The Function of the Manas in Receiving and Processing Information

Some materials explain: the brain receives a large amount of information every second, yet it can only process a very small portion of it. If it were to process all of this information, the brain would be overwhelmed. In order to function normally, the brain automatically filters information, automatically ignoring information it does not care about or that is trivial, and only pays attention to important information that is useful to itself. Because each person's focus differs, the phenomena perceived from the same information also differ, and so do the attitudes and methods of handling it. When encountering problems, how can one remember the key points and main themes, enhance wisdom, and solve problems? One must proactively pose questions to the brain; these questions should point to the core and key points of the problem, as well as the methods of solution. In this way, the brain will think along these directions and thereby solve the problem.

What does "brain" refer to? Worldly people do not understand that the brain is material form (rūpa) and lacks the functions of a conscious mind; what they call the brain generally refers to the manas. It is the manas that receives large amounts of information and selectively processes problems—not the brain, and not the mind consciousness either. Because at that time the mind consciousness has not yet appeared, all the information falls into the manas, and the manas does not have the ability or energy to face and process all of the information; it can only screen out what is useful and relatively important to process. Only after this selection does the mind consciousness appear to help the manas process the information.

From this, we can see the manas's nature of silently encompassing all dharmas, as well as its role as the master over all dharmas. All dharmas, of course, include the five sense objects of form, sound, smell, taste, and touch, as well as the six sense objects. If the manas only contacted the mental sense object (dharma-viṣaya) and did not contact the five sense objects, where would the information of the five sense objects fall? Who would receive and screen it? Who would decide how to handle it? Only after the manas has preliminarily screened the five sense objects are the five consciousnesses brought forth to recognize and process them; therefore, the manas has the authority to decide and handle the five sense objects and the five consciousnesses.

It is the manas that automatically filters information and automatically attends to useful information relevant to itself. This is the preliminary screening stage for the large amount of information; at this time the mind consciousness has not yet appeared and is unaware of the manas's activities and all the information, so the mind consciousness has no part in participating, deciding, or exercising mastery; it can only passively accept the information the manas gives it, subject to the manas's control and regulation. If the manas did not filter and screen information, it could not cope with the massive amount of information and might even collapse. Even after screening, the remaining information is still enormous and very difficult to handle entirely. This causes the manas to simultaneously attend to an extremely large number of dharmas, and thus it cannot concentrate its energy on dealing with this information, appearing to lack wisdom.

How can the manas develop wisdom? Of course, one must constantly filter out and reduce useless information, attending only (manasikāra) to the information that should be processed in the present moment, and pay no attention to anything else. Only when energy is concentrated in this way can one process the attended-to information with wisdom. However, concentrating one's energy is extremely difficult; it requires continuous training through cultivating meditative concentration (samādhi), so that the manas can firmly settle on one dharma to contemplate.

It is also the manas that remembers key information and main themes, and attends to and deliberates upon them. This is the function of the master consciousness that can receive all information. When the manas performs these functions, the mind consciousness does not know about it and cannot participate. Only after the manas remembers the information can it deliberate on how to handle it, deciding whether to discard and ignore it or to deepen the discernment of it. If it wants to deepen the discernment, the six consciousnesses will appear and discern this information; after the discernment, the manas understands and will once again decide how to face and handle it. From this we can see that at every stage, it is the manas that makes decisions and exercises mastery, while it is the six consciousnesses that carry out specific discernment and analysis; the six consciousnesses are subordinate to the manas.

Who poses questions to the brain? It is the mind consciousness that poses questions to the manas; it is the mind consciousness that wants the manas to deliberate upon, select, and process the large amount of information, and to focus on the key points and useful information. Posing questions is not something the manas can do, because questioning involves silent language, words, and sounds, with which the manas does not resonate. The manas can only use hints toward the mind consciousness, and the mind consciousness is unknowingly directed by them. The brain described by worldly people as being able to receive and process information refers to the manas; what can temporarily store information is the supreme faculty (indriya), and the manas can contact, know, and process the dharmas within the supreme faculty. The Śūraṅgama Sūtra says that the manas silently encompasses all dharmas; the manas's extensive characteristic of grasping is fully revealed in this material.

Is the manas busy? Does He passively receive large amounts of information or actively receive it? There is both active and passive reception. Actively receiving large amounts of information is called extensive grasping; passive reception is done out of necessity, because karmic seeds have matured and the tathāgatagarbha must manifest them and transmit them over—for example, information such as illness or car accidents, He cannot miss these. Active thinking, more than passive acceptance, can better enhance wisdom. So who poses the questions, who thinks, who solves the problems, and who enhances wisdom? Once you know what problem needs to be solved, you will know who should solve it. The problem to be solved—screening information and attending to information—is the manas's responsibility.