Discussion on the Manas and Mind Consciousness

Jueyu: The one that I (the mind consciousness) am aware of—the one that can think, can imagine, can speak, and can act—is that the manas?

Lan Tian: That which can think, can imagine, can speak, and can act are all functions of the mind consciousness. Relative to the mind consciousness, the manas is like a starter/trigger—that is, the thoughts flashing in our brain. As thoughts keep flashing in our brain, the mind consciousness begins to chase after them—either executing them, or fantasizing, or analyzing, or reminiscing. Without the manas's grasping, it would be difficult for the solitary consciousness to appear. When the five sense faculties contact the five sense objects, only the consciousness accompanied by the five senses (pañca-sahagata-mano-vijñāna) will appear, to complete the mind consciousness's discernment of mental sense objects (dharma-viṣaya).

The functions of the mind consciousness are mainly receiving, discerning, discriminating, reasoning, imagining, and so on, and it cooperates with the manas to complete bodily, verbal, and mental actions. My personal understanding: the consciousness accompanied by the five senses can complete the functions of feeling and discernment, and at such times the solitary consciousness need not appear; but when complex mental activities such as discriminating, reasoning, imagining, and summarizing are needed, the solitary consciousness will appear to complete these tasks. Therefore, human life activities require the coordinated cooperation of the consciousness accompanied by the five senses and the solitary consciousness.

Master's Commentary: Lan Tian put it very well—very deep and very much on point. The difference between the solitary consciousness and the consciousness accompanied by the five senses is that when the solitary consciousness is active, it can operate apart from the five sense consciousnesses and does not need them, but it operates independently on the basis of the discernment already performed by the five sense consciousnesses and the consciousness accompanied by the five senses.

Ru Chun: "Neng" (能, the capacity to) means ability, energy, and function. The differences in the capacity of the first six consciousnesses stem from the strength or weakness of the manas's energy and the height of its wisdom, while the differences in function stem from differences in karmic seeds. The mind consciousness and the manas are like a flower and its root: we can see the flower's color and shape and smell its fragrance, but we cannot see the flower's root; yet without the root, this flower would not exist. That is, without the energy bestowed by the manas to nourish it, the mind consciousness would not exist. That which can think, can imagine, can speak, and can act—and how it thinks, how it imagines, how it speaks, and how it acts—should all be the outward manifestation of the manas's energy and wisdom. But what kind of flower seed it is—whether it is a peony or a Chinese herbaceous peony, and whether it has medicinal value—should be determined by the karmic seeds.

Master's Commentary: How wise Ru Chun's words are! Since when did she become a different person? There are eight consciousnesses that the mind consciousness can be aware of and observe. Before enlightenment, one can observe the first five consciousnesses and the mind consciousness itself; those who have studied the manas and have good powers of observation can, with difficulty, observe a little of the manas. Therefore, that which can think and can imagine, which the mind consciousness is aware of, may be the mind consciousness itself, or may be the manas; but that which can speak and can act, which the mind consciousness is aware of, is definitely the mind consciousness itself—this is called the self-validating cognition (svasaṃvedana) of the mind consciousness.

Ru Chun: I am ashamed, I am ashamed—it is all thanks to the Master's grace of Dharma and protection.

Jueyu: Emergency avoidance shows that the manas can act; waking up with sudden clarity shows that the manas can think and can imagine; speaking without thinking shows that the manas can speak. When there is inner conflict, there are two "I"s fighting and conversing—one of these two "I"s is the mind consciousness, and the other is the manas. In this process, the one that is proactive and has a strong sense of "I" is the mind consciousness, and the other is the manas.

Master's Commentary: Jueyu, like many people, has gotten the functions and roles of the mind consciousness and the manas reversed and inverted. The reason is that he has no power of observation at all regarding the manas and does not understand the functional characteristics of the manas.

Lan Tian: The obvious "I" is the manas; the mind consciousness merely makes choices based on the influence of the external environment. If there were no various factors around us, our behavior would very likely follow entirely what we think in our hearts. The manas takes the functions of the mind consciousness as its own function; the thoughts that flash in the brain from the manas should be the manas's way of communicating with the mind consciousness—that is, the manas directs the direction in which the mind consciousness thinks and makes choices.

Master's Commentary: Lan Tian's understanding and observation of the characteristics of the manas and the mind consciousness are very fine-grained and very much on point; his wisdom is very good.

Ru Tao: The combination of the tathāgatagarbha and the manas is, in effect, a starting device. Once the manas presses the button, dharmas arise, and then they are transmitted to the mind consciousness, letting the mind consciousness carry out further discernment and processing, so that the mind consciousness can also function. The "neng" (capacity) to think, to imagine, to speak, and to act that this fellow cultivator mentioned indeed originates from the manas's activation—the manas's capacity comes first, and the mind consciousness's capacity comes after. When a person has no meditative concentration (samādhi), and the mind is coarse and superficial, the capacity of the mind consciousness that one feels mainly belongs to the mind consciousness; the manas's capacity is remote and deep, and a scattered and benighted mind consciousness cannot feel it, or even if it feels it, cannot recognize it. Only when a person's meditative concentration is complete, and the mind consciousness is clear, alert, and wise, is there keen and subtle perceptive power, and only then can one distinguish the respective roles played by the manas's capacity and the mind consciousness's capacity.

When we have not yet developed the seed-wisdom of Consciousness-Only, and our state has not yet left the domain of ordinary beings, it is indeed impossible to have precise feeling and cognition of such a profound dharma as the manas. Those who cultivate somewhat better can have a vague cognitive experience, a faint inkling of cognition—that is already quite rare and precious.

The manas's self-grasping is intense. When a sudden event occurs, the manas will bypass the mind consciousness and instantly raise a strong thought of self-protection. For example, when one touches one's pocket and finds that the phone or wallet is gone, one can be certain that the thought of tension arising at that instant comes from the manas. I think the instantaneous, unarguable reaction that arises in a person in an emergency is the best opportunity to catch the manas's thought, because at that moment the mind consciousness has no time to react, and all mental thoughts come from the manas, the master.

Ji Ren Tian Xiang: Right—operations are completed before thoughts flash forth; the conversion has no time to be completed. The body is like a robot, and the mind consciousness is like the robot's CPU, the processing center. It seems to have all kinds of activities and actions, but everything is for the purpose of completing the backstage instructions of the operator. These backstage instructions are hidden and cannot be observed on the surface. When thoughts flash in the brain, the instructions have already been converted in format and manifest as part of the mind consciousness. Without this conversion, sentient beings of different kinds should be able to communicate with each other without obstruction.

Lan Tian: Completing the action before thoughts flash forth shows that at this time the manas does not need to communicate with the mind consciousness and directly completes the action, which precisely shows that a person's behavior is driven by the manas, and at this time only the consciousness accompanied by the five senses is needed to help discern and complete it.

Ji Ren Tian Xiang: Exactly—it confirms the mind consciousness's identity as a tool. The mind consciousness is usually full of plans, intentions, thinking, and studying, as if it were the group CEO; but upon final verification, at best it is just a secretary.

Ru Tao: Sometimes when a person has something on his mind, he inexplicably feels vexed and uneasy without knowing why. That is probably because the mind consciousness and the manas lack communication with each other, and the mind consciousness does not even understand the reason why the manas can give rise to vexation and unease. That which gives rise to the emotions is the manas's capacity, while the mind consciousness is kept in the dark.