The Meanings of the Five Names of Manas (2)

Original text: Fourth is called the discriminating consciousness (jñāna-vijñāna), which discerns the various differentiated dharmas that are defiled and pure.

Explanation: The fourth name of the manas is the discriminating consciousness, which can discern all defiled and pure dharmas such as wholesome and unwholesome, true and false, and can distinguish the differentiated characteristics of all dharmas. The Awakening of Faith says the manas is the discriminating consciousness, which is absolutely correct. The master consciousness represents the foundation of sentient beings and determines everything about them. If the master consciousness of the five-aggregate body did not have 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 not as capable as 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 and not so many obstructions, and great supernatural powers manifest.

Original text: Fifth is called the continuous consciousness (saṃtati-vijñāna), which constantly engages in attention (manaskāra) without interruption, sustaining past wholesome and unwholesome karmas so that they are not lost or destroyed, ripening present and future retributions of suffering and happiness without transgressing them; it suddenly recollects things already experienced, and falsely discriminates things not yet experienced.

Explanation: The fifth name of the manas is the continuous consciousness. The manas is called the continuous consciousness because the five universally operative mental factors of the manas operate continuously without interruption, and the Ālayavijñāna, following the manas, continuously produces all dharmas and operates all dharmas, so the five-aggregate world appears continuously without interruption—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 karmas are never severed, and the karmic retributions of good and evil are not lost or destroyed. Moreover, the manas can ripen the present and future karmic retributions of suffering and happiness without violating the principles of cause and effect. The things the manas has experienced life after life throughout beginningless kalpas will suddenly be recollected when conditions arise, and things not yet experienced will also be falsely discriminated.

Bodhisattva Aśvaghoṣa said that the manas can sustain wholesome and unwholesome karmas, not letting the karmic seeds be lost or destroyed, and can ripen karmic retributions. 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 is sustaining? Sustaining 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 a supporting, auxiliary role and are 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 fruits. The six consciousnesses cannot bear karmic actions even if they want to: first, they are not the master; 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's wholesome and unwholesome mental factors are all fully present, corresponding with karmic actions and karmic seeds, and it carries all 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 retributions of wholesome and unwholesome, suffering and happiness, corresponding with cause and effect. Someone may ask: Is not karmic retribution ripened by the Ālayavijñāna? The Ālayavijñāna only manifests ripened karmic seeds and actualizes karmic retribution; it does not ripen karmic retributions 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 retributions is not the business of the Ālayavijñāna but of the manas. The manas carries karma with it; when external conditions manifest, karmic retribution appears.

The Awakening of Faith here says the manas has the function of recollection. This statement is extremely correct, because the manas is also a mind, and an extremely important mind that plays 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 rely on this recollection to recall the past. Therefore, the manas has the mental factor of mindfulness (smṛti) and can 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 does not manifest.

The meanings of the dharma principles contained in the five names of the manas are very profound and carry a great deal of information, overturning many people's old, unreasonable understandings of the manas, as well as the understandings of various 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, and misunderstandings are inevitable. In history, the first bodhisattva at the first bhūmi certified by the World-Honored One and recorded in materials was Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna, followed by 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, 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.