The Manas Is Not Merely Neutral

Qingfeng: Afflictive mental factors such as torpor and restlessness should be classified as having the nature of defiled-indeterminate (nivṛta-avyākṛta); although indeterminate, they can obstruct the noble path. The ten minor afflictive mental factors belong to afflictive habitual tendencies, dormant (anuśaya) within the seventh consciousness, and can only be eradicated after attaining the bhūmis; these should all be classified as defiled-indeterminate. A while ago, I saw online a madman using these to attack Master's teachings, treating all the afflictions of the seventh consciousness as defiled-indeterminate.

The Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra defines the view of self, self-love, self-conceit, and self-delusion as having the nature of defiled-indeterminate. Take the view of self, for example: taking my body as the real me—this is a wrong view (mithyā-dṛṣṭi), merely an erroneous opinion, and it obstructs the noble path, preventing us from eradicating the view of self, so it is understandable that it belongs to the defiled-indeterminate. But as for self-conceit: for instance, there are people who do not believe in Buddhism who, upon reading a Buddhist sutra they cannot understand, conclude it is deceptive, thinking themselves more brilliant than the Buddha. Such people are quite numerous right now, and within them there is self-conceit; this carries the karma of slandering the Buddha and the Dharma, so it should not be indeterminate. Therefore, "defiled-indeterminate" should refer to those afflictive habitual tendencies that are relatively appropriate.

Assessment: Afflictions and wholesomeness stand in opposition to each other; afflictive mental factors and wholesome mental factors are opposed. Mental factors that are neither good nor evil belong to the indeterminate (avyākṛta) nature; afflictions and wholesome mental factors are not indeterminate. Therefore, the minor afflictive mental factors are not indeterminate; they are evil mental factors opposed to wholesomeness and should be eradicated. All afflictive mental factors lead to unwholesome karma, so they are certainly unwholesome—how could they be indeterminate?

Defiled-indeterminate: "defiled" means covering and obscuring. Who is covered? It is the manas, the seventh consciousness. What does it cover? It covers the pure wisdom of the manas's own mind, preventing the mind from recognizing the truths, realities, and true characteristics of the Greater and Lesser Vehicles. Why does it have this covering function? Because of the ignorance and afflictions of one's own mind. Therefore, the manas has ignorance and afflictions, which cause the birth-and-death cycle of the six realms of saṃsāra. Since the manas has ignorance and afflictions and is the consciousness that acts as the master, are the bodily, verbal, and mental actions produced by the five-aggregate body created under the manas's direction? Of course they are created under the manas's direction. These bodily, verbal, and mental actions all manifest the mental activities and dispositions of the manas; unwholesome karma manifests the evil mental factors and afflictive mental factors of the manas. So can the manas merely be an indeterminate mind that is neither good nor evil? Absolutely not. The manas has a wholesome mind, an evil mind, and a mind that is neither good nor evil.

Afflictions belong to evil, not to wholesomeness, and not to neither-good-nor-evil either. Since afflictive mental factors belong to the evil nature, they do not belong to the indeterminate nature of neither good nor evil—this is not hard to understand. The foundation of practice is training the manas. If the manas had no evil mind, no afflictive mind, and no ignorant mind, what would there be to practice? The six consciousnesses would then have no evil mind, no afflictive mind, and no ignorant mind either; in that case, even if sentient beings were not Buddhas, they would not be far from Buddhahood.

The claim that the manas has a defiled-indeterminate nature does not come from the Buddhist sutras, but from the treatises of the ancient Yogācāra masters. And no matter who a person is, if their wisdom has not reached the level of a bodhisattva on the bhūmis, they cannot engage in direct-perception contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) regarding the mental nature of the manas, because both their meditative concentration and wisdom are insufficient. Therefore, a Yogācāra master is not necessarily a bodhisattva on the bhūmis, and does not necessarily possess the wisdom of the varieties of paths and the seed-wisdom of Yogācāra needed for direct-perception contemplation of the profound dharma of consciousness-only. Thus their treatises cannot be perfect, and it is not surprising that they have flaws and shortcomings. One cannot, because of their great renown, uphold their works as entirely correct and without error; only the Dharma spoken by the Buddha is entirely correct and without error. As for what the Buddha taught—"rely on the Dharma, not on the person"—the vast majority of people cannot do this, because their wisdom is insufficient and their discernment extremely low, especially regarding the profound dharma of consciousness-only practiced by bodhisattvas on the bhūmis, for which they have even less discernment. In that case, one should not发表 opinions or take positions lightly.

I began teaching consciousness-only in 2016. At that time my wisdom was still rather coarse and shallow, and my understanding of the consciousness-only dharma was not very thorough. Some people asked me questions about consciousness-only, excerpted from the Cheng Weishi Lun (Treatise on the Establishment of Consciousness-Only) and other treatises. At that time I simply could not think and contemplate independently apart from these treatises, so I answered treating those viewpoints as absolutely correct. Later I gradually discovered some internal contradictions that could not be reconciled, and so I gradually abandoned the original treatises and engaged in contemplative practice on my own. I originally planned to expound the entire Cheng Weishi Lun, but after discovering these problems, I only explained a very few passages and then stopped. Because if I followed the treatises, I would err along with them and mislead people; if I did not follow them, I would be slandered for contradicting the treatises—either way the outcome would be bad. In the consciousness-only teachings I initially explained, there were a few places where, following the Yogācāra treatises, I made errors; when reorganizing the books, I corrected them as much as possible.

The ancient Yogācāra treatises say that the manas has only neutral feeling (upekṣā-vedanā). I had doubts about this at the time, because by observing the feelings in body and mind, one finds contradictions that do not match reality. If the manas had only neutral feeling, then how peaceful and calm a person's inner mind would be—almost the same as the tathāgatagarbha: no emotions, no afflictions, no agitation, not competing or grabbing with others, not retaliating or seeking revenge, neither delighting nor loathing. With such a mind, would practice still be necessary? Could such a mind create unwholesome karma, even grave unwholesome karma? Absolutely not. Such a peaceful and pure mind would easily possess meditative concentration in full; there would be no need to deliberately cultivate concentration—meditative concentration would naturally be complete. But the facts are the opposite, which shows that the manas does not have only neutral feeling; it also has painful and pleasant feeling. That is why it has both afflictions and purity, and creates wholesome and unwholesome karma, leading to the cycle of birth and death.

A disciple said: Most people only know how to recite books, and their emotional attachments are deep and heavy. Once preconceived views have been implanted in them, they are very hard to reverse. Mencius said that to believe everything in books is worse than having no books at all—the point being to break people's blind faith in books. As for the principle in the Buddhadharma of relying on the Dharma and not on the person, I personally feel it was also established precisely to address this enormous weakness in human nature.