After Attaining the First Bhūmi, the Mental Factors of the Manas Must Also Undergo a Gradual Process of Refinement

The equality wisdom (samatā-jñāna) of the first bhūmi refers to the manas. The manas does not fully possess the eleven wholesome mental factors; that is to say, it is not yet complete. For example, the wholesome mental factor of non-delusion is not fully possessed. This is because the mental factor of ignorance and delusion persists even in bodhisattvas of the ninth and tenth bhūmis, and even in bodhisattvas at the stage of equal enlightenment. Among bodhisattvas from the first to the eighth bhūmi, although the manifest activity of afflictions has been eliminated, latent tendencies have not yet been completely eradicated and exhausted; for example, the affiliated afflictions such as concealment, jealousy, pride, anger, and vexation have not been entirely removed, so their mental factors number more than twenty-one. Even the mental factors of an eighth-bhūmi bodhisattva are not entirely limited to twenty-one, for there remain mental factors of ignorance, delusion, and affliction. Only at the stage of buddhahood are the twenty-one mental factors fully possessed: the wholesome mental factors are completely fulfilled, and the afflictive mental factors are completely extinguished.