When consciousness is absent, can the manas independently discern and deliberate?

The manas has the characteristic of continual scrutiny and deliberation (恒审思量). "Continual" (恒) means constantly, always, forever, without interruption; "scrutiny" (审) means examining and deliberating; "deliberation" (思量) means pondering, measuring, weighing, and reflecting. The fact that the manas has this property shows that the manas is a decision-maker, a master who has the final say over all dharmas. So how does this function of the manas operate? It operates through the five universally present mental factors, the five object-specific mental factors, and the wholesome and unwholesome mental factors.

Since the manas is a consciousness that acts as master and has the final say over all dharmas, it must possess considerable judgment in order to be the master and make decisions. And how does the manas judge, and on what does it rely to judge and decide? The manas must rely on its own deliberative nature to judge and decide. If the manas could not deliberate on its own, it would have no way to make its own judgments, no way to decide anything, no way to exercise mastery, and it would not be a master consciousness. When the manas deliberates on its own, it sometimes also relies on information transmitted by the six consciousnesses, relying on the mind consciousness's thinking, analysis, logical reasoning, and so on. But no matter what, once the manas obtains information from the six consciousnesses, it must still personally deliberate and examine it and make its own judgment.

Sometimes the manas receives a large amount of information during the day and has no time to ponder or deliberate over it. Then at night, free from the disturbance of the six consciousnesses, it continuously filters that information and keeps deliberating on it; sometimes dreams arise, letting the mind consciousness help out within the dream. If at night the manas has thought the matter through and reached a conclusion, then the next morning, as soon as one opens one's eyes, the mind consciousness understands, and may even recall the circumstances in the dream.

It is said that the periodic table of elements was unraveled in a dream, and many scientific puzzles have been solved in dreams. Very often, when the mind consciousness cannot figure something out, one simply stops thinking about it; yet at some unknown moment, one suddenly understands it. This is the result of the manas's deliberation, solved without employing the mind consciousness on its own.

Some scientists, out of love for their research, explore day and night, forgetting food and sleep. Even when asleep, they wake up in the middle of the night to continue pondering, or dreams are produced for them to ponder. In all these cases it is the manas that is reflecting, deliberating, and investigating, day and night without distinction, abiding mindfulness of this very object. This is the manas applying itself in practice; this is the manas's diligence.

If the manas's mental factors were incomplete and not fully endowed, it could not accomplish so many things at all, could not produce so many inventions and creations, nor investigate so many profound questions. Without fully endowed mental factors, it would be powerless to do so.