Mental Factors of the Mind base\: A Practical Compass (Second Edition) (with over 30,000 additional words, reorganized)
Section 4: The Wholesome Mental Factors (kuśala-caittas)
1. What is the mental factor of shame and remorse (hrī-apatrāpya)?
Shame and remorse mean feeling guilty, apologetic, and uneasy about the evil deeds, wrongdoings, omissions, and imperfect things one has done. The left side of both characters is the "vertical heart" radical, representing the mind; the right sides combined mean "chopping the ghost," where the ghost represents evil. When evil is cut away from the mind, there is purity, and that is goodness. Therefore, among the fifty-one mental factors, shame and remorse belong to the wholesome mental factors, while lack of shame and lack of remorse belong to the unwholesome mental factors, the evil mental factors. Many people's minds lack the mental factors of shame and remorse; when they do wrong and harm others, they are without shame and without remorse. If the manas and the mind consciousness do not correspond with the mental factors of shame and remorse, then as a person one has great deficiencies and is still not up to standard; one has also not yet learned Buddhism well and has not achieved results in cultivation.
Those who can give rise to the mental factors of shame and remorse are people with wisdom, because they can introspect and see that their actions are imperfect, not well-rounded, have omissions, or even that they have done wrong, bad, and evil things, harmed people, and damaged others' interests. Being able to introspect on these things shows wisdom, and also shows one is without afflictions and is wholesome. Without wisdom, one does not have such awareness; no matter how many wrong and bad things one does, one will not introspect on oneself—unaware and unknowing, without shame or remorse, remaining the same as ever. When karma catches up, one must endure evil retribution a thousand or ten thousand times over. Inviting such great evil retribution is of course extremely unwise conduct. Buddhist practitioners, in the process of cultivation, should understand causes and effects, frequently introspect on their own minds, promptly discover their afflictions, give rise to shame and remorse, promptly correct their faults, rectify their bad habits, perfect their character, and become endowed with wisdom; only then are they qualified to see the Path and attain realization, thereby transforming from ordinary being to sage and gaining great benefit and bliss. Being fully endowed with the mental factors of shame and remorse is also a fruit-virtue of cultivation.
The Huayan Sutra has a saying: Bodhisattvas should don the upper garment of shame and remorse. The upper garment is the best clothing, the most precious garment. We should all frequently examine ourselves: have we put on the upper garment of shame and remorse? We should constantly reflect on our own minds: what afflictions do we have now, what bad mental actions do we have? Cultivation is cultivating oneself, changing one's own unwholesome mind and removing afflictions, not staring at and supervising others every day. First cultivating oneself well is the fundamental thing.
2. The wholesome mental factors of a first-bhūmi bodhisattva are not yet fully complete
After a first-bhūmi bodhisattva transforms consciousness into wisdom, the manas possesses the wisdom of equality (samatā-jñāna), afflictions are severed, and the wholesome mental factors arise, but at this time the eleven wholesome mental factors are not yet fully complete, not yet perfect. For example, the wholesome mental factor of non-delusion is not fully complete, because the mental factor of delusion and ignorance, which is opposite to non-delusion, still exists in bodhisattvas up to the ninth and tenth bhūmis and even bodhisattvas of equal enlightenment; therefore the wholesome mental factors are not fully complete. Between the first and eighth bhūmis, although bodhisattvas have severed the manifest activities of afflictions, they still have latent tendencies not yet completely eliminated—for example, the affiliated afflictions such as concealment, jealousy, arrogance, anger, and vexation have not been fully removed, so their mental factors are more than twenty-one. Even the mental factors of an eighth-bhūmi bodhisattva are not entirely twenty-one; there are still mental factors of delusion, ignorance, and afflictions. Only at the buddha-stage are the twenty-one mental factors fully complete, the wholesome mental factors fully complete, and the mental factors of ignorance and afflictions completely extinguished.
