Absent-mindedness Is the Manas Deliberating

Spacing out, staring blankly, losing focus, being in a daze — "leng" (dazed) means being dull and motionless, while "shen" (spirit) refers to the mind consciousness. Being in a daze means the mind consciousness ceases to function in thinking and analysis. Because the mind consciousness has already understood the superficial, surface-level meaning of the dharma, but cannot solve questions that go one step deeper, it has no choice but to hand the problem over to the manas to resolve; the mind consciousness is only responsible for keeping its focus on the problem. Many major and profound problems cannot be solved by the mind consciousness, so it has to rely on the manas's inherent experience and wisdom accumulated over past lives. In the earlier stage, the mind consciousness works out the shallow questions and transmits them to the manas; once the manas understands the general picture, it will deliberate (manasikāra) on the further questions on its own. For example, upon seeing an old classmate or old colleague, the mind consciousness recognizes this person and knows who it is, but simply cannot say the name and is unable to address the person, so much so that it cannot even offer a greeting. At this point the mind consciousness can no longer do anything, so the manas has to search for this person's name, continuously deliberating and pondering, while at the same time making the six consciousnesses stand there tongue-tied, eyes fixed on the other person, doing nothing at all. While in a daze, sometimes the mind consciousness still has some faint mental activity to assist the manas's deliberation, but the mind consciousness's thinking will not be strong; otherwise, if the mind consciousness's thoughts become active, one emerges from the dazed state.