What Is Innate Is the Experience of Manas

Changing the manas (mind root) may require a major incident to make it fundamentally different from before. If you don't believe it, try playing with fire and suffering severe burns—you'll surely never play with fire again. If you crash while speeding and end up in a ditch with broken bones, you'll never dare to speed again. This is the meaning behind the saying, "Once bitten by a snake, one fears coiled ropes for ten years."

After experiencing major events, some people develop psychological sequelae. For instance, when others mention similar incidents, their manas experiences panic, fear, and trembling. In various other situations, the manas becomes unwilling to confront certain people or matters again. Some children, after being abused even once, carry the trauma deeply; they never wish to interact with that person again or even hear their name—merely hearing the name triggers anxiety and unease.

When a child touches something hot for the first time, they naturally withdraw; when encountering cold, they instinctively hunch their shoulders and shiver all over. This is the manas' innate understanding of heat and cold, requiring no teaching. When an infant is hit for the first time, they know to cry and feel pain—no one taught them this. Infants inherently know satiety and hunger, hence they cry when hungry. Even crying itself is innate; no one teaches them how to cry.

No one instructs infants that "this is pain, you should cry now, cry like this." When an infant is held and caressed by parents for the first time, they feel comfort—no one teaches them that being held is comforting, that being caressed is comforting, that this is comfort, or how to express comfort. All these are innate; infants know them naturally.

Subhuti, foremost among the Buddha's disciples in understanding emptiness, had realized the emptiness of all phenomena in a past life. Thus, while in the womb, he knew it was empty; at birth, he knew it was empty. All the wealth in his family home vanished completely, then reappeared in full. This emptiness was realized by his manas.

Certain matters require the combined functioning of the six consciousnesses and the five aggregates to manifest. Since the five aggregates and six consciousnesses are new, learning and adaptation are necessary. Differences in the speed of learning among individuals arise precisely due to variations in the experiences of their manas.

At the very beginning of studying Buddhism, everyone's consciousness is equally ignorant. Yet, differences soon emerge. Some study for a lifetime yet remain fixated on reciting a single Buddha's name or chanting sutras. Others, within a month, seek out Zen classics to study; within a year, they aspire to practice meditation and realize the Way—I myself am such an example. Why such vast differences? The disparities in the manas' experiences and the varying lengths of time spent studying Buddhism—spanning even innumerable kalpas—result in enormous differences in Buddhist practice.

The differences among individuals are precisely caused by differences in their manas. Whether acknowledged or not, this is the truth. Does the truth care whether you acknowledge it or not? The truth is indifferent to acknowledgment; it never changes. Truth remains truth eternally, even if not a single person in the Saha world acknowledges it; it does not cease to be truth merely because others deny it. Genuine Dharma remains Dharma regardless of who slanders it; truth is truth.