The manas and mental factors are the ultimate goal of actual practice, and also the operating system of actual practice.

Directing: mental factors can point toward the goal of one's own cultivation, eradicate ignorance, subdue and cut off afflictions, transform mental activities, and transform karmic seeds; Returning: letting the mind return to wisdom, return to purity, return to liberation. The operating system, following the mental factors, continuously corrects the mental factors and transforms the mental factors. Actual practice is the process of operating the mental factors and the process of the mental factors operating — it is the process of one's own mind changing one's own mind.

The reason mental factors can change is that the mind consciousness successfully perfumes the manas, causing the manas to abandon evil and move toward good, transforming its own mental activities. The fundamental cause of the transformation is the tathāgatagarbha — it is the tathāgatagarbha that transforms the mental factors of the manas. But the tathāgatagarbha is not the presiding consciousness; He does not take charge and has no subjective initiative. He passively transforms the seeds according to the mental activities of the manas. When the seeds transform, the fruits also transform. Although the arising of all things is produced by the tathāgatagarbha, the driving force behind it is the mental factors of the manas. If the manas does not wish to act, the tathāgatagarbha accomplishes nothing, and no dharmas arise.

The manas has subjective initiative; when its mental nature transforms, it impels the karmic seeds to change. The transformation of mental factors is the cause; the change of karmic seeds is the effect. The manas recognizing truth and directly realizing truth is the cause; the transformation of mental factors is the effect. The manas diligently cultivating the thirty-seven factors of enlightenment is the cause; direct realization is the effect. The mind consciousness perfuming and guiding in accordance with principle is the cause; the manas being perfumed is the effect. Of course, every step of actual genuine practice causes the mental factors of the manas to change. The change of mental factors is the effect; the cause is still the mental factors of the manas impelling their own mental factors to undergo corresponding changes, with the precondition that the mental factors of the mind consciousness are needed to propel the mental factors of the manas.

Mental factors must arise simultaneously with the conscious mind

Mental factors are the companions of the conscious mind; they must operate in conjunction with the conscious mind, otherwise the conscious mind would be unable to accomplish anything. As long as the conscious mind arises, the mental factors necessarily arise simultaneously. Without mental factors, the conscious mind cannot operate, and then all dharmas in the world could not arise or exist. Even the operation of the eighth consciousness requires the coordination of its own mental factors; the very existence of the eighth consciousness likewise cannot be separated from the accompaniment of mental factors.

The arising and operation of the four kinds of food are all functions of the conscious mind. Since the conscious mind cannot be separated from the accompaniment of mental factors, the four kinds of food cannot be separated from mental factors. Ordinary beings cannot be separated from the four kinds of food; sages and worthies in the desire realm's human world also cannot be separated from the four kinds of food. Beings with relatively high meditative attainments can depart from solid food and mental-volition food, and sometimes can also depart from contact food, but they cannot depart from consciousness food. At the most fundamental level, the lives of sentient beings must have the consciousness food of the eighth consciousness and the seventh consciousness.