Proving That the Manas Is Not Neutral (Avyākṛta) from the Origin of the World as Taught in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra

In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the World-Honored One explains the origin of the world. In the beginningless kalpas before chaos was opened up, only the eighth consciousness and the manas existed; there was no threefold-realm world, let alone the five-aggregate body and the six consciousnesses. The manas together with the eighth consciousness constituted the life-body of sentient beings. At that time, due to ignorance, the manas gave rise to mental activity and reached outward, wanting to seek something; only then did the eighth consciousness, following the mental activity of the manas, gradually form the world. This process was extremely long, because the world was not formed by the mental activity of a single sentient being's manas, but by the mental activity of the manas of many sentient beings.

After the world had formed for several great kalpas, the five-aggregate bodies of sentient beings could be born because there was an environment suitable for survival. Before the world formed, all ignorance already existed; no kind of ignorance was generated later in life. Therefore it is said that all ignorance is the ignorance of the manas. Since the manas possesses all ignorance, hidden within this ignorance are all the factors of afflictions, which will give rise to afflictions upon encountering conditions. The ignorance and afflictions of the manas then perfumed the mind consciousness, and the mind consciousness was gradually perfumed into having afflictions as well—this too was a long process. Thus, the very earliest afflictions all belonged to the manas; the mind consciousness merely followed along with the afflictions of the manas, and only when the mind consciousness had been successfully perfumed did afflictions appear in it.

Ignorance means not understanding—the mind of the manas does not understand principle, remaining muddled and confused. What does this principle refer to? According to what the Śūraṅgama Sūtra points out, it is the true reality of the dharmadhātu. The manas does not understand the principle of the eighth consciousness, the true reality of the dharmadhātu; it does not understand that it itself is a dharma within the eighth consciousness, generated and upheld by the eighth consciousness, and that apart from the eighth consciousness there are no dharmas and no dharmadhātu. This is the manas's beginningless ignorance, and also its fundamental ignorance. From this beginningless ignorance, it gives rise to mental activity seeking outside the eighth consciousness, causing the world to form. This was formed gradually over long kalpas, not something that could be accomplished within short kalpas.

Only after the world had formed for several great kalpas did the five-aggregate bodies of sentient beings appear, and the mind consciousness and the five sense consciousnesses were also born along with the five-aggregate bodies. Only after the five-aggregate bodies appeared did the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses arise to cooperate with the manas in creating karma. Therefore, because of ignorance, the manas came to have the afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion, directing the six consciousnesses to create afflictive and evil karma; the seeds of evil karma were thereby left behind, and thus there came to be the causes, conditions, and karmic retributions of birth-and-death and saṃsāra in the six realms—this is the origin of the twelve links of dependent origination. From this it can be seen that the mind consciousness appeared very late, far later than the manas; it is impossible that the mind consciousness had ignorance and afflictions the moment it appeared, without any cause. The cause of the mind consciousness's later afflictions is that they were perfumed by the manas, the master consciousness that dominates the mind consciousness; or, the ignorance and afflictions manifested by the mind consciousness all belong to the manas, being the result of the manas's manipulation. Therefore the manas truly has afflictions; it is not merely neutral (avyākṛta)—it possesses all three natures: wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral.

Ignorance is an unwholesome dharma, not a wholesome dharma and not a neutral dharma that is neither wholesome nor unwholesome. Therefore one must, through studying Buddhism and cultivating practice, exhaustively sever all ignorance and afflictions, and become a perfectly luminous Buddha of permanence, bliss, self, and purity. No one would take ignorance to be a wholesome dharma or a neutral dharma, right? The afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion of sentient beings come from ignorance, that is, from the manas. If the manas had no ignorance, it would not create the karmic actions of greed, anger, and delusion; it is ignorance that causes the afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion to manifest. Therefore the manas is not neutral in nature. Then is the manas after buddhahood neutral in nature? The manas after buddhahood is even less neutral in nature—it is of a purely wholesome nature without evil, of a nature of great loving-kindness and great compassion, of a nature of compassion toward all sentient beings. From this, the nature of the manas should be easy to judge, and there should be no further misunderstanding or misinterpretation.