Is the Activity of Manas Located Within the Brain or in the External Void?

If the manas were outside the brain, it would have no relation to oneself. If the manas could exist in empty space, whose manas would it be? Who would execute the results of its deliberation? How could the contact between sense faculties and objects generate the six consciousnesses to provide feedback to the manas's deliberation? Therefore, it is said that the manas cannot exist in empty space outside the brain. What lies beyond the brain? Must it necessarily be empty space? The Shurangama Sutra states: "Empty space arises within your mind, like a speck of cloud dotting the vast clear sky." This "mind" certainly refers to the tathagatagarbha, but must the manas also perceive empty space along with the tathagatagarbha? So, is empty space within the manas or outside it? Or is the manas within empty space or outside it? The manas silently encompasses and perceives all dharmas without being confined within the physical body; it perceives all dharmas throughout the ten directions and three times together with the tathagatagarbha. From this, we can see: how vast is our mind? It encompasses the great void.

The manas is also a consciousness-mind. The consciousness-mind operates without residing inside, outside, or in the middle of the physical body, because the consciousness-mind is formless and shapeless; one cannot say it is inside or outside the physical body. Yet this consciousness-mind of the manas can govern all dharmas inside and outside the physical body, operating together with the tathagatagarbha. Wherever the tathagatagarbha is present, the manas necessarily follows. The tathagatagarbha cannot operate any dharma alone, except for the essential realm. Where the manas is absent, no life phenomena exist. If the manas were absent from the brain, not only would the brain cease to function, but the entire physical body would also cease to function, and life would no longer exist. All dharmas contacted by the five aggregates body are operated by the tathagatagarbha and are all accompanied by the manas; the manas, relying on the tathagatagarbha, can perceive them all. Even dharmas not contacted by the five aggregates body are also operated by the tathagatagarbha and accompanied by the manas; the manas can equally perceive these dharmas.

For example, if someone recites the Buddha's name and attains samadhi, truly aspiring to be reborn in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, then a lotus flower bearing their name will appear in the lotus pond of that land. This lotus flower is not merely manifested by their tathagatagarbha alone; rather, it is constructed by the tathagatagarbha in accordance with the manas's aspiration for rebirth within the lotus pond of the Pure Land. So, is the manas operating inside or outside the brain? At this time, the manas does not leave the brain or the physical body, yet simultaneously exists in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss. If one claims the manas can only operate within the brain, then how can we explain the lotus flower in the Pure Land? To whom does it belong? The mind-made bodies of all great bodhisattvas are governed by a single manas. Are the manas of each manifested body inside or outside their physical bodies?

Another example: when the eye-consciousness sees ten people standing before it, upon whose form does the eye-consciousness actually make contact? Since it sees all ten people simultaneously, the eye-consciousness contacts the forms of all ten at once; it is not said that it can only contact one person and not the others simultaneously. Similarly, the manas, relying on the tathagatagarbha, can contact all dharmas upheld by the tathagatagarbha simultaneously, without distinction of inside, outside, or in between. The same dharmas exist both inside and outside the subtle sense faculty; the same dharmas exist both inside and outside the brain; the manas can perceive them all and deliberate upon them all. However, the actual situation is that sentient beings possessing a subtle sense faculty, no matter where they go, cannot escape it; even if they journey to the edge of heaven, they still do not leave their subtle sense faculty. The manas's constant and thorough deliberation operates upon all dharmas; it deliberates not only on dharmas within the subtle sense faculty but also on dharmas outside it. It clings not only to the body but also to dharmas; this very clinging is the most difficult to manage. We are currently unable to free ourselves from the clinging of the three realms' conventional reality; all our thoughts are confined due to our limited insight.