The Correspondence between the Manas and Karmic Seeds

The manas directly corresponds to karma, corresponding to karmic seeds; the karmic seeds of past lives can manifest on the manas. The habits of the manas are karmic power, which includes both wholesome karma and unwholesome karma. When the manas corresponds to wholesome karma, it manifests as wholesome habits; when it corresponds to unwholesome karma, it manifests as unwholesome habits. When the manas corresponds to wholesome karma, there is wisdom; when it corresponds to unwholesome karma, there will be extreme foolishness.

Sentient beings have both wholesome karma and unwholesome karma; the manas of sentient beings corresponds both to wholesome karma and to unwholesome karma—sometimes there is wisdom, sometimes foolishness; there is wisdom in certain aspects and foolishness in certain aspects. For example, animals are generally foolish, which is unwholesome karma. But animals also have a clever and wise side, which is undeniable; in past lives they may have been humans, devas, or bodhisattvas, having traveled through all six realms, with karmic seeds retained from all of them. Animals possess the wisdom inherent to animals—it is innate and does not require later learning. Because animals are foolish, they are unable to engage in much deliberation, analysis, inference, or judgment, and they usually rely on intuition to survive and cope with all environments. This intuition is the awareness of the manas, which has both a foolish side and a wise side. The wisdom of the animal manas lies in being sensitive to changes in the material world (the inanimate universe), having the ability of foreknowledge and precognition; disasters and major events unknown to humans are all known to animals, whose senses are very keen, and they can often rely on this foreknowledge to adapt to their living environment. Humans cannot do this; they must rely on the mind consciousness's deliberation, analysis, inference, and judgment, and on scientific means, to know the changes that are about to occur in the material world.