Severing the View of Self Is Precisely Severing the View of Self in the Manas

Why do some people become agitated and unable to continue their contemplative practice when contemplating the selflessness of the five aggregates to a certain point? This occurs because the manas has sensed, to some extent, that the five aggregates are without self and that the self is insubstantial. It fears the genuine absence of self and worries that it will disappear. This is precisely due to the manas’s habit-energy of clinging to self, accumulated since beginningless kalpas. Previously unexposed to the concept of selflessness, it now gains some understanding through the mental activities of the consciousness, yet this understanding remains unclear. It fears that if the consciousness continues contemplating further, the self will cease to exist and become ungraspable. Consequently, it becomes agitated and prevents the consciousness from continuing its contemplative practice.

This phenomenon reveals that abandoning the view of self entails abandoning the manas’s view of self. During the process of profound and subtle contemplation, the manas participates throughout; it is aware of the content contemplated by the consciousness and then deliberates on it itself. When the manas has been cultivated to a certain degree, it can fully comprehend the principle of selflessness and the principle of the eighth consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna), after which realization can be attained. The manas must possess the power of decisive understanding regarding the Buddha Dharma; otherwise, the consciousness cannot influence the manas, and studying Buddhism would be futile. Once the manas attains enlightenment, it gradually acquires great wisdom, transforms consciousness into wisdom, attains the wisdom of equality, and upon perfecting wisdom, achieves Buddhahood.