The Cleverness of Manas

In the middle of the night while asleep, the six consciousnesses have ceased. A fire breaks out in the room, and the manas wants to flee—what happens? When the manas encounters such an urgent, critical matter, it is certainly eager to wake up, so that the mind consciousness can discern the fact of the fire, and then flee together with the five sense consciousnesses. As soon as the manas becomes anxious, the solitary consciousness (mano-vijñāna-eka-citta) appears first; when the solitary consciousness cannot discern clearly, it transforms into the consciousness accompanied by the five senses (pañca-sahagata-mano-vijñāna), and the five sense consciousnesses arise accordingly—thus one wakes up. As soon as the mind consciousness discerns that the situation is urgent, it decides to flee; the manas agrees, and as the decision-maker, makes the five-aggregate body run, and the physical body runs out the door.

The mind consciousness arises together with the nose consciousness; because the smell of smoke is strong, the nose consciousness arises before the other consciousnesses. Then the eye consciousness, body consciousness, ear consciousness, and tongue consciousness appear. The five sense consciousnesses arise in sequence: whichever sense-object is most weighty, the corresponding consciousness arises first. If the firelight is bright, the eye consciousness arises first; if the room is too hot, the body consciousness arises first; if the sound of the fire or the shouting is loud, the ear consciousness arises first.

At a moment of crisis, the body's movements are extremely fast; the mind consciousness has no time to think anything, and one quickly evades the danger. If, at a critical moment, one had to wait for the mind consciousness to discern and then deliberate, a person would probably come to harm. At such times, the function of the mind consciousness is to follow the manas's arrangements together with the five sense consciousnesses and act swiftly.