What Does Cultivation Cultivate?

In the end, does cultivation mean killing off the mind consciousness, or killing off the manas? Killing off the mind consciousness is the cause, and killing off the manas is the result; although killing off the manas is the ultimate goal, the starting point must still be the mind consciousness. The mind consciousness dies every night, and the mind consciousness of a person in a vegetative state is more or less dead all the time, yet in future lives they still cannot avoid the three evil paths, let alone the cycle of the six paths of rebirth. What does this show? It shows that the great authority over birth and death is held in the hands of the manas, and therefore cultivation must be carried out at the manas—understanding the manas, subduing the manas, and eradicating the ignorance of the manas. How exactly should one go about extinguishing the ignorance of the manas? Ignorance gives rise to all the afflictive mental factors (caittas); so whose mental factors are the afflictive mental factors mainly? Ignorance of the manas leads to the suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and death—which afflictive mental factors does the manas not possess? If the manas did not possess all the afflictive mental factors, would cultivation not be easy and pleasant?

Some people insist that the manas is neither wholesome nor unwholesome. If that is so, do we still need to cultivate? The tathāgatagarbha is neither wholesome nor unwholesome, and so the tathāgatagarbha never cultivates and does not need to cultivate at all. What would it cultivate? What would He correct? He has no ignorance, no unwholesomeness, and nothing deviant. If the tathāgatagarbha were to cultivate, it would probably cultivate itself into deviation and error. Both wholesomeness and unwholesomeness stem from ignorance; whatever has ignorance must be wholesome or unwholesome. The tathāgatagarbha has no ignorance, and so He creates neither wholesome karma nor unwholesome karma, responding according to conditions without any deliberate mental effort. Only with ignorance is there a mind of anger, and only then does one give rise to the intention to create karma of killing; only with ignorance is there foolish delusion, and only then does one create karma of killing.