The Right Understanding of Manas
Chapter 17: Questions and Answers
1. Question: Why is it that for people in the Sahā world who recollect the Buddha (buddhānusmṛti) with the aspiration to be reborn [in the Land of Bliss], there is a lotus flower belonging to that practitioner in the seven-jeweled pond of the Land of Bliss (sukhāvatī), and moreover, each person's lotus flower differs in color and size?
Answer: Both the tathāgatagarbha and the manas are formless and without characteristics; they can reach anywhere in the worlds of the ten directions without obstruction. Moreover, from the perspective of the tathāgatagarbha, any world, no matter how distant, is within His own mind, with no separation whatsoever, no distance and no boundary. As long as the manas has the aspiration, and the causal conditions are complete, the tathāgatagarbha will comply with and cooperate with the manas, fulfilling the manas's aspiration. The tathāgatagarbha always complies with and cooperates with the manas's attention (manaskāra) and deliberation (manasikāra).
If a practitioner of recollecting the Buddha is very diligent and has deep roots of goodness, he will single-mindedly keep the Land of Bliss in mind from the depths of his heart; the manas then has the aspiration for rebirth, and so the manas makes the vow wishing to be reborn in the Land of Bliss. The tathāgatagarbha will then cognize the manas's deliberation (manasikāra), knowing the manas's decision, and will go to the Land of Bliss to create the living environment for rebirth, building in the seven-jeweled pond a lotus-palace corresponding to the practitioner's level of cultivation—of course this is also decided by the manas. The tathāgatagarbha will then output the seeds of the four great elements in the seven-jeweled pond, and thus a lotus platform is constructed. The quality, size, and color of the lotus platform are determined according to the grade of cultivation of the six consciousnesses, that is, determined according to the seeds of wholesome karma stored in the tathāgatagarbha from the practitioner's practice of recollecting the Buddha. The tathāgatagarbha can discern the wholesome karmic seeds of recollecting the Buddha, and according to those seeds outputs the four great elements to create the lotus platform.
After it is built, the tathāgatagarbha continues to uphold and maintain this lotus platform, and the manas looks forward to being reborn there in the future. If the practitioner becomes lax in cultivation, regresses in his resolve for the Path, or develops other aspirations and no longer wishes to be reborn in the Land of Bliss, then the tathāgatagarbha will no longer uphold and maintain this lotus platform, and the lotus platform will gradually wither and disappear. After being reborn in the Land of Bliss, the manas together with the new six consciousnesses dwells within that lotus platform, which is very vast in extent; thus the territory of the Land of Bliss increases. Moreover, the better the quality of the lotus platform, the more adorned the lotus ponds of the Land of Bliss become, and the Land of Bliss becomes even more adorned. Therefore, diligent recollection of the Buddha is precisely the adornment of the Buddha's pure land of the Land of Bliss.
2. Question: Why does hearing the Dharma in person have more power to gather in and transform people than reading books or listening to recordings, with better results? When listening to the master speak, one can develop meditative concentration (samādhi) and understanding following the master's voice, and one's understanding and realization of the Dharma meaning taught is deeper and more thorough, with more benefit in the Dharma meaning. Why is this?
Answer: When reading books or listening to recordings, the mind consciousness needs to imagine and deliberate, visualizing the corresponding scenes; there is more of inference and non-valid cognition, so the results are poorer and the power to gather in and transform is weaker. When being received and taught in person, there is more direct perception, and there is also intersection and resonance between the manas of the two parties, a magnetic-field effect, because the manas most trusts what it sees with its own eyes, and it also resonates most readily when seeing with its own eyes. When reading a book, the manas has not seen with its own eyes; the distance is far, and it must go through the mind consciousness's deliberation and imagination, so resonance comes slowly and the power to gather in and transform is weak. The other person's body language and facial expressions seen on the spot, and the voice heard on the spot, all strengthen one's understanding and feeling, letting the manas strengthen its observation through direct perception, resonating more readily, so the power to gather in and transform is strong. Therefore, when the Buddha was dwelling in the world, the disciples all closely followed the Buddha and were unwilling to leave Him; leaving the Buddha meant losing this powerful power to gather in and transform.
3. What is the difference in karmic retribution between intentionally committing unwholesome karma and unintentionally committing unwholesome karma?