3. The manas necessarily corresponds with the eleven wholesome mental factors
The wholesome mental factors are: faith, shame, remorse, non-greed, non-hatred, non-delusion, diligence, tranquility, non-negligence, equanimity of action, and non-harmfulness. The unwholesome mental factors opposed to them are: doubt, lack of shame, lack of remorse, greed, hatred, delusion, laziness, torpor, negligence, non-equanimity of action, and harmfulness.
If the manas does not correspond with the eleven wholesome mental factors, then it corresponds with the unwholesome mental factors; one of the two must be the case, otherwise it is illogical. For example, if a horse is white, then it is not non-white; white and non-white—one of the two must be the case. If a person is wholesome, then they are not evil; one of the two must be the case, otherwise it is illogical.
So does the manas correspond with the wholesome mental factors, or not? Or does it correspond with both, i.e., both wholesome and unwholesome? The manas is sometimes wholesome and sometimes unwholesome; whether it is wholesome or unwholesome is not fixed—the key lies in what the manas has been perfumed with and what conditions have manifested. If the manas does not correspond with these eleven wholesome mental factors, it corresponds with the unwholesome mental factors, and then there would be the unwholesome mental factors: doubt, lack of shame, lack of remorse, greed, hatred, delusion, laziness, torpor, negligence, non-equanimity of action, and harmfulness. Then the manas would forever have the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion and could never become wholesome. This would be unreasonable, because if that were so, cultivation could never achieve anything.
"The six turning consciousnesses call it the basis of defilement and purity"—the defilement and purity of the six consciousnesses depend on the manas: if the manas is defiled, the six consciousnesses are defiled; if the manas is pure, the six consciousnesses are pure. The meaning of this saying is very deep. If the manas is innately pure and lacks a certain affliction, then the six consciousnesses, relying on the manas, also lack that affliction. When third-fruit, fourth-fruit persons and bhūmi-attained bodhisattvas come to this world, it is hard for them to be perfumed with new afflictions; their old afflictions become lighter and fewer, and the Buddha is even more beyond being perfumed. If the manas innately has a certain affliction, then the six consciousnesses, relying on the manas and driven by it, will also manifest afflictions. The six consciousnesses cannot be pure on their own; otherwise one could not say "the six turning consciousnesses call it the basis of defilement and purity." Actual observation confirms this is indeed so.
In fact, the mind consciousness sometimes has afflictions and sometimes does not, is sometimes wholesome and sometimes unwholesome. Then the manas must certainly be the same—sometimes with afflictions, sometimes without, sometimes wholesome, sometimes unwholesome. The manas of ordinary beings and pre-bhūmi bodhisattvas corresponds both with the wholesome mental factors and with the afflictive mental factors. But after afflictions are severed and consciousness is transformed into wisdom, the manas corresponds with the eleven wholesome mental factors the vast majority of the time, with afflictive mental factors extremely few—this is the fruit of cultivation.
4. The mental actions in dreams all belong to the manas
If the manas has not been successfully perfumed, the mind consciousness cannot be the master of the manas. All mental actions in dreams manifest the manas's mental actions; body, speech, and mind must flow along with and be governed by the manas, just as at the time of death. So if someone in a dream kills, sets fires, maliciously takes revenge, gets into fights with people, and other such defiled, hateful karmic actions, these all correspond with the manas and belong to the manas's afflictions. If the manas did not have these defiled mental actions of greed, hatred, and delusion, it could not produce such dreams. Moreover, in dreams the mind consciousness cannot persuade the manas; one usually just drifts along with the waves of the manas, just like the situation in the intermediate state after death. Whatever afflictions appear in dreams, the manas has those same afflictions when awake. If the mental actions in dreams correspond with the eleven wholesome factors, then when awake the manas corresponds with the eleven wholesome factors; otherwise there could not be karmic actions corresponding with the eleven wholesome factors.
