Cultivation Is Sweeping the Ground of the Mind

The manifestation of the Image-Only Object occurs because the manas grasps at and attends to mental sense-objects, and after a thought arises, the tathāgatagarbha gives rise to the solitary mental consciousness to carry out the manas's instruction and fulfill the manas's mental imagining. Whatever dharma the manas attends to, the solitary mental consciousness arises upon that dharma, and thereafter operates according to the manas's intent. Only after a thought arises in the mind consciousness does knowing occur—knowing what the dharma is. This dharma is a mental sense-object resembling information, having nothing to do with the five sense-objects; it may be an idea or concept, a recollection or imagining, a longing for the future, or the deliberation, analysis, and judgment of a problem. When the manas wants to recall something, the mind consciousness recollects people and events of the past; when the manas wants to know the meaning of a certain sentence, the mind consciousness deliberates and analyzes that sentence; when the manas wants to consider the next day's itinerary, the mind consciousness deliberates the arrangements for the next day.

The arising of thoughts in the solitary mental consciousness is drawn forth by the manas, arising, ceasing, and moving in accordance with the manas's thoughts and ideas. For example, when the manas thinks of a person, the eighth consciousness immediately manifests the dharmas related to that person; after the manas contacts and deliberates upon them, it makes a decision to think it over, and so the solitary mental consciousness appears, attending to the dharmas related to that person, contacting, feeling, perceiving, and deliberating. Thus, after the manas knows, it will make a decision; thereafter the solitary mental consciousness may continue to operate in depth, or it may cease upon this dharma and appear instead upon some other dharma that the manas is grasping at.

The stray thoughts of the solitary mental consciousness arise from the manas's various graspings. At the very moment a thought first arises, no object has yet manifested; the first instant is knowing that a thought has arisen, and only then does the image of the object appear—there is a process between the arising of the thought and the manifestation of the object. The object was there all along, but without the mind consciousness it cannot be known. When the mind consciousness appears, in the first and second instants its discernment is incomplete and unclear; in the third and fourth instants its discernment makes the dharma manifest more clearly, and only then can a conclusion be drawn and an outline of the dharma emerge. Only later comes deliberation and analysis, and only then is the dharma fully understood.

Most of the stray thoughts in the mind are things experienced in the past, called "objects of prior habituation." This shows that the manas often grasps at dharmas intentionally or unintentionally, with strong habitual force; the mind is not empty and cannot let go of everything experienced—people, events, things, and principles—keeping these dharmas swirling in the mind, unwilling to relinquish them. Like garbage, they pile up filling the mind, filthy and defiled, yet one never knows to clean and sweep them out. Cultivation is precisely to regularly clean and sweep the hygiene of the mind, a thorough cleaning and clearing, maintaining the purity of the mind-ground, so that the chamber of the mind can be bright and clean. The cleaning is led and supervised by the mind consciousness, with the manas's consent; still it is the mind consciousness that does the sweeping—both offering strategies and carrying out the work are the mind consciousness's role, while the manas need only nod, give orders, and make the final decision.