Why Should One Realize Tathagatagarbha in Manas

Question: According to modern psychological research, the manas (mental faculty) also participates in the construction of the human body. Therefore, under proper guidance, the manas can restore or correct abnormal bodily conditions. It's like a watchmaker who made the clock; when it malfunctions, he knows how to fix it. Is this view correct?

Answer: The construction of the physical body is solely performed by the Tathāgatagarbha (Buddha-nature) based on karmic seeds. The manas neither understands this process nor can it assist. Hence, restoring the body's condition is entirely the Tathāgatagarbha's function. The Tathāgatagarbha knows the karmic seeds, discerns karmic conditions, and naturally understands how to alter the physical body. However, it also strives to transform all dharmas (phenomena), including the physical body, according to the manas's intentions.

Changes in the physical body also result from the Tathāgatagarbha’s instantaneous compliance with the mental factor of deliberation (思心所) arising from the manas. Whatever the manas intends to do, the Tathāgatagarbha endeavors to fulfill its will. This is paramount. Herein lies the supreme power of the manas—it operates like controlling the emperor to command the lords (挟天子以令诸侯).

The consciousness (manovijñāna), however, lacks this capability. The Tathāgatagarbha does not cooperate with the consciousness but only with the manas. The consciousness must undergo the manas’s scrutiny and approval to realize its ideas. Therefore, realizing the Tathāgatagarbha through the manas is exceedingly straightforward. It is the Tathāgatagarbha that actualizes the manas’s intentions, discerns the manas’s thoughts, and supplies the manas with consciousness seeds. All operations and activities of the manas are the Tathāgatagarbha; all activities of the five aggregates (skandhas) are the Tathāgatagarbha. There is nothing else—pure, undefiled, and wholly the Tathāgatagarbha. Just as a cloth doll is entirely cloth.