The "equanimity of action" among the eleven wholesome mental factors means: originally intending to take revenge on someone in some way, one now gives up and does not retaliate; the mind corresponds with the unconditioned, corresponds with the wholesome mind, abandoning evil and doing good. Taking revenge on someone is an unwholesome mental factor, a conditioned evil action. The accomplishment of the precepts can also make the mind correspond with wholesome dharmas, with equanimity of action, with non-harmfulness, with non-greed, non-hatred, and non-delusion.
5. Does the seventh consciousness have wholesome mental factors or not?
If the seventh consciousness has no faith, then the mind consciousness's faith is also false faith, with basically no effect. If the seventh consciousness is not diligent, then the diligence of the six consciousnesses is all false diligence; before long they become lazy, for the six consciousnesses are commanded by the seventh consciousness. If the seventh consciousness has no shame and remorse, then the mind consciousness's shame and remorse are all false; the seventh consciousness remains the evil of being without shame and without remorse.
If the seventh consciousness had no non-greed, non-hatred, and non-delusion, then there would be no need to sever the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion—one would directly be a third- or fourth-fruit person. Even if the mind consciousness had the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, it could not be greedy, hateful, or deluded for long, for the mind consciousness is regulated by the seventh consciousness. To say the seventh consciousness has the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion would be self-contradictory.
If the seventh consciousness had no wrong view, extreme view, view of grasping, or view of holding precepts and prohibitions, then there would be no need to sever these wrong views; these wrong views of the mind consciousness would disappear before long, for the mind consciousness cannot be the master directing the birth-and-death transmigration of future lives.
If you want to achieve something in learning Buddhism and gain some wisdom, do not casually trust authority or worship texts; believe in truth, believe in facts. Only truth is the true place of reliance.
The five consciousnesses all have desire, determination, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. If the seventh consciousness does not have them, then how did the desire, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom of the five consciousnesses arise? Apart from the seventh consciousness, what could the five consciousnesses have? Does the seventh consciousness not desire to perceive the five sense objects, while the five consciousnesses arise on their own to perceive the five sense objects, not controlled and allocated by the seventh consciousness? Obviously not. Therefore every practitioner should strive to follow the World-Honored One's teaching of relying on the Dharma, not on persons; do not worship fame and authority—one should worship truth instead.
The profound-yet-profound Consciousness-Only teachings: when you do not yet understand them yourself, you must study honestly and earnestly. You may ask questions, but you may not teach the Dharma or guide others; do not lightly take positions. As for the mental factors of the eighth consciousness and the seventh consciousness, even those who have realized the eighth and seventh consciousnesses probably cannot, for a long time, directly observe their modes of operation or truly understand and observe their mental actions—that is the realization level of bhūmi bodhisattvas possessing the seed-wisdom of Consciousness-Only. Therefore, if your wisdom is insufficient, do not draw conclusions.
6. The Medicine Master Sutra proves the manas has wholesome and unwholesome natures
Original text of the Medicine Master Sutra: 像法转时。有诸众生。为种种患之所困。长病羸(léi)瘦。不能饮食。喉唇干燥。见诸方暗。死相现前。父母亲属。朋友知识。涕泣围绕。然彼自身。卧于本处。见阎魔使。引其神识。至于阎魔法王之前。然诸有情。有俱生神。随其所作。若罪若福。皆具书之。尽持授与。阎魔法王。尔时彼王。推问其人。计算所作。随其罪福。而处断之。
Explanation: In the semblance-dharma period, sentient beings have meager merit; when the seeds of evil karma created in past lives and this life ripen, they are trapped by the retribution of evil karma—long bedridden illness, emaciated body, unable to eat or drink, dry throat and lips, seeing everything dim and lusterless, with the signs of death manifesting. Their parents and family members weep around them. But while the patient's body lies ill in bed, their consciousness is escorted by the black and white impermanence fierce ghosts before King Yama. The patient's co-born spirit then manifests all the sinful and meritorious karma created throughout their life and presents it to King Yama. At this time King Yama interrogates the patient, evaluates the amount of sinful and meritorious karma in the karmic actions they created, determines their karmic retribution, and decides their destination.
