Guide to the Cultivation and Realization of the Manas: Part One
Chapter 12: The Manas and Ignorance
1. Does Ignorance Have a Place of Origin
Ignorance is called ignorance precisely because it is the lack of clarity. Lack of clarity has no source, and having no source means it has no place of origin. If ignorance had a source and a place of origin, then where would ignorance come from? Before ignorance arose, there was clarity; since there was clarity, that would be a Buddha. Yet sentient beings have never been Buddhas. If they had been Buddhas, it would be impossible for ignorance to arise again and turn them back into sentient beings.
The manas has possessed ignorance since beginningless kalpas; it was originally unclear, originally not a Buddha. Ignorance was not born from somewhere later, transforming clarity into lack of clarity. We can see that in the world there is no dharma that gives birth to ignorance; ignorance has no source and no place of origin. If ignorance had a place of origin, it would also have a place of return. Where would its place of origin be? Where would its place of return be? If ignorance had a place of return and accumulated in some location, then one day ignorance would burst full and rush out, once again endowing the manas with ignorance, and the Buddha would once again become a sentient being. Such a thing cannot happen; otherwise, studying Buddhism and attaining buddhahood would be meaningless—after all the toil, one still could not escape the great suffering of birth and death, and sentient beings would remain sentient beings forever.
If ignorance had a place of origin, then before beginningless kalpas there would have been no ignorance; ignorance would be a later development. When there was no ignorance, one would be a Buddha—how could a Buddha give birth to ignorance and become a sentient being? When ignorance is extinguished, where is it extinguished to? Ignorance has no root; it is not a real entity. It has no place of origin and no place of cessation. When clarity arrives, ignorance naturally disappears; the two do not coexist. When one arises, the other subsides; when one exists, the other does not—like the two ends of a balance scale, when one lowers, the other rises in equal measure.
2. Life Is the Product of Ignorance
Life, as the term implies, means having both birth and a life-force. What is birth? The appearance of signs of the five aggregates' activities of the six consciousnesses is birth. The appearance of the activities of the aggregate of consciousness and the aggregate of volitional formations is birth; the appearance of the activities of the aggregates of consciousness, volitional formations, and perception is birth; the appearance of the activities of the aggregates of consciousness, volitional formations, perception, and feeling is birth; the appearance of the activities of the aggregates of consciousness, volitional formations, perception, feeling, and form is birth.
What is the life-force? As long as the manas exists and there are signs of the mental factors of the manas being active, that is life; the manas is the life-faculty. Apart from the state of nirvāṇa without remainder, all other states have the life-faculty present—the life-faculty of sentient beings exists. Even the Buddha is a sentient being, only not one of the sentient beings in the ordinary sense.
Viewed through the twelve links of dependent origination, the birth of sentient beings' lives is the product of the manas's ignorance and delusive thinking. When delusive thinking is eliminated and ignorance is severed completely, life returns to tranquility, abides in nirvāṇa, the path of saṃsāra is cut off, and the suffering of life is extinguished entirely.
3. The Manas's Ignorance Is Beginningless
Before beginningless kalpas, the manas existed together with the eighth consciousness; there was no starting point. At that time the manas was already in ignorance, which is why it existed together with the eighth consciousness, so that ignorance became active, prompting the eighth consciousness to give birth to the world of the three realms and the five-aggregate body. If the manas had no ignorance, then before beginningless kalpas the manas would not have existed; there would be only the eighth consciousness—that would be the state of nirvāṇa without remainder, and this nirvāṇa without remainder would be maintained forever; no manas would ever again be born from nirvāṇa without remainder, and of course no five-aggregate body would be born. That state would be the state of the original Buddha; that is why it is said that sentient beings are originally Buddhas, and that mind is the Buddha. But the actual situation is not so: the eighth consciousness gave birth to sentient beings. Thus mind, Buddha, and sentient beings have a very close point of connection—the eighth consciousness—and the eighth consciousness is one; there is no difference between itself and itself, their natures being identical.
4. The Sixth and Seventh Consciousnesses Transform on the Cause Ground; the Fifth and Eighth Consciousnesses Perfect on the Result Ground
This is saying that the result of cultivation is the perfect clarity of the four wisdoms. The four perfectly clear wisdoms include the wisdom of the five consciousnesses, the wisdom of the mind consciousness, the wisdom of the manas, and the wisdom of the eighth consciousness. Perfect clarity means complete, bright, and wondrous; wisdom has reached its ultimate pinnacle and will never increase again. That means there is no more need for cultivation—one has reached the stage beyond training (aśaikṣa) with respect to all dharmas, the highest stage, the stage of Buddhahood.