Committing unwholesome karma with intent and committing it without intent receive different verdicts under worldly law; for example, intentional killing and unintentional killing receive different legal sentencing. Then according to the principles of the Buddha's Dharma, their cause and effect also differ. Because the mental intention differs, the retribution differs: intentional is heavy, unintentional is light. Both worldly and world-transcending Dharma take the mind's starting point as what is weighty; different mental dispositions yield different retributions. The mind is the master of all things. Committing unwholesome karma with intent means the manas, out of a defiled mental state, directs the six consciousnesses to commit unwholesome karma; its mental disposition is vile, the intrinsic offense is heavy, and it is unforgivable. Committing unwholesome karma without intent arises by chance, not deliberately; the manas is not out of a defiled mental state—only an unwholesome condition has manifested and the karmic result has been realized. Its mind is not vile, so the offense is light and can be forgiven. "Intrinsic" refers to mental disposition, meaning the nature of having afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion versus not having them. Committing unwholesome karma with afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion makes the karma heavy; unwholesome karma committed without those afflictions makes the karma light.
By the same principle, doing good intentionally and with intent means the mind is wholesome, purely wishing to benefit others, the mental disposition is wholesome, and the wholesome retribution is great. Doing good unintentionally means the starting point was not to do good, not wishing to benefit others; only the karmic conditions ripened and the karmic result manifested, and by coincidence others gained benefit. Its mental disposition is not necessarily wholesome—perhaps there is even a vile disposition—so the wholesome retribution is small. When sentient beings commit wholesome or unwholesome karma, the tathāgatagarbha faithfully records it, and at the same time records the beings' wholesome or unwholesome mental dispositions; their intentions and starting points are all recorded, without missing a single detail. Since this is so, the retribution for doing karma intentionally and doing it unintentionally differs. Making good use of one's mind is the content and core that we sentient beings should cultivate. With different minds, the results of doing wholesome or unwholesome karma differ. The Buddha and sentient beings doing the same thing have results as different as heaven and abyss. The Buddha's merit is immeasurably great, while sentient beings' merit is very limited, because the minds differ. The Buddha has a pure mind; sentient beings have defiled minds.
Doing good with intent means that subjectively there is the thought of wishing to benefit others, and the mind-ground is wholesome. Doing good without intent means the mind does not necessarily have the thought of wishing to benefit others, but in behavior, by chance, others happened to gain benefit. Therefore, for those who do good with intent, because the mind-ground is benevolent, the retribution is great; for those who do good without intent, because it is not actively doing good, the merit of a benevolent mind-ground is small and the retribution is small. Doing evil is the opposite: committing evil with intent brings great evil retribution because the mind-ground is vile; committing evil without intent brings small evil retribution because the mind-ground is not vile.
When unwholesome karma is committed and the karmic seeds are stored, the mental conduct (citta-carita) of the seven consciousnesses is stored together with them. If the mental conduct is vile, the vile mental conduct of the seven consciousnesses is stored, plus the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses; if the seven consciousnesses are wholesome, the wholesome mental conduct is stored, plus the bodily, verbal, and mental actions. A vile mental disposition incurs offenses; the retribution of bodily, verbal, and mental actions plus the retribution of mental conduct constitutes a double retribution. Thus wholesome-minded committing of unwholesome karma and vile-minded committing of unwholesome karma have different retributions; intentional killing and unintentional killing have different retributions, because the mental conduct differs. Mental conduct is very important: if the mind-ground is defiled, one will commit unwholesome karma life after life.
4. Question: Why can the phenomena of "looking without seeing" and "hearing without listening" occur? Does a knowing consciousness still exist at such times?
Answer: The occurrence of phenomena such as looking without seeing, hearing without listening, and eating without knowing the taste shows that the manas is not interested in the forms, sounds, and tastes before it; He has other more important matters to attend to and handle, and at this time does not pay attention to what is before Him. The manas does not place full attention on matters it does not care about. When the manas does not care, He will not let the mind consciousness focus on discerning matters He is not interested in; then the discernment of the mind consciousness together with the eye consciousness, or the mind consciousness together with the ear consciousness, becomes slight, and thus the phenomena of looking without seeing, turning a deaf ear, or eating without knowing the taste appear.
But at this time there should still be the existence of the eye consciousness, ear consciousness, and tongue consciousness, because when the faculty contacts the sense object, the tathāgatagarbha will produce a consciousness. Since there is looking, hearing, and eating, it shows the faculty has contacted the sense object, so there must be knowing consciousnesses produced by the manas; the difference is that these consciousnesses discern very faintly, discerning only a tiny bit, so much so that the mind consciousness does not feel the discernment. When looking without seeing, after all the eye faculty has contacted form sense-objects, and the tathāgatagarbha transmits the shadow-images of form sense-objects through the eye faculty to the back of the head; faculty and object face each other, the tathāgatagarbha produces the eye consciousness and mind consciousness, and there is discernment—it is only a matter of the relative weight of the consciousnesses' discernment. Hearing without listening and eating without knowing the taste are the same.