All sentient beings have a co-born spirit; this refers to the governing consciousness that has always existed and never ceased—the seventh consciousness, the manas. When the little ghosts of impermanence seize a person, they are also escorting the governing consciousness, the manas, to King Yama. Before King Yama, everyone's manas automatically manifests the meritorious and sinful karmic actions of their whole life. Because King Yama has superknowledge, with his mind he knows the various karmic actions the person has created, browsing through them as quickly as viewing images on a screen, and then King Yama begins the judgment.
This shows that it is the manas that created the sinful and meritorious karma, the wholesome and unwholesome karma; the judgment is a judgment of the manas. The mind consciousness from while the person was alive has long since ceased and cannot follow along to King Yama's place; what accompanies the manas is the mind consciousness temporarily born in the intermediate state. This shows the manas has a wholesome and unwholesome nature—otherwise how did the wholesome and unwholesome karma arise? At this time the mind consciousness has already ceased and is not functioning; even if it functions, it is merely the manas's runner and helper, assisting the manas in its tasks. King Yama does not concern himself with the mind consciousness; he only seeks out the manas to judge the sinful and meritorious karma and its retribution.
When a person dies or is half-dead or apparently dead, the mind consciousness almost never functions. No matter the circumstances, the manas is forever the master of sentient beings, the governing consciousness. After death or apparent death, the manas is drawn by karmic force before King Yama. After King Yama has reviewed the manas's sinful and meritorious karma, seeing that there is still a bit of merit not yet used up and the person should not yet die, he sends the person's manas back into the physical body in the world of the living, and the person revives. Reviving means the manas has returned into the physical body and then calls out the mind consciousness to become active.
When King Yama judges the dead, he knows to seek the dead person's master, not the dead person's assistants and foot soldiers. Debts have their owners, and karma even more so has its owner; only a fool would seek out subordinates, assistants, little lackeys, odd-job workers, servants, nannies, and the like. Therefore the manas can create all wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral karma; it has a wholesome and unwholesome nature and has wholesome and unwholesome mental factors.
7. The manas's governing function determines that the manas has a wholesome and unwholesome nature
The manas silently encompasses all dharmas, meaning the manas corresponds with, accords with, merges with, and conditions all dharmas, including wholesome and unwholesome dharmas—this is easy to understand. If the manas does not correspond with wholesome and unwholesome dharmas, how could the mind consciousness correspond with wholesome and unwholesome dharmas? If there are dharmas the manas does not correspond with and does not condition, how could the mind consciousness correspond with them and condition them?
From the perspective of the manas's actual functions: if the manas had only a neutral nature, then neutral karmas like washing clothes and cooking are decided by the manas as master, but doing good deeds and taking joy in helping others would not be decided by the manas as master, and stealing, robbing, and lying would also not be decided by the manas as master. That would mean the manas can govern and decide only some dharmas but cannot govern and decide other dharmas. Then what causes the manas to be able to govern only some dharmas and not others? Are the other dharmas that the manas cannot govern decided by the mind consciousness? Has the mind consciousness also become a governing consciousness? Splitting the manas apart, splitting the dharmas apart—is there such a principle?
If a good person—is it the manas that is good, the mind consciousness that is good, or both? If a person's goodness is only the mind consciousness's goodness and the manas is not good, then after the mind consciousness ceases and only the manas remains, is this person still a good person at that moment? If the manas is not good, then at that moment the person is not a good person. If a good person, once asleep and without the mind consciousness, is no longer a good person, then how do we count the good deeds they have done? Isn't this matter very bizarre? It is simply inconceivable and can never be explained.