Since at the stage of Buddhahood the four wisdoms are perfectly clear, this shows that all four consciousness-minds can possess ultimate, complete, bright, and wondrous wisdom; it is only at the stage of sentient beings that they are not perfectly clear—they are tainted and possess ignorance. But the eighth consciousness has no taints and no ignorance. Why, then, at the stage of sentient beings is it not perfectly clear, and why is there still a need to transform consciousness into wisdom? Because the karmic seeds of the first seven consciousnesses are stored in the eighth consciousness, dragging it down so that it cannot radiate the ultimate, perfectly harmonious, unobstructed light; or, although it can radiate perfect and unobstructed light, the ignorance of the seven consciousnesses obscures a portion of the eighth consciousness's unobstructed light, causing the eighth consciousness's functions to be obstructed and subject to certain limitations. Once the ignorance of the seven consciousnesses is severed completely, this obstruction is removed, and the eighth consciousness's great light manifests in full.
Since the first seven consciousnesses at the stage of sentient beings are tainted and possess ignorance, the cultivation over three great asaṃkhyeya kalpas must sever the ignorance of the seven consciousnesses completely. The ignorance first subdued is that of the mind consciousness; the ignorance subdued immediately after is that of the manas. And when ignorance is severed, the ignorance of the mind consciousness and the manas are severed simultaneously. Because the manas is the mutual dependence (sahabhū-hetu) of the mind consciousness—its master and director—if the manas does not sever ignorance, then even if the mind consciousness could sever it, under the manas's directing influence, ignorance would arise again and create ignorant karma.
Therefore, for the manas to break through ignorance and attain great wisdom, and even to transform consciousness into wisdom, it must, together with the mind consciousness, eradicate the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi) and see the mind, and together attain the patience with the non-arising of dharmas and the patience with the non-arising of the true nature of dharmas; only then can it transform consciousness into wisdom the first, second, and third times. If the manas does not eradicate the view of self and see the mind, it cannot break through and completely sever ignorance, and it will have no wisdom of the patience with non-arising or the patience with the non-arising of dharmas; it cannot transform consciousness into wisdom, and neither can the five consciousnesses nor the eighth consciousness transform consciousness into wisdom and ultimately attain Buddhahood.
After eradicating the view of self and seeing the mind, the mind consciousness and the manas break through the initial ignorance and attain the initial wisdom of the patience with non-arising. However, at this time the ignorance of the sixth and seventh consciousnesses is still rather heavy, the wisdom is not deep enough, there is still rather heavy discriminative nature, and there is still a considerable degree of self-nature—not yet sufficient to transform consciousness into wisdom. Only after passing through the final barrier and entering the first bhūmi, severing a portion of attachment to dharmas, does ignorance become thinner. At this point the first transformation of consciousness into wisdom begins: discriminative nature toward worldly dharmas weakens, the unconditioned nature strengthens, emptiness (śūnyatā) deepens, and wisdom becomes profound. But because the five consciousnesses are relatively dull, great wisdom has not manifested in them, so they cannot transform consciousness into wisdom. And the eighth consciousness is still obscured by the ignorance of the seven consciousnesses, and the functioning of its wisdom is limited to a certain degree.
As bodhisattvas at the first bhūmi continue cultivating until the eighth bhūmi, the sixth and seventh consciousnesses break through more and more ignorance, which becomes ever lighter, and wisdom becomes ever deeper and sharper; then the second transformation of consciousness into wisdom occurs. When the sixth and seventh consciousnesses undergo the third transformation of consciousness into wisdom, the five consciousnesses follow and transform consciousness into wisdom. With no ignorance obscuring any of the seven consciousnesses and all karmic seeds completely purified, the eighth consciousness becomes the great mirror-like wisdom (ādarśa-jñāna), illuminating all dharmas without the slightest obstruction—wisdom perfectly clear.
5. Cultivation Means Transforming the Mind
The mind is the master of delusion and karma, the master of saṃsāra, the master of birth and death, the root of all dharmas. Only by resolving the problems of the mind can all problems be resolved. In the teaching of the twelve links of dependent origination, the Buddha told us that the root of the cycle of birth and death is the mind's ignorance. Because of the manas's ignorance, there is the suffering of the five-aggregate world. Cultivation means severing the manas's ignorance and defilements; only when defilements are removed and ignorance is severed completely can the suffering of birth and death be extinguished entirely. Therefore cultivation is cultivating the mind—knowing the mind and transforming the mind. Apart from this, there is nothing else.
If the purpose of cultivation is not to transform the mind, then what is being cultivated? If one is not even clear about the purpose of cultivation, how can one speak of cultivation? If one is not even clear about what birth and death arise from, how can one seize the thieves of birth-death and afflictions and attain liberation?
