it can only appear when the master needs it, and when the master does not need it, it will not manifest.

The meanings of the five names of the manas are very profound in dharma principles and contain a great amount of information, overturning many people's old, unreasonable understandings of the manas, as well as overturning the understandings of Yogācāra treatise masters ancient and modern. After all, the dharma principles of the manas belong to the domain of Yogācāra seed-wisdom; those without Yogācāra realization cannot directly observe the manas, so misunderstandings are inevitable. In history, the first bodhisattva on the first bhūmi certified by the World-Honored One and recorded in documents was Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna, next was Bodhisattva Asaṅga, and then Bodhisattva Aśvaghoṣa. It is said that Ānanda also entered the first bhūmi, but did not transmit the dharma of Yogācāra. Among the Chan school, there may have been other patriarchs who entered the first bhūmi but did not transmit the Yogācāra dharma; it is only that when they first entered the bhūmi, their Yogācāra seed-wisdom was not deep and their power of observation of Yogācāra was not strong, so they could not yet transmit the Yogācāra dharma.

Apart from these, as for others who transmitted the Yogācāra dharma, there is no evidence proving they had the realization of first-bhūmi bodhisattvas, so the Yogācāra treatises they wrote all have flaws and errors; their dharma principles are not entirely correct and can only serve as reference, not to be accepted in full. Among Yogācāra treatises, the Mahāyāna Awakening of Faith written by Bodhisattva Aśvaghoṣa has extremely high realization; it can truly observe the mental factors of the manas. Its translator, Bodhisattva Śikṣānanda, also had very high realization, and the translation is precise, reasonable, and truthful. This is a Yogācāra treatise worthy of trust.