What Is Innate Is the Experience of the Manas

Changing the manas—perhaps a single major accident is enough to make the manas vastly different from before. If you don't believe it, try it: after playing with fire and suffering severe burns, you are guaranteed never to play with fire again. Drive recklessly, fall into a ditch, break a bone, and you will never dare to drive recklessly again. "Once bitten by a snake, one fears even a rope for ten years"—that is exactly what this means.

After experiencing major events, some people are left with aftereffects. For example, as soon as others mention something similar, the manas will panic psychologically, become fearful, and tremble. There are many other kinds of situations where the manas no longer wants to face those people and matters. Some children, after being abused just once, will have it engraved deeply in their hearts and will never again be willing to come into contact with that person, nor even to hear that person's name—the moment they hear the name, they will feel terrified and unsettled inside.

When a small child touches something hot for the first time, he will naturally dodge away; when encountering cold, he will naturally shrink his neck and shiver all over. This is the manas innately understanding hot and cold, without anyone teaching it. When an infant is hit for the first time, he also knows to cry loudly and knows pain—no one taught him this either. Infants innately know fullness and hunger, so they cry and fuss when hungry. Moreover, crying and fussing are also innate—no one teaches an infant how to cry and fuss.

No one teaches an infant those sensations of pain, saying, "This is pain; at this time you should cry, and you should cry like this." When an infant is first held and caressed by his parents, he feels very comfortable. No one teaches the infant that being held is comfortable, that being caressed is comfortable, that this is what comfort is, and that comfort should be expressed this way. None of this is taught; infants know it innately.

Subhūti was foremost in understanding emptiness among the Buddha's disciples. In a previous life he had already realized the emptiness of all dharmas, so even in his mother's womb he knew it was empty; at birth he also knew it was empty. All the property in his family's household completely vanished into emptiness, and then all the property reappeared. This emptiness was realized by the manas.

Some matters require the combined functioning of the six consciousnesses and the five aggregates in order to be expressed, and since the five aggregates and six consciousnesses are new, learning and adaptation are required. The difference in the speed of each person's learning is caused by the differences in the manas's experience.

When the mind consciousness first begins studying Buddhism, everyone's mind consciousness is equally ignorant, but before long, differences emerge. Some people study for a whole lifetime and still remain at the level of a single phrase of the Buddha's name, still remaining at the stage of reciting sutras over and over; some people, after just one month, begin seeking out Chan school classics to study, and after a year they want to investigate Chan and attain enlightenment—I myself am an example of this. Why is there such a great difference? The different experiences of the manas and the different lengths of time spent studying Buddhism—the difference in time may even exceed countless kalpas—result in enormous differences in studying Buddhism.

The differences between each person are caused by the differences in the manas. Whether or not one admits it, this is the fact. Does a fact care whether you admit it or not? A fact does not care who admits it or not; it will never change. Truth—even if not a single person in the Saha world acknowledges it, it remains truth forever; it does not become non-truth merely because others refuse to acknowledge it. As for the true Buddhadharma, no matter who slanders it, the Buddhadharma is the Buddhadharma, and truth is truth.