There Is No Destroyer of the Manas

Question: Who extinguishes the mental faculty (manas) in the state of Nirvana with no residue?

Answer: At the moment of entering Nirvana, the seventeen elements of existence cease entirely, and the mental faculty automatically vanishes. There is no agent who extinguishes the mental faculty. If there were an agent capable of extinguishing the mental faculty, that would imply the existence of a self. Where there is a self, one cannot enter Nirvana with no residue. Only when there is no-self can extinction (nirvana) be attained. The notion of an "agent" implies a self, while the "object" implies that which belongs to the self. No one regards the mental faculty as an object belonging to a self. Only when there is neither agent nor object can extinction be realized. Where agent and object exist, extinction is impossible.

Extinction does not occur because the mental faculty willingly extinguishes itself, nor is it a case of extinguishing the mental faculty. Rather, it is because the mental faculty no longer clings to any phenomenon (dharma) and no longer desires any phenomenon. When the mental faculty ceases to engage in volitional activity and harbors no aspirations, the mental factor of volition (cetanā) within it ceases to arise. Consequently, the Tathāgatagarbha (Buddha-nature) also ceases all activity and no longer gives rise to phenomena. Phenomena then gradually cease to exist one by one. Finally, when the Tathāgatagarbha perceives that the mental faculty has no mental activities whatsoever and ceases to project the seeds of consciousness associated with the mental faculty, the mental faculty naturally ceases to exist.