By this logic, after a good person dies and this life's mind consciousness disappears forever, they even less can be a good person. Someone who did good all their life—after death no one acknowledges them as a good person. Isn't that an injustice? If they died for the country or for the people, then even that death would not be glorious, because the glorious mind consciousness is gone, so there is no way to posthumously confer any glorious title on them, no way to give their family spiritual and material compensation. If, along with the disappearance of a good person's mind consciousness, all the good deeds and contributions made by the mind consciousness also vanish—because the remaining manas is not good—then in the future good people might fear death the most and refuse to make sacrifices easily. They might also fear sleeping and coma, because once the mind consciousness ceases, the label and reputation of being a good person disappear, and after death they would not go to a good destiny to enjoy blessings. Conversely, an evil person, once dead, is no longer an evil person and need not go to the three evil destinies—how cost-effective is doing evil? Such things truly cannot be explained. Therefore a good person's manas has a wholesome nature, an evil person's manas has an unwholesome nature, or the manas of both good and evil people has both wholesome and unwholesome natures—plus the neutral nature, making three natures.
If only the mind consciousness had wholesome and unwholesome natures and the manas had none, then when a good person acts in a play, playing an evil person doing evil—at that moment, is this actor a good person or an evil person? In work and daily life, some people are especially good at disguise—one thing on the surface, another behind the scenes. On the surface they behave very well, like upright gentlemen, with conduct one cannot help but praise; yet behind the scenes they use schemes and tricks to frame people. So is this person a good person or an evil person?
When sentient beings do good or create evil, it is a time of both manifest and hidden operating together: the six consciousnesses are in the open, the manas behind the scenes in the dark. How do the two cooperate and connect seamlessly? On the surface it appears the six consciousnesses are doing good and creating evil, but what is the manas doing? What mental actions? How is it operating? Does it govern these wholesome and unwholesome matters or not? Does it let the mind consciousness be the master and create wholesome and unwholesome karma? How does the manas cause the six consciousnesses to arise and operate? How does it cause the six consciousnesses to arise precisely upon the wholesome and unwholesome dharmas being engaged? If these matters cannot be observed, how can one be certain that the manas has no wholesome or unwholesome mental actions and no wholesome or unwholesome nature?
8. The manas's silent encompassing of all dharmas shows the manas has a wholesome and unwholesome nature
Original text of the Śūraṅgama Sutra, Volume Four: 如意默容。十方三世。一切世间出世间法。唯圣与凡。无不包容。尽其涯际。当知意根。圆满一千二百功德。
Explanation: For example, the manas can silently encompass all worldly and supramundane dharmas of the past, present, and future throughout the worlds of the ten directions—whether ultimate truth or conventional truth, whether the dharmas of sages or of ordinary beings, all are included within it, exhausting the limits of all dharmas. Therefore, you should know that the manas perfectly possesses one thousand two hundred merits.
"Silently" means quietly, secretly, without fanfare; "encompass" means to contain, accept, possess, attend to, contact, perceive, deliberate, correspond with, condition, know, and see. Why does the manas silently and secretly condition all dharmas, contact everything, see all dharmas, know all dharmas, and reject none of them? Silently, because the manas cannot speak or write and cannot use words, language, or sounds to convey and display its own mental actions. Secretly, because the mind consciousness most of the time does not understand Him, does not know Him, does not know or see His mental actions and operations, or His merits—therefore it is called "secretly." If the mind consciousness could fully comprehend the manas's merits and its operations upon all dharmas, it would no longer be "secretly."
That the manas can encompass all dharmas means it can condition all dharmas, contain and accept all dharmas, discern all dharmas, know and see all dharmas, can run its five universal mental factors upon all dharmas, and corresponds with all dharmas—of course also corresponding with wholesome and unwholesome dharmas, able to contain the wholesome and the unwholesome, itself possessing a wholesome nature and an unwholesome nature. The range of dharmas the manas can condition and does condition is extremely vast and boundless; the dharmas conditioned by the mind consciousness cannot compare with those conditioned by the manas, and neither is as vast as the dharmas conditioned by the tathāgatagarbha.
