The Communication Method of Heavenly Beings Proves That the Manas Possesses the Mental Factor of Mindfulness (smṛti-caitta)

The devas of the desire realm communicate with one another not through human language, writing, and sound, but entirely through mental thoughts, because they all possess the telepathic power (para-citta-abhijñā) and can quickly apprehend the intentions of others. When a deva's mental thought arises, with a "zing" it is transmitted with great speed, accompanied by facial expressions; there is no need to speak—the mouth is useless. When expressing themselves, a strong surge of electromagnetic waves arises; the other party hears the sound of the electromagnetic waves and sees the facial expressions, and immediately knows the other's thoughts and intentions. The moment a thought stirs, the electromagnetic waves surge, energy is released, and the signal is received by the other party. The energy of the electromagnetic waves is emitted by the manas; it is the manas having thoughts and intentions, equivalent to a human speaking. The mind consciousness has no energy waves and cannot mobilize the flow of energy within the body.

When a deva receives the electromagnetic waves and apprehends the other's thoughts and intentions, it is first received and apprehended by the manas, and then apprehended by the mind consciousness. Devas communicate with one another by emitting and receiving electromagnetic waves; sentient beings with the telepathic power, including devas of the form realm and the formless realm, as well as all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, also communicate and exchange ideas in this way, without using the language and writing functions of the mind consciousness. When many devas gather together to discuss matters, they all use mental thoughts, watching each other's gazes and facial expressions, and they respond in the same way; there is no sound of speech, nor do they use writing or written expression. Therefore they have no literary works, no books, and no need to study language, writing, arts, or rules; they lack the troubles and vanity of the human world.

In a single thought, the manas can rapidly express all of its ideas, and the content can be very rich; the mind consciousness might not express it clearly even in a lengthy discourse. It is evident that communicating through the manas is extremely economical of time and energy. A person of great wisdom who wants to express their own ideas and conceptions often suffers greatly, because within the manas's mind the crystallization of wisdom flows rapidly—vast, profound, and rich in content. Wanting to publish it so that others may understand and learn from it is very laborious; sometimes it requires painstaking effort and meticulous conception, as well as choosing words and constructing sentences, weighing phrases and diction, arranging linguistic structure, and pondering methods of expression—consuming much mental effort and energy, and moreover it is very slow.

If a chip could be implanted in the human brain to promptly and rapidly convert the thoughts and lines of thinking in the brain's manas into text, it would be a tremendous brain revolution, and the results would be astonishing. Scientific giants with creativity would be the greatest beneficiaries, their wisdom could be output continuously, benefiting human society. Then would anyone still foolishly believe that the thoughts, ideas, and wisdom in the brain belong to the mind consciousness? The wisdom of the mind consciousness could be directly expressed through language, writing, and sound, without such great ado.

The more wisdom a person has, the more they use the manas and the less they use the mind consciousness; the higher the level of beings, the more they use the manas and the less they use the mind consciousness. Even a bodhisattva who has cultivated to the eighth bhūmi can have the manas directly substitute for the six consciousnesses, and the mind consciousness can be dispensed with. All Buddhas and Bodhisattvas directly employ the manas; the six consciousnesses are simplified as much as possible—the mental consciousness accompanying the five sense consciousnesses (pañcavijñāna-sahagata-manovijñāna) can still be used a little, but the solitary consciousness (mano-vijñāna-eka-citta) is almost never used, because the wisdom of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas is direct perception/valid direct cognition, and they have no need for the solitary consciousness's deliberation, analysis, inference, and judgment.

Since higher life forms all communicate through the manas, what do the written words, language, and sounds used by the human mind consciousness amount to? They are merely auxiliary tools, dispensable, not so important. Yet humans themselves attach great importance to written words, language, and sound—various linguistic arts, techniques of expression, the use and piling up of literary diction, vocal training, and so on—treating these products of the mind consciousness as survival skills, not knowing that when they depart for other realms of existence, these skills will have no place to be used. Not only do devas of the heaven realm rely heavily on the manas, but beings of the three evil paths also mainly depend on the manas to communicate and express their intentions; only humans use language and writing, beating around the bush.

Therefore the functions of the manas are very powerful: it has the determination (adhimokṣa) mental factor, as well as the desire mental factor; it has its own ideas, the desire to express and communicate, and the desire for enjoyment. Thus the manas possesses the five specific mental factors, and is not, as ancient Yogācāra claimed, limited to a single weak and pitiable wisdom (prajñā) mental factor. If the manas had only a single weak wisdom mental factor, what could it accomplish? It could accomplish almost nothing, let alone study Buddhism and cultivate practice. Without the desire and idea to study Buddhism, without the mental thought of cultivation, there would be no motivation to study Buddhism, and one could not apprehend the Buddha-dharma with determination; the Buddha-dharma would not enter the mind—how could there be the wisdom of seeing the path? Would studying Buddhism not amount to nothing at all?