The Key to Managing Bodily, Verbal, and Mental Actions Lies in Taming the Manas

If one manages one's own mind and manas well, one can manage well the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses. The manas of an arhat has long been tamed, afflictions eliminated, with nothing in the world to linger over or crave; from the third fruit onward, the mind has attained liberation, and bodily, verbal, and mental actions are pure. When going out to beg for alms, he looks only at the ground within a foot ahead, with lowered brows and downcast eyes, paying no heed to the sides or other directions; the eye does not contact indiscriminately, the mind does not think indiscriminately—single-minded or without mind. When the eyes inevitably contact material sense-objects, he knows the form and stops there, giving rise to neither feeling nor perception, still less grasping, leaving no karmic seeds, receiving no further becoming; his deportment in the four postures moves humans and devas alike.

If there is external conditioning, the mind consciousness is not even influenced by it, let alone the manas; even if the mind consciousness stirs slightly, the manas does not stir, because afflictions have been utterly eliminated. Arhats need not use the mind consciousness to urge, monitor, or regulate the manas; rather, the manas can regulate the mind consciousness. But ordinary beings whose practice is still on the right track must constantly use the mind consciousness, in every place and at all times, to supervise the manas, regulate the manas, and restrain the manas, because the manas has not yet been influenced by wholesome conditioning; without such regulation it will trespass against others' crops, and its innate nature will be exposed. Therefore, those who always need to remind themselves with the mind consciousness are still far from genuine cultivation; as for those whose mind consciousness is even confused and unclear, there is simply no question of any practice at all. Only after the manas has been influenced by wholesome conditioning and ignorance has been broken through can bodily, verbal, and mental actions gradually become pure—spontaneous and self-aware, requiring no watching over.