Manifestations of Meditative Concentration (Samādhi) in the Manas

Samādhi means not moving, or moving little, or moving slowly, or ceasing. Movement refers to the arising and operation of bodily, verbal, and mental actions; not moving means that bodily, verbal, and mental actions do not operate; moving little means they operate little; moving slowly means bodily, verbal, and mental actions operate slowly and weakly; ceasing means the stopping and disappearance of bodily, verbal, and mental actions.

Who is it that directs and decides all this movement, non-movement, little movement, slow movement, and cessation? There is no one other than the manas. The mind consciousness has no such function, and the five consciousnesses have even less such a function. The eighth consciousness follows the arrangements of the manas and never stirs up trouble without cause or goes looking for things to do when there is nothing to do.

When the mind consciousness has subdued the manas, the manas becomes settled, its propensity for grasping at objects lightens, and the dharmas it grasps at gradually decrease, to the point that in its mental conduct, "less is better than more"—it reduces its fabrications, extinguishes some mental conduct and fabrications, and no longer wields the baton, directing the eighth consciousness on one hand and the first six consciousnesses on the other, busying itself to the point of not knowing what it is doing.

In this way, the bodily actions of fabricating decrease, slow down, and lighten: the eyes do not look, the ears do not listen, the nose does not smell, the tongue does not taste, the body does not touch, the four limbs do not move, the head does not move, and finally all external bodily conduct completely stops and the five consciousnesses cease. When cultivation reaches the fourth dhyāna, the manas no longer wishes to control the physical body and no longer clings to the body, so it no longer wants the body to move; thus breathing stops, the heartbeat stops, and the pulse stops, just like a dead person. However, because the manas still does not want to extinguish its capacity to know and still wants to know, the mind consciousness does not cease and still has its capacity to know, only that this capacity to know has become very weak, moving extremely slowly and sluggishly.

In terms of verbal conduct, the voice becomes softer and softer, slower and slower, lower and lower, weaker and weaker, until finally it disappears and there is silence. Even to utter a little more sound, the manas is unwilling, and the mind consciousness feels very, very tired, so the manas decides to stop making sounds.

In terms of mental conduct, from the initial state of scattered deluded thoughts flying about, thoughts gradually decrease and become unified, and finally they weaken and disappear, leaving only a knowing awareness; the power of introspection disappears, and at the very end, the knowing awareness and the power of introspection also vanish, entering the state of neither-perception-nor-non-perception (asaṃjñi-samāpatti). After that, the manas no longer wants to receive and be aware of sense objects, so it extinguishes two mental factors and enters the cessation of perception and feeling (nirodha-samāpatti). From this it can be seen that samādhi is primarily about stilling the manas; stilling only the six consciousnesses is useless. Whatever the manas wants the six consciousnesses to do, the six consciousnesses must do; whatever it wants them to discriminate, they must discriminate; however much it wants them to discriminate, they must discriminate that much; to whatever degree it wants them to discriminate, they must discriminate to that degree—what autonomy do the six consciousnesses have? If the six consciousnesses want to be still but the manas does not, the six consciousnesses must keep fabricating; if the manas does not want to sleep, the six consciousnesses must keep working—there is absolutely no escaping the manas's baton. Without subduing the manas, how can there be samādhi? How could one attain it? This is the only gateway to cultivating samādhi; there is no other path. Samādhi is the samādhi of the manas!