Does the manas possess the power of judgment?

Question: Does the manas have the power of judgment?

Answer: The manas definitely has the power of judgment, because He is the master consciousness that governs the operation of the entire five-aggregate body. Without the power of judgment, He could not govern the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the five-aggregate body, and thus He could not be the master consciousness at all—then who would be the master? It is merely a matter of the judgment being greater or lesser, accurate or inaccurate, and of the judgment being stronger in some dharmas and weaker in others; such differences exist. On dharmas that the manas discerns clearly, His power of judgment is greater, because only with clear discernment can He judge well, judging quickly and accurately; if the manas does not discern clearly, He cannot judge, or cannot judge quickly and accurately. Regarding dharmas that the manas cannot understand, He is either hesitant and indecisive, or His judgment goes awry, and in such cases the decisions made by the manas are blind and mistaken. When the manas's choice is mistaken, the execution by the six consciousnesses will also be mistaken.

But we can observe: in worldly affairs, are sentient beings' choices all mistaken and blind? Clearly not. There are quite a few instances of being correct and error-free; in fact, most of the time things should be reasonable and appropriate. This shows that the manas does have the power of judgment, and it is not insignificant. There do exist situations where He cannot judge, situations of hesitation and indecision, and even more so, situations of misjudgment. This is related to the manas's own wisdom and to the manas's power of determination (adhimokṣa).

When the manas judges, on the one hand He judges directly based on the dharmas themselves: the more familiar the dharma is to the manas, and the more experience He has had with it, the more easily He makes judgments on His own; the more momentous and urgent the dharma, the more easily He makes a swift judgment on His own, and then makes a choice, after which the six consciousnesses arise to carry it out. If the manas cannot determine (adhimokṣa) the states of the dharmas He contacts, He will be unable to make a swift and accurate judgment. On the other hand, the manas's discernment is coarse; in order to discern in detail, He 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, He makes His own independent deliberation (manana) and judgment, and the six consciousnesses arise to execute it. If the manas cannot determine the content discerned by the six consciousnesses, or the content that the mind consciousness has thought through, analyzed, understood, and judged, He also cannot make a judgment and choice, or else the judgment and choice are mistaken, and the six consciousnesses then execute it mistakenly.

If the head of a household had no power of judgment, the whole family would either die outright or be left at death's door, unable to survive.