On the Question of the Manas Attaching to the Body

When a person is covered in wounds and faints from the pain, yet upon waking must continue to suffer the pain, why does the manas still choose to wake up? Because the manas is extremely attached to the body, always wishing to have the activity of the five aggregates, and unwilling to let the functions of the five aggregates perish. When the causal conditions for the arising of the six consciousnesses are complete, the manas will certainly act as the master to bring forth the six consciousnesses, producing the activities of the five-aggregate body. When the pain is especially severe, the damage to the body faculty is relatively great, preventing the mind consciousness from continuing to discern and arise, so the mind consciousness has no choice but to cease. When the body faculty recovers somewhat, the manas wants to discern the condition of the body, and thus the mind consciousness and the five sense consciousnesses arise; or when other relatively intense sense objects appear and the manas wants to discern them, the six consciousnesses also arise, and thus one wakes from the coma. From this we can see how deeply attached the manas is to the five-aggregate body.

There are also people who die of joy from extreme happiness. Why can one die in a state of great bliss? A bliss that the mind consciousness cannot control—the mind feels that one should not be so joyful, but there is no way to control it; that is the bliss of the manas. When the mental activity of bliss becomes too intense, the blood supply of the heart falls far short, causing the body faculty to be unable to function normally or to be damaged, and then the six consciousnesses can no longer function normally and eventually cease. When the manas discovers that the body faculty is damaged and unusable, and that the six consciousnesses can no longer arise, it decides to leave the body, abandoning the body and departing from it, and the five aggregates die. For a person who dies an accidental death, the manas is unprepared and even more unwilling to leave the body; but since the body has been smashed to pieces and there is no longer an intact physical body, the manas can no longer hold onto the body and quickly abandons the physical body, entering the stage of the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava).