The deliberation of the manas is essentially about seeking benefit and avoiding harm

Can the manas weigh all dharmas so as to pursue benefit and avoid harm? The people, affairs, things, and principles He has encountered since beginningless kalpas can accumulate into experience and memory, stored up in the mind, so that in later lives and the lives after that, when He encounters the same people, affairs, things, and principles again, He will make selective responses based on past experience and memory—and the result is pursuing benefit and avoiding harm.

We should know that the manas has always been in accord with karmic seeds. Whatever the manas experiences leaves behind seeds, and the mental activities of the manas are all in accord with those seeds. When the manas takes rebirth as various kinds of sentient beings, the mental activities and choices of the manas are in accord with the current sentient being, believing itself to be that kind of being, and it will not think that it could also be some other kind of being—except in special cases.

When the manas takes rebirth as a human, its mental activities and behavior should be mainly in accord with those of a human, but this does not rule out very strong habitual tendencies from previous lives, including the habitual tendencies of having been a sage, or the habitual tendencies of having been an animal or a hungry ghost; still, the habitual tendencies most in accord are those of a human. When karmic seeds become manifest, the manas is even more in accord with the karmic seeds. For example, when the conditions for grave evil karma ripen, the manas becomes evil; when the conditions for grave good karma ripen, the manas becomes good—which appears inconceivable to others.

Therefore, everything the manas experiences becomes its own experience and memory, and when conditions are encountered, those experiences and memories are released, exerting an influence on its choices—or an absolute influence—with the result of pursuing benefit and avoiding harm, and with great self-confidence, brooking no interference or obstruction from external factors.