The degree to which the manas is perfumed varies in depth.

Question: If one has heard a certain view or learned a certain dharma—for example, that the five aggregates are illusory, impermanent, empty, and without self—and the mind has genuinely changed in daily life, whether in adjusting the general direction of one's work and life, or in becoming less attached to things one previously craved, feeling much fainter—does this count as a transformation of the manas?

Answer: This is a change occurring at the stage of cultivating the thirty-seven factors of enlightenment, indicating that one's cultivation is fairly effective. Once the mind has been perfumed, it begins to transform, turning toward the Noble Eightfold Path, subduing some coarse and heavy afflictions of greed. When the body-mind world transforms, it is because the manas has been perfumed and transformed. That is to say, at any stage of cultivation, as long as the manas is perfumed, cultivation shows results. The thirty-seven factors of enlightenment must also be cultivated all the way to the manas; otherwise it is false cultivation, and one has not yet gotten onto the path. However, this kind of body-mind transformation is not yet sufficient to bring about a complete metamorphosis such that the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi) can be eradicated. This is why many people who claim to have eradicated the view of self show little improvement or change in body and mind after doing so—the bones have not changed, so the ordinary person's embryo cannot be exchanged for a sage's embryo.

Before realizing the fruits, the Buddha-dharma must be perfumed into the manas. When the manas is perfumed by wholesome dharmas, it will undergo some change, and the body and mind will transform—all the more so at the very moment of realizing the fruit; that is what is called the power of meditative absorption (samādhi). If, in the process of studying the Buddha-dharma, the manas is not perfumed, and there is only the mind consciousness's absorption and understanding of knowledge, the manas will remain as it always was, and there will be no transformation of the body-mind world; then the eradication of the view of self and the realization of the fruits will remain indefinitely far off.

Even if the manas has been perfumed before realizing the fruits, if it has not reached a certain degree, one still cannot eradicate the view of self and realize the fruits. Therefore, for the transformation of body and mind, the transformation of bodily, verbal, and mental actions, the eradication of the view of self, and seeing the mind and realizing one's nature, the manas must be perfumed to a considerable degree; a mere slight change in the manas will not do. A complete metamorphosis requires thoroughly transforming the manas, eliminating the manas's afflictions that defile the mind, and eradicating the afflictions of the five grades of meditative contemplation in the desire realm. In this way, the karmic seeds stored in the eighth consciousness will ensure rebirth in the wholesome destinies of humans and gods in future lives, without falling into the three evil destinies. There are also people who cling stubbornly to the attitude that the mind consciousness can realize the fruits, resisting the notion that the manas realizes the fruits, stubbornly refusing to change, utterly obstinate—truly beyond remedy.