The manas is not merely neutral (avyākṛta)

Qingfeng: The derivative afflictions, such as torpor and restlessness, should be classified as having the defiled-indeterminate nature (nivṛtāvyākṛta). Although they are indeterminate, they can obstruct the noble path. The ten minor derivative afflictions belong to afflictive habitual tendencies, latent (anuśaya) within the seventh consciousness, and are to be eliminated only by post-bhūmi bodhisattvas; these should all be classified under the defiled-indeterminate nature. In the previous passage, I saw a madman online using these points to attack the Master's teachings, treating all the afflictions of the seventh consciousness as defiled-indeterminate.

The Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra defines self-view, self-love, self-conceit, and self-delusion as having the defiled-indeterminate nature. Take self-view, 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 eliminating the self-view. That it belongs to the defiled-indeterminate is understandable. 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 a fraud, considering themselves more brilliant than the Buddha. Such people are not rare at present, and within them there is self-conceit. This involves the karma of slandering the Buddha and the Dharma, so it should not be indeterminate. Therefore, the defiled-indeterminate should refer to those afflictive habitual tendencies that are relatively appropriate.

Assessment: Afflictions and wholesomeness stand in opposition to each other; the afflictive mental factors and the wholesome mental factors are opposites. Mental factors that are neither good nor evil belong to the indeterminate nature, whereas afflictions and wholesome mental factors are not indeterminate. Therefore, the minor derivative afflictive mental factors are not indeterminate; they are evil mental factors opposed to wholesomeness and should be eliminated. All afflictive mental factors lead to evil 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, so that the mind cannot recognize the truths, realities, and true characteristics of the Great and Small Vehicles. Why does it have this covering function? Because of the mind's own ignorance and afflictions. Therefore, the manas has ignorance and afflictions, and this leads to the birth-and-death saṃsāra of the six realms. Since the manas has ignorance and afflictions and is also the consciousness that makes decisions, are the bodily, verbal, and mental actions produced by the five aggregates created under the manas's decision-making? Of course they are created under the manas's direction. These bodily, verbal, and mental actions all manifest the manas's mental activities and dispositions; evil karma manifests the manas's evil mental factors and afflictive mental factors. 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 the wholesome, nor to the neither-good-nor-evil. Since afflictive mental factors are of an evil nature, they do not belong to the indeterminate nature of neither good nor evil—this is not hard to understand. The root of cultivation is training the manas. If the manas had no evil mind, no afflictive mind, and no ignorant mind, what would there be to cultivate? The six consciousnesses would likewise have no evil mind, no afflictive mind, no ignorant mind; 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 Consciousness-Only masters. And no matter who a person is, if their wisdom has not reached the level of a bhūmi-level bodhisattva, they cannot engage in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) with direct perception regarding the mind-nature of the manas, because both their meditative concentration and wisdom are insufficient. Therefore, a Consciousness-Only master is not necessarily a bhūmi-level bodhisattva, and does not necessarily possess the wisdom of the varieties of paths and the seed-wisdom of Consciousness-Only that comes from direct contemplative realization of the profound Consciousness-Only dharma. Thus their treatises cannot be perfect, and it is not surprising that they have flaws and shortcomings. One cannot, on account of a master's great fame, extol everything in their works as 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 persons"—the vast majority of people cannot do it, because their wisdom is insufficient and their discernment extremely low, especially regarding the profound Consciousness-Only dharma cultivated by bhūmi-level bodhisattvas, for which they have even less discernment. In that case, they should not publish opinions or take positions lightly.

I began teaching Consciousness-Only in 2016. At that time my wisdom was still somewhat coarse and shallow, and my understanding of the Consciousness-Only dharma was not very thorough. Some people asked me questions about Consciousness-Only that had been 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 those 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 contemplation on my own. I originally planned to expound the entire Cheng Weishi Lun, but after discovering these problems, I only expounded 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 the treatises, I would be slandered for violating them—either way the outcome would be bad. In the Consciousness-Only teachings I expounded at the very beginning, there were a few places where, following the Consciousness-Only treatises, I made errors; when compiling the books later, I corrected them as much as possible.

The ancient Consciousness-Only treatises say that the manas has only neutral feeling (upekṣā-vedanā). I was already doubtful 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 mind would have to be—almost like the tathāgatagarbha: no emotions, no afflictions, no agitation, not contending or grabbing with others, not striking back or taking revenge, neither delighting nor loathing. With such a mind, would cultivation still be necessary? Could such a mind still create evil karma, even grave evil karma? Absolutely not. Such a peaceful and pure mind would easily possess meditative concentration in full; there would be no need to deliberately cultivate samādhi—meditative concentration would arise naturally. But the facts are just the opposite, which shows that the manas does not have only neutral feeling; it also has suffering feeling and pleasant feeling. That is why it has both afflictions and pure qualities, and why it creates wholesome and unwholesome karma, leading to the birth-and-death saṃsāra.

A disciple said: Most people only know how to recite from books, and their emotional attachments are deep and heavy. Once preconceived views have been implanted in them, they are very hard to turn around. 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 persons, I personally feel it was also established precisely to target this enormous weakness in human nature.