The Accordance of Manas with Wholesome Dharmas Ensures Successful Impregnation

The wholesome mental factors: faith, shame, remorse, non-greed, non-hatred, non-delusion, diligence, tranquility, non-negligence, equanimity, non-harming.

The opposing unwholesome mental factors are: lack of faith, shamelessness, remorselessness, greed, hatred, delusion, lack of diligence, lack of tranquility, negligence, lack of equanimity, harming.

The manas (mental faculty) does not correspond to the eleven wholesome mental factors; it necessarily corresponds to the unwholesome mental factors—it must be one or the other, otherwise it would be illogical. For example, if a horse is white, it is not non-white; it must be one or the other. If a person is wholesome, they are not unwholesome; it must be one or the other, otherwise it would be illogical.

Does manas then correspond to the wholesome mental factors or not? Or does it correspond to both—both wholesome and unwholesome? If manas does not correspond to these eleven wholesome mental factors, is this reasonable? If so, manas would correspond to the unwholesome mental factors, meaning it possesses unwholesome mental factors: lack of faith, shamelessness, remorselessness, greed, hatred, delusion, lack of diligence, lack of tranquility, negligence, lack of equanimity, harming—thus possessing afflictions like greed, hatred, and delusion. Wouldn’t this be contradictory? Can spiritual practice then succeed?

The six consciousnesses depend on manas for their defilement or purity; if manas is defiled, the six consciousnesses are defiled; if manas is pure, the six consciousnesses are pure.

Is the implication of this statement profound? If manas is inherently free from a certain affliction, can the six consciousnesses still possess that affliction by relying on manas? If manas inherently possesses a certain affliction, can the six consciousnesses alone become pure by relying on manas? If the six consciousnesses alone could become pure, why then is it said that the six consciousnesses depend on manas for their defilement or purity?

Those who study and practice the Buddha Dharma, whether following the Mahayana or the Hinayana path, should experience minds that grow increasingly pure, increasingly aligned with wholesome dharmas, and increasingly unconditioned.

If, after practicing for some time, all six consciousnesses align with wholesome dharmas, yet manas still fails to align with wholesome dharmas, then manas has not been successfully permeated. The practice has not achieved preliminary success. Manas would still dominate, directing the six consciousnesses to create unwholesome actions aligned with itself. Thus, physical, verbal, and mental actions cannot become pure, and it would be impossible to sever the view of self or realize the mind through enlightenment. If manas does not correspond to the eleven wholesome dharmas, the study of Buddhism is a failure. Wholesome dharma seeds cannot be stored in the Tathāgatagarbha (Buddha-nature), and one will not enjoy the karmic fruits of wholesome actions in future lives.

If manas has not been successfully permeated, all mental activities in dreams are the activities of manas. Consciousness cannot take charge; it is inevitably subject to manas’s flow and control, just as at the moment of death. Thus, acts like killing, arson, malicious retaliation, violent confrontations, and other defiled, hateful karmic actions in dreams—do they all correspond to manas? If manas lacks these defiled mental activities of greed, hatred, and delusion, how could it produce such dreams? Moreover, in dreams, consciousness cannot persuade manas; it often drifts with manas’s flow, identical to the state during the bardo (intermediate state) after death. Whatever afflictions manifest in dreams, manas possesses those same afflictions while awake. If mental activities in dreams correspond to the eleven wholesome factors, then manas corresponds to the eleven wholesome factors while awake; otherwise, it could not produce karmic actions aligned with the eleven wholesome factors.