Observing the Process and States of Manas Deliberation

Ru Chun: The night before last, before going to sleep, I contemplated: why is it said that "the sea of suffering is boundless, yet turning one's head is the shore"? I contemplated while writing, and the process was quite long. My final conclusion was: there is no true happiness in worldly dharmas; in the end everything is suffering, and all kinds of suffering form the sea of suffering, also called the accumulation of suffering. Worldly dharmas are all subject to change and impermanence; they are not real dharmas. If we cannot see through their falsity and instead greedily cling to and become immersed in them, that is the boundless sea of suffering. Conversely, if we use the false to cultivate the true, turn our minds toward the Path, and return to the source, that is called turning one's head to find the shore.

During this process of contemplation and writing, the mind consciousness was mostly in the lead, but I could sense that the manas was also participating, because the writing flowed smoothly, was very focused, and had inspiration; body and mind were joyful, and I did not feel tired. When I finished writing and checked the time, it was already 2 a.m.; time passed very quickly. After finishing, I went to sleep, but it felt as if a thread of mental activity was still suspended, and my sleep became shallower.

Assessment: If the process is very single-minded, then the manas is in the lead; if it is done with a scattered mind, then the mind consciousness is in the lead. Because of single-minded focus, inspiration arises continuously, body and mind are joyful, and fatigue is not felt. If you can distinguish which consciousness is doing the diligent contemplation and which consciousness is in the lead, you can judge the state you are in and your level of cultivation.

Ru Chun: During morning sitting meditation, a sentence popped into my head: "Originally there is no shore of the sea of suffering; why need one turn the head toward the shore?" I suppose this was the result of the manas continuing its diligent work last night. Can it be understood this way: what the mind consciousness contemplated earlier was conditioned dharmas, and after falling asleep, the manas's contemplation added, on the basis of that, a consideration from the angle of unconditioned dharmas. Does this show that when the mind is calm and obstructions are reduced, the manas has more wisdom than the mind consciousness? Is this kind of contemplation helpful for cultivation? I feel that recently my state during sitting meditation has been unstable: when the state is good, my whole body feels ethereal as if suspended in empty space; when the state is poor, my legs are stiff and painful and lack strength. Although I have made some adjustments, I have not yet been able to find the key point of the problem.

Assessment: As I just said, you have not distinguished the states of your manas and mind consciousness; you do not know who is thinking about the problem, and you mistakenly assumed that the mind consciousness's contemplation was dominant. It may have been the manas's deliberation (manasikāra) that was dominant, with the mind consciousness assisting. Before sleep, the manas and mind consciousness contemplated the suffering of worldly conditioned dharmas; after falling asleep, the manas alone contemplated the emptiness of Mahāyāna dharmas.
The good or bad state you speak of refers to the body's energy channels and the issue of meditative concentration (samādhi). If the energy channels are unobstructed, the body feels light and tall; when the energy channels run to a blocked spot and cannot pass through, the body becomes stiff. When the energy channels run throughout the whole body, where they flow freely there is ease, and where they are blocked there is pain; but after all, the energy channels are moving, which is a positive, upward signal.

Why, when the energy channels are unobstructed, does the body feel light and tall? This is a matter of the body's energy becoming vaporized, a phenomenon of the four great elements undergoing change. The originally heavy and dense energy in the body, due to the cultivation of meditative concentration, has transformed into light vapor that floats upward, so one feels the body to be tall and light. If the energy vaporizes further, the body will become even lighter and taller, like that of a deva, and one's meditative concentration will then be close to the meditative concentration of the devas.