What do all the dharmas conditioned by the manas include? First, the dharmas of the three times throughout the worlds of the ten directions—the largest spatial range in the conventional world, and the temporal range of past, present, and future is also the largest. Within this greatest spacetime, the dharmas conditioned by the manas include all worldly dharmas, that is, the dharmas of future existence generated by the tathāgatagarbha using the seeds of the seven elements, such as material form, mind, and mental factors; they also include the supramundane dharmas that must operate and manifest within the world, such as the tathāgatagarbha, buddha-nature, and suchness, as well as the path practiced by sages—the ultimate truth, the first principle truth. Both sages and ordinary beings are included within it, all the way to the edge of all dharmas, beyond which the manas can no longer condition: only the dharmas that the tathāgatagarbha alone can condition, and the dharmas that lack worldly marks and do not operate within the world.
Because the manas can encompass dharmas of such a great range, having exhausted the limits of the dharmas operating within the world, it possesses one thousand two hundred merits, the most perfect, second only to the merits of the tathāgatagarbha. Then, without question, the manas also contains the dharmas of sages and the dharmas of ordinary beings, contains wholesome and unwholesome dharmas, and is fully endowed with wholesome and unwholesome natures, wholesome and unwholesome mental factors, and mental actions. If it were not so, the manas's merits would not exhaust the limits of all dharmas; there would be dharmas it cannot contain, and its merits would not be perfect.
This passage was spoken by the World-Honored One when discussing the merits of the manas: the manas can perfectly possess one thousand two hundred merits. He did not say the mind consciousness's merits are perfect, because the mind consciousness arises and ceases moment to moment, cannot be self-governing, cannot span the three times, and cannot even be complete with respect to the dharmas of the present life—there are many dharmas it cannot condition or discern, let alone the dharmas of the ten directions and three times, which it even less can reach. Therefore the mind consciousness is not a final dharma, not a fundamental dharma, and not worth relying on. Cultivation must cultivate the fundamental, reliable, self-governing dharma: removing the manas's ignorance and perfecting the manas's wisdom—only then can one become a Buddha.
9. When the manas has wholesome mental factors, sentient beings are wholesome
Whatever kind of mind sentient beings have, the manas has those corresponding mental factors. If sentient beings are good people with wholesome minds, the manas has wholesome mental factors; if sentient beings cultivate meditative concentration and have meditative power, the manas has the mental factor of concentration; if sentient beings have wisdom to deal with all worldly and supramundane dharmas, the manas has the mental factor of wisdom.
If the manas had no wholesome mental factors, there would be no good people in the world, learning Buddhism could achieve nothing, sentient beings could not ascend to heaven to enjoy blessings, and there could be no wholesome retribution. If the manas is not good, no matter how the mind consciousness perfumes it, it is useless; sentient beings could never become wholesome. If the manas did not correspond with the mental factor of concentration, cultivating concentration would be useless—no matter how one cultivates, there would be no concentration. If the manas could only have inferior wisdom, then there could be no wise decisions, nothing could be done right, cultivation could not attain fruition or see the mind; without wisdom or with inferior wisdom, one could never transform consciousness into wisdom and could never have wisdom like the Buddha's.
10. Only when the manas gradually develops wholesome mental factors is it true cultivation
For those who study the Buddha-dharma, whether studying the Mahāyāna or the Hīnayāna, the mind should become increasingly pure, increasingly correspond with the wholesome mental factors, and the mind should become increasingly unconditioned. If after a period of study the six consciousnesses all correspond with the wholesome mental factors, but the manas still cannot correspond with the wholesome mental factors, then the manas has not yet been successfully perfumed, and it is not yet true goodness. When bodily, verbal, and mental actions are still not pure, the manas will still lead the six consciousnesses to create unwholesome dharmas corresponding with itself, and the study has no preliminary results; such a person is still very far from being able to eradicate the view of self and attain enlightenment by seeing the mind. If the manas does not correspond with the eleven wholesome dharmas, learning Buddhism has no results, wholesome-dharma seeds cannot be stored in the tathāgatagarbha, and in future lives one will not get to enjoy the retribution of wholesome karma.
