The Mental Factor of Volition (cetanā) of the Manas Determines the Discernment of the Eye Consciousness and the Mind Consciousness

When the eye consciousness sees form, what it sees are manifest forms (rūpa): blue, yellow, red, and white, light and darkness, clouds and smoke, mist and haze, and space. Light is a kind of material substance, composed of the four great elements, arising and ceasing and changing moment by moment; it is false and unreal.

The eye consciousness itself possesses the mental factor of volition (cetanā). After receiving the form sense-object, it knows the form sense-object, and then the mental factor of volition arises, deciding to act—whether to avoid it or to look at it a while longer. The eye consciousness works in close coordination and cooperation with the manas and the mind consciousness at the same time. Without the manas' attention (manaskāra) and the mental factor of volition, there would be no arising of the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness, and no operation of the five universally present mental factors of the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness. When the eye consciousness sees form, the seventh consciousness cannot see form; when the mind consciousness analyzes, infers, and judges, the seventh consciousness cannot infer or analyze. Only because consciousness has the nature of discriminating, discerning, and recognizing is it called consciousness; otherwise it would not be called consciousness. All seven consciousnesses possess the nature of discernment, discrimination, and recognition.

Does the manas have the power of judgment?

Where there is wisdom, there is the power of judgment; where there is deliberation (manasikāra), there is a result of that deliberation. The manas definitely has the power of judgment—deliberation itself is judgment. Because the manas is the master consciousness that governs the operation of the entire five-aggregate body, without the power of judgment it could not govern the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the five-aggregate body, and then it could not be the master consciousness. Then who would be the master? The manas' power of judgment is indispensable; it is only a matter of whether the power of judgment is great or small, and whether it is accurate or not.

There are such differences in the manas' judgment: on which dharmas the manas' power of judgment is great, and on which dharmas it is small; when its power of judgment is great and accurate, and when its power of judgment is small and not very accurate; in what circumstances it relies on the discernment of the six consciousnesses to make judgments, and in what circumstances it can make judgments without relying on the discernment of the six consciousnesses. On dharmas that the manas discerns clearly, its power of judgment is great, because only with clear discernment can it judge well, and judge quickly and accurately; if the manas does not discern clearly, it cannot judge, or cannot judge quickly and accurately. Regarding dharmas the manas cannot understand, it is either hesitant and indecisive, or its judgment misses the mark; in this way the decisions made by the manas are blind and mistaken. When the manas' choice is mistaken, the six consciousnesses' execution will also be mistaken.

But we can observe: in worldly affairs, are sentient beings' choices all mistaken and blind? Obviously not—there are quite a few instances of being correct and without error, and it should be that most of the time they are reasonable and appropriate. This shows that the manas does have the power of judgment, and its power of judgment is not small. There do exist cases where it cannot judge, cases of hesitation and indecision, and even more so cases of misjudgment. This is related to the manas' own wisdom, and to the manas' power of determination (adhimokṣa).

In the manas' judgment, on the one hand, it judges directly on the basis of the dharmas themselves. The more familiar the manas is with a dharma, and the more experience it has had with it, the more easily it makes judgments on its own; the more momentous and urgent the dharma, the more easily it makes a swift judgment on its own, after which it makes a choice, and the six consciousnesses arise to carry out the action. If the manas cannot comprehend with determination the states and dharmas it encounters, it will be unable to make quick and accurate judgments. On the other hand, the manas' discernment is coarse; to discern in detail, it must rely on the discernment of the six consciousnesses, relying on the mind consciousness's thinking, analysis, study, inference, and judgment, and then, based on the information transmitted by the six consciousnesses, it makes its own independent deliberation and judgment, and the six consciousnesses arise to execute it. If the manas cannot comprehend with determination the content discerned by the six consciousnesses, or the content that the mind consciousness has thought through, analyzed, understood, and judged, it also cannot make judgments and choices, or else its judgments and choices are mistaken, and the six consciousnesses then execute them mistakenly.