The faculty is a receiving instrument; as long as it faces an object, it will certainly receive form sense-objects, and inner representations (inner sense-object images) will be produced; the only question is whether consciousnesses will be produced at this time. For example, when asleep without dreaming, inner representations exist, only no knowing consciousness emerges to discern. But looking without seeing still differs from being asleep and knowing nothing: at this time there is knowing, because after all one still knows light and darkness; it is not that one does not even know the light and darkness before one's eyes. Since one knows light and darkness, there is the discernment of knowing consciousnesses, however faint. If the manas truly does not wish to look, it is also possible that no consciousness is produced. If there is slight seeing, there is a consciousness discerning. Consciousness can be dispersed and unfocused; the more objects a consciousness faces, the fainter its discernment. For example, "the eye observes six roads, the ear listens to eight directions"—the knowing consciousness can go discern many things, but the mind is then dispersed, so for an untrained person, some things cannot be known very clearly.
The consciousness's discrimination has primary and secondary aspects; what is primary and what is secondary is decided by the manas. Thus the degree of discernment of various objects differs, and phenomena such as looking without seeing appear. When looking without seeing, one neither stumbles while walking nor bumps into walls; one knows both light and dark, while also being focused on the matters one is deliberating internally. If at this time there were no knowing of a knowing consciousness, one would not know whether it is now night or day, and then one could not walk either. When looking without seeing there should be knowing, because this is not a meditative state of the second dhyāna or above; at most it can only reach the first dhyāna.
In states of the second dhyāna and above, there are no five consciousnesses and one does not know the objects of the five sense-objects, but one still knows that one has entered meditative concentration, knows that one has no thoughts—then there is the mind consciousness existing. Most people say there is no mind consciousness here, no knowing, but in fact there is knowing within; the mind consciousness exists. This is much deeper than the meditative state of looking without seeing and turning a deaf ear, so in looking without seeing and turning a deaf ear there is still knowing and knowing consciousnesses existing. If there were no eye consciousness, one should not know light and darkness; when looking without seeing one does know light and darkness, so there is the existence of the eye consciousness and mind consciousness. Both consciousnesses have their specific objects of focus, hardly attending to anything else, but attending to it a little as well—different from the state of being asleep and knowing nothing.
5. Question: Material form (rūpa-dharma) is manifested within the supreme faculty (indriya) at the back of the head; where do mental dharmas (citta-dharma) appear?
Answer: There are eight mental dharmas. The tathāgatagarbha itself does not need to be manifested; He is the source of all dharmas, unborn and unceasing, formless, without characteristics and without location, yet pervading all places and all dharmas. The seventh consciousness is formless and without characteristics, not inside, outside, or in between within the material body, but it can contact the mental sense-objects (dharma-viṣaya) within the supreme faculty, so it is not separate from the supreme faculty; wherever any dharma appears, there is the manas's propelling function. The six consciousnesses are formless and without characteristics, not inside, outside, or in between within the material body, and they also contact and discern the inner six sense-objects within the supreme faculty, so they are even less separate from the supreme faculty; wherever the inner six sense-objects manifest, there is the existence and operation of the six consciousnesses. According to what the World-Honored One said, the principle that consciousness arises from the contact of faculty and object, we should know that the six consciousnesses are certainly born where faculty and object contact—that is, born at the supreme faculty. The dharmas of the six sense-objects are all manifested by the three consciousnesses of transformative agency (parināma), so wherever there are six sense-objects, there is the operation of the eight consciousnesses. Although the seven consciousnesses are not separate from the supreme faculty, they are also not inside, outside, or in between within the material body, because they are formless and without characteristics, and because they are illusory.
The seventh consciousness can silently contain all the dharmas manifested and upheld by the tathāgatagarbha. Dharmas outside the supreme faculty can also be contacted and discerned by the manas—for example, one's own corpse, the flesh and bones that have fallen away, the possessions of past lives, the people one had karmic connections with in past lives, all the mental sense-objects of past lives, and so on—the manas can contact and discern all of these, and these dharmas are not within the supreme faculty. Therefore the seventh consciousness is not inside, outside, or in between within the material body, yet is also not separate from the supreme faculty, the brain.