11. The Śūraṅgama Sutra's account of the origin of the world proves the manas is not neutral in nature
In the Śūraṅgama Sutra, the World-Honored One spoke of the origin of the world: before beginningless kalpas, when chaos had not yet opened, only the eighth consciousness and the manas existed; there was no three-realm world, much less five-aggregate bodies and the six consciousnesses. The manas together with the eighth consciousness constituted sentient beings' life-forms. At that time, due to ignorance, the manas directed its mind outward to seek and grasp, wanting to explore something; only then did the eighth consciousness, following the manas's mental intentions, gradually form the world. This process was extremely long, because the world was not formed by the mental intention of one sentient being's manas but by the mental intentions of many sentient beings' manas.
After the world had formed for several great kalpas, sentient beings' five-aggregate bodies could be born because there was a suitable environment for survival. Before the world formed, all ignorances already existed; no ignorance was generated later in life. Therefore it is said that all ignorances are the manas's ignorances. Since the manas possesses all ignorances, hidden within this ignorance are all the factors of afflictions, which give rise to afflictions when conditions are met. The manas's ignorance and afflictions then perfume the mind consciousness, and the mind consciousness is gradually perfumed with afflictions—also a long process. So the very first afflictions all belonged entirely to the manas; the mind consciousness merely complied with the manas's afflictions, and only after the mind consciousness was successfully perfumed did afflictions appear in it.
Ignorance means not knowing. The manas's mind does not understand principle, being muddled and confused. What does this principle refer to? According to what the Śūraṅgama Sutra indicates, it is the reality of the dharma-realm. The manas does not understand the principle of the dharma-realm's reality, the eighth consciousness; does not understand that it itself is a dharma within the eighth consciousness, produced and upheld by the eighth consciousness, and that apart from the eighth consciousness there are no dharmas and no dharma-realm. This is the manas's beginningless ignorance, also the fundamental ignorance. From this beginningless ignorance arises the mental intention to seek outside the eighth consciousness, causing the world to form—formed gradually over long kalpas, not achievable within short kalpas.
Only after the world had formed for several great kalpas did sentient beings' five-aggregate bodies appear, and the mind consciousness and five consciousnesses were born along with the five-aggregate bodies. Only after the five-aggregate bodies appeared were there the six consciousnesses' bodily, verbal, and mental actions cooperating with the manas in creating karma. Therefore, because of ignorance, the manas came to have the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, directing the six consciousnesses to create afflictive evil karma; the seeds of evil karma were thereby left behind, and thus there came to be the causes, conditions, and retributions of birth-and-death transmigration in the six destinies—this is the origin of the twelve links of dependent origination. From this it is evident that the mind consciousness appeared very late, far later than the manas; it is impossible that the mind consciousness had ignorance and afflictions as soon as it appeared, without any cause. And the cause of the mind consciousness's later appearance of afflictions is that it was perfumed by the governing consciousness, the manas, that directs it; or the ignorance and afflictions manifested by the mind consciousness all belong to the manas, being the result of the manas's manipulation. Therefore the manas truly has afflictions; it is not merely neutral in nature—it possesses all three natures: wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral.
Ignorance is an evil dharma, not a wholesome dharma and not a neutral dharma that is neither good nor evil. Therefore one must, through studying Buddhism and cultivation, exhaust all ignorance and afflictions and become the perfect, luminous Buddha of permanence, bliss, self, and purity. No one would regard ignorance as a wholesome dharma or a neutral dharma, right? Sentient beings' afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion come from ignorance, that is, from the manas. If the manas had no ignorance, it would not create the karmas of greed, hatred, and delusion afflictions; it is ignorance that causes the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion to manifest. Therefore the manas is not neutral in nature. Then is the manas after buddhahood neutral in nature? The manas after buddhahood is even less neutral in nature—it is of purely wholesome, non-evil nature, of great loving-kindness and great compassion nature, of the nature of compassion for all sentient beings. From this, the nature of the manas should be easy to judge; one should no longer misapprehend or misunderstand it.
