The Manas Is Obscured but Has the Three Attributes of Wholesome, Unwholesome, and Neutral

"With defilement yet neutral" — "defilement" means covering and obscuring. Who is the one with covering? It is the manas, the seventh consciousness. What does it cover? It covers the pure wisdom of the manas's own mind, preventing that mind from recognizing the truths, realities, and true characteristics of the Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna. Why does it have this covering function? Because of the ignorance and afflictions of its own mind. Therefore, because the manas has ignorance and afflictions, it leads to birth-and-death and saṃsāra through the six realms. Since the manas has ignorance and afflictions, and is also the consciousness that acts as the master, are the bodily, verbal, and mental actions created by the five-aggregate body, including unwholesome karmic actions, 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 mental nature of the manas; unwholesome karma manifests the manas's unwholesome mental factors and afflictive mental factors. So can the manas merely be a neutral mind that is neither wholesome nor unwholesome? Absolutely not. The manas has a wholesome mind, an unwholesome mind, and a mind that is neither wholesome nor unwholesome. The very foundation of cultivation is cultivating the manas. If the manas had no unwholesome mind, no afflictive mind, and no ignorant mind, what would there be to cultivate? The six consciousnesses would no longer have any unwholesome mind, afflictive mind, or ignorant mind; in that case, even if sentient beings were not Buddhas, they would not be far from Buddhahood.

The claim that the manas is "with defilement yet neutral" does not come from the Buddhist sūtras, but from the treatises of the ancient Yogācāra masters. And if one's wisdom has not reached the level of a bhūmi bodhisattva, one cannot engage in direct-perception contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) regarding the mental nature of the manas, due to insufficient meditative concentration and wisdom. Therefore, being a Yogācāra master does not mean being a bhūmi bodhisattva, nor does it mean possessing the wisdom of the varieties of paths and the seed-wisdom of Yogācāra that directly and profoundly contemplates Yogācāra dharma. Consequently, the treatises they wrote cannot be perfect, and it is not surprising that they contain flaws.

I began teaching Yogācāra in 2016. At that time my wisdom was still rather coarse and shallow, and my understanding of Yogācāra dharma was not very thorough. Some people asked me questions about Yogācāra, which 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 independently and engage in contemplative practice apart from those treatises, so I answered treating those views 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, not continuing further. 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 contradicting them — either way the outcome would be bad. In my earliest teachings of Yogācāra dharma, there are a few places where, following the Yogācāra treatises, I made errors; when re-editing the books, I will correct them as much as possible.  

The ancient Yogācāra treatises say that the manas has only neutral feeling (upekṣā-vedanā). I was already suspicious of this at the time, because by observing the feelings in body and mind, one discovers contradictions that do not match reality. If the manas had only neutral feeling, then how peaceful and calm would a person's inner mind have to be — almost the same as the tathāgatagarbha — with no emotions, no contending or grabbing, no striking back or retaliating, no delight or aversion. Would such a mind still need cultivation? Could it still create unwholesome karma, even grave unwholesome karma?

The mental activities of the mind consciousness float on the surface; with a somewhat subtle mind, they can be observed. Because observation is initially always carried out by the mind consciousness, and the mind consciousness easily observes itself and understands itself, it is said that the mind consciousness is relatively shallow, floating on the surface. The manas, however, is another consciousness distinct from the mind consciousness itself, so observing and understanding it is not so easy — one could say it is extremely difficult. Without first-dhyāna concentration and without profound Yogācāra wisdom, one cannot directly observe the mental activities of the manas. A person who has attained enlightenment can directly observe the coarse operations of the eighth consciousness, yet cannot observe the mental activities of the manas. So do not assume that the manas is easy to observe and easy to understand.

Qingfeng: The secondary afflictions, such as torpor and restlessness, should be classified as "with defilement yet neutral" — although neutral, they can obstruct the noble path. The ten minor secondary afflictions belong to afflictive habitual tendencies, dormant within the seventh consciousness, to be eradicated only after attaining the bhūmis; these should all be classified as "with defilement yet neutral." A while ago I saw a madman online using these points to attack Master's teachings, treating all the afflictions of the seventh consciousness as "with defilement yet neutral."

It seems that in the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, the view of self, self-love, self-conceit, and self-delusion are defined as "with defilement yet neutral." For example, the view of self: 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 (satkāya-dṛṣṭi); it is understandable that this belongs to "with defilement yet neutral." But take self-conceit: for instance, there are non-Buddhists who, unable to understand the Buddhist sūtras they read, conclude they are deceptive, as if they were more brilliant than the Buddha himself. There are plenty of such people right now, and this involves self-conceit. This is slandering the Buddha and the Buddha-dharma, and should not be neutral. So "with defilement yet neutral" should refer to those afflictive habitual tendencies that are relatively appropriate.

Assessment: Secondary afflictions are afflictive mental factors. Since they are afflictions, they are unwholesome — not wholesome, and not neither-wholesome-nor-unwholesome. How could they be neutral? Such plain, simple terms and concepts are very easy to understand; there is no possibility of confusion. Whether afflictions or afflictive habitual tendencies, they are all unwholesome — not wholesome, and not neutral. Likewise, conceit and delusion are both afflictive mental factors; they are unwholesome — not wholesome, and not neutral. In summary, the manas possesses all the wholesome and unwholesome mental factors; it does not have only the single attribute of neutrality.

Rutao: 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, "To believe everything in books is worse than having no books at all" — precisely to break people's blind faith in books. In the Buddha-dharma, the principle of "relying on the Dharma, not on persons" also, in my personal feeling, was established precisely to address this enormous weakness in human nature.