What Dharmas Do the Manas and the Eighth Consciousness (Ālayavijñāna) Each Perceive?

The manas follows the eighth consciousness moment by moment, inseparable from the eighth consciousness; the eighth consciousness likewise accompanies the manas moment by moment, the two being inseparable as form and shadow. Without the manas, the eighth consciousness cannot manifest any dharma; apart from the eighth consciousness, the manas would perish, and no dharma would be visible at all. Therefore, the dharmas seen by the manas all come from the eighth consciousness, and it relies on the eighth consciousness to see dharmas; as long as the eighth consciousness manifests a dharma, the manas can see it in reliance upon it. Then the question arises: what exactly is the dharma that the manas sees? Is what it sees the same as what the eighth consciousness sees?

We should know that the eighth consciousness is the ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya), while the manas is the conventional truth (saṃvṛti-satya); therefore, what the eighth consciousness sees is not the content of conventional dharmas, and it differs from what the manas sees. Nor can the manas see the content of the dharmas that the eighth consciousness sees; the two differ in identity and status, and in functions and roles, so their perspectives, levels, sequences, and contents in seeing dharmas can never be the same.

The two also differ in their function of drawing forth dharmas; after seeing a dharma, their roles in making choices regarding it also differ; and after making choices, their ways of handling the dharma also differ. Generally speaking, the manas and the eighth consciousness differ in their attention (manaskāra), contact (sparśa), feeling (vedanā), perception (saṃjñā), and volition (cetanā) with respect to dharmas. Because the manas is the conventional truth and the eighth consciousness is the ultimate truth, the conventional represents ignorance and afflictions, while the ultimate truth represents the absence of ignorance and afflictions; therefore, the manas has ignorance and afflictions, while the eighth consciousness has neither ignorance nor afflictions.

Because the manas sees conventional dharmas, it gives rise to afflictions and brings forth the notion of self; the eighth consciousness does not see conventional dharmas, so there is no conventional affliction to speak of—it is pure and non-active (asaṃskṛta), without a self. Thus, if after we expound the Dharma we do not fall into conventional marks, then like the eighth consciousness we will not bring forth the notion of self, will not give rise to afflictions, and the mind will be pure, radiating great light.

What exactly is the dharma that the manas sees? Since the manas cannot see what the eighth consciousness sees, yet closely relies on the eighth consciousness to see conventional dharmas, after the eighth consciousness sees a dharma it continuously transmits and manifests it; the dharma after being manifested by the eighth consciousness is the conventional dharma, and only this part can be seen by the manas.

What the eighth consciousness sees is the most primordial dharma, the most fundamental dharma, untouched and unprocessed by the seven consciousnesses, which cannot reach it. After the eighth consciousness has seen the primordial dharma, it absorbs the particles of the four great elements within the dharma and begins to transmit them outward, forming images; this belongs to the conventional dharma part, and the manas sees this image. In the process of transmission, the eighth consciousness passes through certain intermediate media, and some of the four great element particles will be blocked, so the dharma transmitted by the eighth consciousness will change to some extent. No matter how many times the dharma transmitted by the eighth consciousness changes along the way, the manas can always see in reliance upon it, and the manas continues to see until the dharma lands in the supreme faculty (indriya) at the back of the brain. Therefore, the dharmas the manas sees are the various levels of conventional dharmas transformed and arisen by the eighth consciousness after it has seen the primordial dharma; the manas can see all the dharmas transmitted by the eighth consciousness along the way, so the manas can know the entire course of the dharma's changes. As far as the mind consciousness and the six consciousnesses are concerned, the manas is said to "know before divination," to have premonitions and inspiration; without language, words, or deliberation, it can nonetheless know all dharmas and judge everything, much of which the mind consciousness is not permitted to dispute or resist.

What is the primordial dharma that the eighth consciousness sees? Of course it does not depart from the seeds of the four great elements that constitute the dharma—the structure, appearance, proportions, and composition of the seeds. This part will not cause the eighth consciousness to give birth to afflictions. If the seven consciousnesses all saw only these contents, of course they would not give rise to any afflictions either, because this is not conventional dharma and has no benefit or utilitarian value of conventional dharmas.

After the eighth consciousness has seen the primordial dharma and manifested the conventional dharma, does it still see it or not? Of course it continues to see it, otherwise the manas would not be able to see it. But although the eighth consciousness can also see the dharmas that the manas sees, it never falls into conventional marks; the eighth consciousness does not see the conventional aspect of dharmas—when it sees all dharmas, it sees their ultimate-truth aspect, namely the seed contents contained within the dharmas. Therefore, when the eighth consciousness sees all the dharmas of the great thousand worlds, there is no dharma it does not see, yet it has no afflictions, no ignorance, nothing it does not know; its light brilliantly illuminates the great thousand worlds, yet it does not wish to possess the great thousand worlds, having no self-mind, no greed, and no anger.

The conventional dharmas seen by the seven consciousnesses are all seen wrongly; they are not the true facts of the dharma. Because of ignorance, there are afflictions. What are the true facts of a dharma? They are the seed contents that the eighth consciousness sees—there is no other dharma; everything is seeds, no other dharma. All seeds belong to the eighth consciousness, so the eighth consciousness is a wealthy elder who does not need to possess anything, much less covet anything; only the poor have greed, and a person who is poor will inevitably hope to gain something; only one whose mind is poor will be insatiably greedy.

The eighth consciousness is very content, yet it displays no state of mind of contentment; it has no mental state, no feelings, and never sighs over thousands or millions of things—calm and tranquil.

The eighth consciousness is the original Buddhadharma, the original Buddhism; without the eighth consciousness there would be no dharma at all—not even the manas, much less the six consciousnesses, and no five aggregates. Without the eighth consciousness and the seven consciousnesses, no dharma could be seen. Not to study the eighth consciousness, and to take only the extremely small portion of dharmas derived from the eighth consciousness, is foolishness. Therefore, the Buddha said that arhats are foolish people and ordinary beings are ignorant people.