The Fastest Way to Make the Manas Understand the Truth

The fastest way to subdue and transform the manas, enabling the manas to understand the principles, is this: after the mind consciousness has roughly understood the principle, suspend these principles in the mind during meditation (samādhi), without deliberating—just quietly watching and holding them there. Then one will gradually feel a bit more understanding, or suddenly understand all at once. This is the result of letting the manas deliberate (manasikāra) on its own. This method is extremely effective; I often use it this way, rather than relying on the mind consciousness's superficial analysis and study. The thought suspended in the mind and in the head is simply a question. Any problem one does not understand can be handed over to the manas, letting Him deliberate; the mind consciousness may cooperate, or may refrain from interfering and causing trouble, or may simply carry on handling everyday trivial matters. As for when the manas will produce an answer, that depends on the wisdom of the manas itself, and also on the quality of one's meditative concentration (samādhi) and on how well the mind consciousness cooperates.

The method of suspending a thought in the mind is precisely the Chan investigation method commonly used by the Chan patriarchs of the past; for people in today's world who lack meditative concentration, it is rather difficult to practice. At the beginning, one often cannot find the way in and feels there is no place to start; one needs to keep pondering and experimenting on one's own. Once the method is mastered and one has entered the gate, things become easy. From then on, whenever one encounters difficult problems, one can use this method, which can solve them at the root. There are many principles that seem to be understood but are not truly understood—in fact, it is the manas that does not understand, while the mind consciousness understands to some extent. Quiet down, give the manas time and energy, let Him deliberate, and the result that emerges will be quite satisfactory, without any doubt. This requires the mind consciousness to have a general direction of thinking and to have understood the principle a little. For those whose meditative concentration and wisdom are both good, even if the mind consciousness does not understand, it is fine—just suspend the problem deep within the mind, and before long understanding will come.

Without meditative concentration, deliberation is almost entirely done by the mind consciousness; the manas cannot exert any force, and such deliberation is generally rather superficial and not deep. Modern people, lacking meditative concentration almost universally, very rarely know how to investigate Chan. Yet some people have never investigated Chan and still became enlightened; some people have never cultivated the thirty-seven factors of enlightenment, the seven factors of awakening, or the four foundations of mindfulness, and still eradicated the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi) and realized the fruits. Taking such shortcuts through the back door—the one who loses the most is oneself, and the one who will suffer the most in the future is still oneself. This is a case where the loss far outweighs the gain.