The Decisive Role of the Manas in the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination

Sentient beings undergo birth, aging, sickness, and death — a great mass of suffering — entirely because of ignorance (avidyā), and this ignorance is the ignorance of the manas. Only when the manas has ignorance do mental formations and the volitional mental factor (cetanā) arise; with the volitional mental factor there is the choice to create karma, and only afterward do the six consciousnesses appear. The first two links of the twelve links of dependent origination belong to the manas, and the six consciousnesses of the third link also appear because of the manas. Therefore the manas plays an absolutely dominant role in birth and death, and has a driving effect on all other dharmas. Even the karmic formations of the third link, the six consciousnesses, exist in accordance with the manas, and the seeds that fall away and settle also exist because of the manas; thus the nāma-rūpa of future lives exists because of the manas. When the manas is defiled, the six consciousnesses are defiled, the seeds are defiled, and the suffering feelings of nāma-rūpa increase — especially the sufferings of the three evil destinies. 

After nāma-rūpa grows, the six sense bases (ṣaḍāyatana) are born. The contact between the six sense bases and the six sense objects is governed by the manas: when the manas has much grasping, there is much contact and much karma of birth and death; when there is little grasping, there is little contact and little karma of birth and death. As for feeling, craving, and grasping after contact — although the six consciousnesses have their own feeling, craving, and grasping, what actually plays the decisive role, what can draw forth the birth of the next link, is the feeling, craving, and grasping of the manas. If the manas has no feeling, craving, and grasping, the next link will not appear. The last three links — becoming, birth, and aging-and-death — arise entirely because of the grasping of the manas. Therefore, in the arising of the cycle of birth and death, the manas plays a decisive role. 

The twelve links of dependent origination make clear that the manas is the root of birth and death; both liberation and downfall lie in the manas. To end birth and death, one must resolve the problem of the manas and break through the ignorance of the manas. The manas is also the root of the Four Noble Truths of suffering, its origin, cessation, and the path: suffering comes from the karma created by the six consciousnesses driven by the ignorance and mental formations of the manas; the origin comes from the seeds left by the karma created by the six consciousnesses driven by the manas; cessation is the elimination of the ignorance and mental formations of the manas; and the path is obtained through the manas realizing the Dharma. 

Since the manas plays such an enormously decisive role in the cycle of birth and death, it must possess all the mental factors (caittas), including all wholesome mental factors, afflictive mental factors, and neutral mental factors that are neither wholesome nor unwholesome. The mental factors of the manas determine the mental factors of the five sense consciousnesses and determine the mental factors of the mind consciousness. When the mental factors of the manas change, the mental factors of the six consciousnesses change, and all dharmas change accordingly. If the mental factors of the manas are not changed, then even if the mental factors of the six consciousnesses change, they will change back again. If the afflictions of the manas are not severed, then even if the mind consciousness severs its afflictions, they will arise anew. If the manas lacks meditative concentration (samādhi), then even if the six consciousnesses have meditative concentration, it cannot last long and will inevitably become scattered again.