The Interrelation Between Nama and Rupa

The body and mind mutually influence, interconnect, and are intimately related, with each moment by moment constraining one another. The three evolving consciousnesses moment by moment alter the physical body, while the physical body also moment by moment influences the sensations and thoughts of the conscious mind.

The Buddha taught that within the Tathāgatagarbha, the Four Great Elements and the Seven Elements are eternally pure, neither good nor evil. Regardless of what wholesome or unwholesome karmic activities they assist sentient beings in performing, upon returning to the Tathāgatagarbha, they remain absolutely pure. Sentient beings are constituted from the pure seeds of the Seven Elements; it is merely the mental factors of the conscious mind that are impure.

Spiritual practice fundamentally consists of cultivating the mental factors, not cultivating the seeds of the Seven Elements nor the seeds of consciousness. Mental factors encompass both wisdom and ignorance; initially, they are all ignorance, and ultimately, they are all wisdom. The intermediate process is the path of cultivating the Way and the mind. Through the mental factors, one can understand the mental activities of sentient beings; through the transformations of the mental factors, one can understand the degree of a sentient being's spiritual practice and the extent of the transformation in their mental activities. After the conscious mind undergoes change, it causes the manas (ego-mind) to also transform, and the body immediately undergoes change.

The transformation of body and mind is primarily the result of the transformation of the manas. When meditative absorption arises in spiritual practice, the body immediately undergoes change. Therefore, meditative absorption necessarily indicates that the manas possesses stability; the mind of the manas has transformed, ceasing its severe control over the physical body and its grasping at external objects.