The Afflictive Mental Factors of the Manas

Question: If the emotion of hatred reaches the point of gnashing one's teeth, it is the manas's deep hatred, a reaction of the manas. Does the manas have the minor affliction of hatred?

Answer: The manas is the decision-making consciousness. The bodily, verbal, and mental actions are directed and commanded by the manas. The bodily activity of gnashing one's teeth is directed, commanded, and carried out by the manas. No matter what thoughts, ideas, or emotions the mind consciousness has, it cannot direct or command the body to produce the phenomenon of gnashing one's teeth. If you regard the manas as a normal conscious mind, it becomes easy to understand all of the manas's mental activities, and there will be no misunderstandings.

The manas is the master of the five-aggregate body, constantly dominating all bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the five-aggregate body. Our cultivation is precisely the cultivation of the manas, the transformation of the manas. After the manas has transformed consciousness into wisdom three times, one becomes a Buddha. If the manas did not have a certain kind of ignorance and affliction, then cultivation would only need to be applied to the mind consciousness, and the manas would not need to be attended to. And cultivating the mind consciousness is extremely simple, extremely relaxed, and easy: once one has learned the principles, after the mind consciousness deliberates and understands them, it becomes clear and wise, its mental activities can change, and it is transformed. But in reality, cultivation is extremely difficult; it is by no means so simple and fast. Changing oneself is very hard; only through long-term immersion, long-term introspection, and subduing oneself in the face of circumstances and situations over a long period can one make even a little progress. The manas's ignorance and afflictions are extremely numerous and extremely deep, not easy to subdue and eradicate—this is why cultivation feels difficult.

The twelve links of dependent origination show that the manas's ignorance leads to the subsequent immeasurable suffering of birth-and-death in saṃsāra, which demonstrates that the manas possesses all ignorance and afflictions. If the manas had no ignorance and afflictions, and only the mind consciousness had them, there would not be the suffering of birth-and-death in saṃsāra for beginningless kalpas, for the mind consciousness's ignorance and afflictions are all easy to resolve. Then one should think further: where do the mind consciousness's ignorance and afflictions come from?

The "self" we usually speak of refers to the manas, mainly to the manas. As soon as "I" is mentioned, it is the manas's thoughts and views that emerge—the deeply rooted, habitually entrenched views of "self" are the manas. So if you want to observe the manas, just observe your own arising thoughts and habitual tendencies. The self is the manas; to observe the manas is to observe the self. Working at it from this angle is not difficult. The deep, hard-to-detect and hard-to-observe thoughts and views within the mind all belong to the manas; the deeply rooted, bone-deep habitual afflictions and wisdom all belong to the manas—extremely hidden, hard to know and hard to change. The mind consciousness's thoughts and views all float on the surface; they are easily influenced, easily discovered, easily subdued, and easily changed. If cultivation did not involve the manas, then learning Buddhism would be relaxed and pleasant, and becoming a Buddha would also be very fast.

All the functions and roles of the manas within the five aggregates can be observed. Only by knowing what the facts are and what the truth is can one say what the manas does or does not have, or state it precisely, or state it with certainty. Otherwise one must follow what the Buddha said: "Take heed not to believe your mind." One's own judgments will be severely limited by the wisdom of direct perception. When wisdom is insufficient and one cannot observe something, one must cultivate diligently, striving to be able to observe things as they truly are and with direct perception as soon as possible, so as to obtain true wisdom, wisdom of things as they really are, and the wisdom of direct perception. Before that, doubt is, after all, just doubt; one cannot draw conclusions that accord with reality, so one should not draw conclusions. Only by maintaining this attitude in learning and practicing Buddhism can one avoid the fault of mistaken evaluations and judgments.

Strive to connect the Dharma through and link it together, and then the meaning of the Dharma can be straightened out. No single dharma exists in isolation; all are connected with a subject and a main thread. Grasping the meaning of all dharmas from an overall perspective makes them easy to understand and master. Learning and practicing Buddhism is not about memorizing some rules, but about connecting theory with practice—actually going to observe, to see whether the theories one encounters accord with the truth and the Dharma, and whether they match reality. One must strive to engage in actual contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), observing the operation of the five aggregates, observing bodily, verbal, and mental actions. Practice yields true knowledge; practice is the sole criterion for testing truth—and this is so for both the Buddha's teaching and worldly teachings. Learning Buddhism means pursuing truth, and truth is fact—facts that no one can change. Taking facts as one's reliance and truth as one's reliance is precisely the "relying on the Dharma" that the Buddha taught us. Only thus can one achieve attainment without error.