The Profound Meaning of Vijñaptimātratā in the Diamond Sutra (20)

The tongue consciousness perceives tastes, distinguishing sourness, sweetness, bitterness, spiciness, etc. The mental consciousness simultaneously discerns the type of food and the degree of its pleasant or unpleasant flavor, giving rise to minds of liking or aversion. This leads to feelings of pleasure, pain, or neutrality, and subsequently generates physical, verbal, and mental actions. The body consciousness perceives tangible objects, distinguishing cold, heat, hunger, thirst, fullness, softness, hardness, and so forth. Simultaneously, the mental consciousness discerns fatigue, lightness, comfort, exhaustion, etc., giving rise to minds and actions of liking or aversion. This results in feelings of pleasure, pain, or neutrality, along with other physical, verbal, and mental actions. The mental consciousness discerns simultaneously with the first five consciousnesses, but it can also function alone to recall the past, plan for the future, analyze, reason, and make judgments. It gives rise to feelings of pain, pleasure, sorrow, joy, and equanimity, producing the subsequent physical, verbal, and mental actions.

The mental faculty (manas) is also a mind. It is formless and without any characteristics, hence also called the formless faculty. It has existed since beginningless kalpas and ceases when an Arhat enters Nirvana without residue. It is the consciousness of self-attachment. Since beginningless kalpas, it has clung to the self, regarding everything as "I" and "mine." It clings to the functions of the first six consciousnesses as being "mine," and clings to the functions of the eighth consciousness as being "mine." Greed, hatred, delusion, arrogance, doubt, and wrong views continuously manifest within it. It is the fundamental root of karma creation, always directing the six consciousnesses to act according to its own habits. Spiritual cultivation primarily focuses on transforming it. The mental faculty undergoes one transformation upon initial enlightenment and entry into the First Ground (Bodhisattva stage), another transformation at the Eighth Ground, and is completely transformed into the Wisdom of Equality upon Buddhahood. The mental consciousness becomes the Wisdom of Wonderful Observation. The first five consciousnesses transform into the Wisdom of Perfect Accomplishment. The eighth consciousness transforms into the Great Mirror Wisdom. If one can sever the self-attaching nature of the mental faculty, ceasing to cling to the self, then upon death, one will extinguish one's own five aggregates and eighteen elements, entering Nirvana without residue.