Mental factors (caittas) are also mental dharmas; they are dharmas associated with the eight consciousnesses, appearing along with the operation of the eight consciousnesses, formless and without characteristics, and also not inside, outside, or in between within the material body.
6. Question: When someone wants to commit suicide and takes action, why does the manas agree to the suicide?
Answer: The act of suicide, whether coerced or voluntary, is of course taken by the manas; it is the manas's decision. When the manas is helpless and has become disheartened about life, it can make the choice of suicide. One possibility is that karmic power makes it so: when karmic seeds ripen and karmic conditions manifest, the manas corresponds with the karmic seeds and uses suicide as the form to conclude the karmic connection and realize the karmic seeds; this is the realization of the fruit, ending the cause of past lives. The second is environmental coercion: the manas despairs of everything in the world, holds no hope, or places its hope in a future life, and is disheartened about the present life, and therefore chooses suicide. This is the cause of cause and effect—the cause created in this life, with the fruit appearing only in later lives.
The manas's despair is called the death of the mind, the mind like dead ashes; then the body must be extinguished and one leaves the human world. From this we can see whether the manas has wishes or not: where there is despair there is a wish; only when the wish cannot be realized does one have no choice but to despair. When the manas decides on suicide, since it cannot directly extinguish the life faculty itself, it must direct the six consciousnesses to take some external measures to harm the material body, such as drowning, hanging, cutting the wrists, and other suicidal acts. At this time it is the manas actively wanting to die by suicide, relatively resolute, regardless of whether there is the mind consciousness's erroneous analysis and erroneous guidance.
When the suicide fails and the person is saved by others, he still wants to die; taking advantage of others' inattention, he will decide to commit suicide again, showing that the manas is dead set on dying, with the mind like dead ashes, disheartened and despondent. There have been cases of people who could die by suicide just on a stool leg—the mind like dead ashes, disheartened to the extreme—lying in bed and dying without taking any measures, because the manas has no hope at all for survival.
If a person has been hungry for several days and still has no food, and may starve to death at any moment, someone can deceive him by saying to wait a little longer, that food will be available very soon; then that person can keep enduring and hold out for a long time without dying, because the manas harbors great hope, strongly longing for food; He does not decide to leave the material body, persisting in not letting the six consciousnesses cease. This is the result of being encouraged and inspired by others; the manas's hope does not perish, and so He does not leave the body. Therefore the manas has the mental conduct of wishes, vow-power, and hope; it has goals it wants to reach, and people, things, and matters it wants to avoid—and thus there are also times when hope is extinguished.
7. Question: After an arhat emerges from nirvāṇa, the newly born manas has a beginning, right?
Answer: When an arhat emerges again from the state of nirvāṇa, the manas still continues the afflictive habits and ignorance of past lives, and still has beginningless ignorance. As to whether the manas has a beginning, one can say it has a beginning—it is a newly born manas; one can also say the manas is still the manas from before entering nirvāṇa, with the same habitual tendencies and ignorance as the manas before nirvāṇa—it is continuous.
But these are merely matters of each person's cognitive perspective and are of no great importance. Debating some concepts has little significance; each person defines various concepts according to their own views, which is unrelated to the Dharma meaning. We only need to understand "obtaining the meaning and letting go of the words," relying on the meaning and not on the language; in this way fearless disputes are reduced, and the mental effort saved can be applied to more meaningful study and practice. In learning Buddhism we should also learn not to get entangled in names and labels, and to be good at freeing ourselves from the fetters of all kinds of names and labels.
Deliberation is divided into correct deliberation and reverse deliberation, forward reasoning and inverse reasoning; in this way logical thinking can be more rigorous. Having a strong capacity for logical thinking belongs to one kind of the Bodhisattvas' study of valid reasoning (hetuvidyā). Bodhisattvas who understand valid reasoning, when debating with others, have meticulous minds and rigorous logic, and can then be invincible.
Ode to the Manas-Consciousness
亿亿劫来滞泥尘 披毛戴角荒草食
你牵我引行暗路 背觉合尘溺苦轮
而今回头光明路 洗心革面甘露饮
执鞭策杖奔净土 远尘离垢涅槃城
鞭挞意根
忙碌一天睡意浓 忽觉痛痒眠中醒
手抓皮肉心烦躁 再卧枕边睡不宁
无始劫来执身重 蚊咬包包也劳神
常被觉受所恼乱 何时放身得自在