12. The twelve links of dependent origination prove the manas is not neutral in nature
The twelve links of dependent origination: ignorance conditions volitional formations, volitional formations condition consciousness, consciousness conditions name-and-form... The first link is ignorance, the source of motive power for the opening of heaven and earth; from this motive power, all things of heaven and earth sprouted forth, and the five-aggregate life-forms came to operate. This is the origin of the birth-and-death transmigration of the five-aggregate body—the ignorance of the governing consciousness, the manas. The second link is volitional formations: due to ignorance, the manas produced mental formations, wanting to create activity, like the stirring before heaven and earth were born. Once the mental formations of ignorance stir, subsequent creations follow. These mental formations possess all three natures—wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral; even wholesome formations contain the nature of ignorance, for without ignorance, even worldly goodness would not be done, the mind-ground being pure and without fabrication. The third link is the six consciousnesses: because the manas's mental formations stirred and made the decision to create activity, the six consciousnesses were born, cooperating with the manas to create bodily, verbal, and mental actions. The fourth link is the karmic seeds left behind after the six consciousnesses created bodily, verbal, and mental actions; these karmic seeds determine the birth of name-and-form in future lives.
Sentient beings' bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the three natures—wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral—sprout forth and create activity according to conditions, and the karmic seeds are stored into the Ālayavijñāna according to conditions at all times, so birth-and-death transmigration flows on without stop. The bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the three natures come from the manas's mental formations and are determined by the manas's mental formations—so how could the manas's mental formations have only the neutral nature and no wholesome or unwholesome mental actions? If so, the birth-and-death chain of the twelve links of dependent origination would have no way to connect and continue; birth-and-death would necessarily be severed and transmigration necessarily cease. The manas's mental formations are the motive power of the six consciousnesses' bodily, verbal, and mental actions; the six consciousnesses' wholesome and unwholesome actions must come from the manas's wholesome and unwholesome mental formations, are governed and determined by the manas's wholesome and unwholesome mental formations, and cannot be separated from them. And the manas's wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral mental formations all arise from the manas's ignorance: wholesome is ignorance, unwholesome is ignorance, and neutral is still ignorance. Without ignorance, the karmic actions and karmic seeds of birth-and-death would necessarily perish, and the transmigration of birth-and-death would cease forever.
If the manas were not wholesome, the six consciousnesses would have no way to create the many wholesome actions of generosity, precept-keeping, and so on, and sentient beings would have no way to ascend to heaven to enjoy blessings and pleasures. If the manas were not unwholesome, the six consciousnesses would have no way to create the various evil actions of killing, arson, and so on, and sentient beings would have no way to fall into the three evil destinies to suffer evil retribution. Some would say this is determined by the mind consciousness's wholesome and unwholesome mental formations. But how could the mind consciousness's wholesome and unwholesome mental formations have such great power to govern, to exercise the manas's governing authority, usurping the host's role? Moreover, if the manas had no mental formations, the mind consciousness would have no way to arise at all; whether the mind consciousness arises depends entirely on the manas's decision. If the manas does not decide, the mind consciousness has no opportunity to arise—how could it create wholesome and unwholesome bodily, verbal, and mental actions and invert the sequence of the twelve links of dependent origination? If it could invert them, would that not mean the Buddha taught the Dharma wrongly? When the manas's wholesome mental formations appear, it must intend to create wholesome karma, and the six consciousnesses will comply with the manas's decision to arise and create wholesome karma, fulfilling the manas's wishes. The six consciousnesses are subordinate to the manas and serve it; they cannot have independent actions and creations—the same principle applies to the six consciousnesses creating evil karma. Therefore the manas is not merely neutral in nature; it is fully endowed with wholesome and unwholesome natures as well. Only thus is there transmigration in the six destinies, and only on this basis could the Buddha teach the dharma of the twelve links of dependent origination.
