What Does "Indeterminate (Avyākṛta)" Refer To?

In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the Buddha said that when the five aggregates and the world had not yet appeared for sentient beings, only the manas and the tathāgatagarbha existed in a state of vast, unfathomable darkness, muddled and confused, unaware of how high the heavens were or how thick the earth. The manas was ignorant and deluded, but because there were no six consciousnesses and five aggregates to cooperate with it, the manas could not create any karmic actions, and thus there were no wholesome or unwholesome karmas, nor any retribution for wholesome or unwholesome karmas. This is the indeterminate (avyākṛta) nature of the manas.

When the five aggregates of a sentient being appear, even if the manas has wholesome or unwholesome mental activities, or mental activities that are neither wholesome nor unwholesome, when the six faculties cannot interfunction, He Himself cannot create anything; He can only realize His own intentions through the six consciousnesses, satisfying His own mental activities. Therefore, all mental activities of the manas belong to indeterminate karma (avyākṛta-karma), which has no retribution. The reason sentient beings experience retribution is that the manas, through the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses, realizes its own mental activities; there is a record of bodily, verbal, and mental actions, and karmic seeds are stored. Only when these karmic seeds are transmitted forth does retribution arise.

Among the indeterminate karmas that are neither wholesome nor unwholesome of the six consciousnesses, if a mind of joy and delight, or of craving and attachment, arises, this becomes a bond of birth and death, and one will be bound within birth and death—this is retribution. Even if the six consciousnesses have no craving-attachment or resentment, their indeterminate karmas that are neither wholesome nor unwholesome must still be stored in the tathāgatagarbha as karmic seeds; as long as there are karmic seeds, there is retribution. When Buddhas and Bodhisattvas come to this world, in the wholesome karmas and indeterminate karmas they create, there is no craving-attachment and no mind of joy and delight; therefore there is no bond of birth and death, and Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will not be bound within the birth and death of the six realms. When doing the same deeds, some do so with intent and some without intent, and thus the retribution differs.